Kafka composed these aphorisms in two notebooks, while suffering the onset of tuberculosis at his sister’s house in Zürau. Roberto Calasso recently rediscovered them in their original manuscript form in the Bodleian library. Now laid out for the firs Kafka composed these aphorisms in two notebooks, while suffering the onset of tuberculosis at his sister’s house in Zürau. Roberto Calasso recently rediscovered them in their original manuscript form in the Bodleian library. Now laid out for the first time as the author intended, and freshly translated by Michael Hoffman, they capture, in distilled form, Kafka’s acute sense of life’s horrifying absurdity:
The animal twists the whip out of its master’s grip and whips itself to become its own master – not knowing that this is only a fantasy, produced by a new knot in the master’s whiplash.
