• Home
  • Topics
    • Editorial
    • Leaders
    • Around the World
    • Lasvit World of Design
    • Essays
    • Guides
  • About
  • Contact
  • Buy magazine
  • Lasvit store
  • Home
  • Topics
    • Editorial
    • Leaders
    • Around the World
    • Lasvit World of Design
    • Essays
    • Guides
  • About
  • Contact
  • Buy magazine
  • Lasvit store
Spacial Magazine

Swirling Kafka

By: Magdaléna Platzová Photo: Shotby.us
#Lasvit World of Design
Share on:

Franz Kaf­ka was twen­ty years old when he start­ed writ­ing his first nov­el. He was nev­er quite sat­is­fied with it to offer it for pub­li­ca­tion. How­ev­er, he did what he usu­al­ly did with oth­er works: he took out pas­sages he con­sid­ered good and pub­lished them as sep­a­rate sto­ries. This is also the case with the short sto­ry “Chil­dren on a Coun­try Road” from Kafka’s first book, Betra­ch­tung (Con­tem­pla­tion or Med­i­ta­tion). In addi­tion to all the themes which are typ­i­cal of his lat­er works, there is also some­thing else – a dream­like fas­ci­na­tion with nature and move­ment. The bound­less sky and the vast, open space, which was grad­u­al­ly shrink­ing in Kafka’s lat­er work. 

Born in Prague’s Old Town, he spent his child­hood and youth hol­i­days in the coun­try­side. Franz Kaf­ka knew the charm­ing warm nights, the sense of free­dom and the activ­i­ties that go with sum­mer. In 1907 he writes to Max Brod from Třešť: “I am rid­ing around on the motor­bike a great deal, swim­ming a lot, lying nude in the grass by the pond for hours, hang­ing about the park until mid­night with a both­er­some­ly infat­u­at­ed girl, have already ted­ded hay in the mead­ow, have set up a mer­ry-go-around, helped trees after a storm, tak­en cows and goats to pas­ture and dri­ven them home in the evening, played a lot of bil­liards, tak­en long walks, drunk a lot of beer…”

The constellations of the night sky and the lights of nocturnal New York City inspired the Constellation collection, designed by Rockwell Group. The series’ centerpiece is a unique light which makes one feel as if looking into the depths of the cosmos.
The con­stel­la­tions of the night sky and the lights of noc­tur­nal New York City inspired the Con­stel­la­tion col­lec­tion, designed by Rock­well Group. The series’ cen­ter­piece is a unique light which makes one feel as if look­ing into the depths of the cosmos.

It is hard to imag­ine the trou­bled, indrawn, melan­cholic Kaf­ka, as he was lat­er usu­al­ly described, amidst such a whirl­wind of activ­i­ty. The short sto­ry Chil­dren on a Coun­try Road is such a whirl­wind. Every­thing is in motion: the vehi­cles, the swing, the birds, the stars, the cur­tains, the chil­dren, the moon and the water. The soft move­ment of the for­est mak­ing a whis­per­ing sound in the wind and the bright light of the mov­ing train. 

There is no walk­ing, only run­ning with a “mouth full of fire,” jump­ing and fast flight, a dull sound of stomp­ing, high in the air, there is lash­ing out, falling and even singing. The nar­ra­tor is with a group of friends, but he can break away and run alone. This is free­dom, this is inno­cence. The antithe­sis of the gloomi­ness and weari­ness that per­me­at­ed Kafka’s lat­er works.

Franz Kaf­ka is like a young boy in his own sto­ry who, jump­ing over a ditch, falls on his back at one point. He lies there, sink­ing deep­er and deep­er and… and he does not want it to stop. He no longer can or wants to get up, join the oth­ers, grab their hands, run with the wind and car­ry on. The world seen from the ditch seems pow­er­ful and mag­nif­i­cent to him, while he him­self is becom­ing small­er and weak­er. Being small, he admires greatness. 

Being weak, he admires strength. Being sick, he admires health. Being hes­i­tant, he admires a spon­ta­neous ges­ture. In a diary entry dat­ing from 1911, he finds “the abrupt turn­ing of a hefty girl’s head” so strik­ing that it is wor­thy of being record­ed. And on the same day he writes: “The beau­ti­ful large but­ton, beau­ti­ful­ly set low on the sleeve of a girl’s dress. How sel­dom I suc­ceed in cre­at­ing some­thing beau­ti­ful, and this unno­ticed but­ton and its igno­rant seam­stress succeeded.”

Lasvit Spacial Magazine: Swirling Kafka

Again and again, he also bowed to his lovers, whether it was in a rela­tion­ship with Felice Bauer or Mile­na Jesen­ská. He admired their strength, their spon­tane­ity, their loud­ness, their lust for life, their courage, which, in his own opin­ion, he him­self lacked. At the same time, how­ev­er, he reject­ed his lovers. For he, lying in the deep­est of ditch­es and look­ing up to all the beau­ti­ful and pow­er­ful things above him, in fact does not want these qualities. 

Even if such traits were to bow down to him and some­how (per­haps deceiv­ing them­selves) offer them­selves to him. This is not for the likes of me, Kaf­ka says. And nei­ther is this. Strict­ly speak­ing, there is noth­ing for me, all I can do is lie back and watch. Not to have. But not even to be, only to look. In oth­er words, to write.

The starv­ing artist, the main char­ac­ter of one of Kafka’s last sto­ries, does not eat. Not to be a record break­er, but because he does not like the taste of any­thing. The ani­mal in Der Bau (The Lair) no longer ven­tures into the out­side world because of fear. The acro­bat from the short sto­ry enti­tled The First Sor­row needs only two trapeze bars to be happy. 

Where is the windswept, spir­it­ed, colour­ful, event­ful land­scape of the short sto­ry Chil­dren on a Coun­try Road? How come it dis­ap­peared? It shrank and it also sharp­ened. Through Kafka’s pow­er­ful writ­ing, its ener­gy has been con­cen­trat­ed into a sin­gle point where a very dif­fer­ent space opens up to the read­er: the infin­i­ty here and now.

Lasvit Spacial Magazine: Swirling Kafka
The cen­ter­piece of the Con­stel­la­tion col­lec­tion is a hor­i­zon­tal light­ing with the rec­og­niz­able sil­hou­ette of the Cas­siopeia con­stel­la­tion. The shape of the stand­ing lamp is rem­i­nis­cent of the Pole Star, while the wall-mount­ed light evokes Orion’s Belt. “We were look­ing at the ways light and glass mutu­al­ly inflect each oth­er in places such as the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Opera or the Grand Cen­tral Ter­mi­nal, and then we com­bined those find­ings with the Czech glass­mak­ing tra­di­tion,” say design­ers from the Rock­well Group archi­tec­tur­al studio.

Franz Kafka – Children on a country road (1912)

I heard the wag­ons rum­bling past the gar­den fence, some­times I even saw them through gen­tly sway­ing gaps in the foliage. How the wood of their spokes and shafts creaked in the sum­mer heat! Labor­ers were com­ing from the fields and laugh­ing so that it was a scandal.

I was sit­ting on our lit­tle swing, just rest­ing among the trees in my par­ents’ garden.
On the oth­er side of the fence the traf­fic nev­er stopped. Children’s run­ning feet were past in a moment; har­vest wag­ons with men and women perched on and around the sheaves dark­ened the flower beds; toward evening I saw a gen­tle­man slow­ly prom­e­nad­ing with a walk­ing stick, and a cou­ple of girls who met him arm in arm stepped aside into the grass as they greet­ed him. 

Then birds flew up as if in show­ers, I fol­lowed them with my eyes and saw how high they soared in one breath, till I felt not that they were ris­ing but that I was falling, and hold­ing fast to the ropes began to swing a lit­tle out of sheer weak­ness. Soon I was swing­ing more strong­ly as the air blew cold­er and instead of soar­ing birds trem­bling stars appeared.

I was giv­en my sup­per by can­dle­light. Often both my arms were on the wood­en board and I was already weary as I bit into my bread and but­ter. The coarse-mesh win­dow cur­tains bel­lied in the warm wind and many a time some pass­er-by out­side would stay them with his hands as if he want­ed to see me bet­ter and speak to me.

Lasvit Spacial Magazine: Swirling Kafka

Usu­al­ly the can­dle soon went out and in the sooty can­dle smoke the assem­bled midges went on cir­cling for a while. If any­one asked me a ques­tion from the win­dow I would gaze at him as if at a dis­tant moun­tain or into vacan­cy, nor did he par­tic­u­lar­ly care whether he got an answer or not. But if one jumped over the win­dow sill and announced that the oth­ers were already wait­ing, then I did get to my feet with a sigh.

“What are you sigh­ing for? What’s wrong? Has some­thing dread­ful hap­pened that can nev­er be made good? Shan’t we ever recov­er from it? Is every­thing lost?”
Noth­ing was lost. We ran to the front of the house. “Thank God, here you are at last!” – “You’re always late!” – “Why just me?” – “Espe­cial­ly you, why don’t you stay at home if you don’t want to come?” – “No quar­ter!” – “No quar­ter? What kind of way is that to talk?”

We ran our heads full tilt into the evening. There was no day­time and no night­time. Now our waist­coat but­tons would be clack­ing togeth­er like teeth, again we would be keep­ing a steady dis­tance from each oth­er as we ran, breath­ing fire like wild beasts in the trop­ics. Like cuirassiers in old wars, stamp­ing and spring­ing high, we drove each oth­er down the short alley and with this impe­tus in our legs a far­ther stretch along the main road. Stray fig­ures went into the ditch, hard­ly had they van­ished down the dusky escarp­ment when they were stand­ing like new­com­ers on the field path above and look­ing down.

“Come on down!” – “Come on up first!” – “So’s you can push us down, no thanks, we’re not such fools.” – “You’re afraid, you mean. Come on up, you cow­ards!” – “Afraid? Of the likes of you? You’re going to push us down, are you? That’s a good one.” We made the attempt and were pushed head over heels into the grass of the road­side ditch, tum­bling of our own free will. Every­thing was equal­ly warm to us, we felt nei­ther warmth nor chill in the grass, only one got tired.

Turn­ing on one’s right side, with a hand under the ear, one could eas­i­ly have fall­en asleep there. But one want­ed to get up again with chin uplift­ed, only to roll into a deep­er ditch. Then with an arm thrust out cross­wise and legs thresh­ing to the side one thought to launch into the air again only to fall for cer­tain into a still deep­er ditch. And of this one nev­er want­ed to make an end.

Lasvit Spacial Magazine: Swirling Kafka

How one might stretch one­self out, espe­cial­ly in the knees, prop­er­ly to sleep in the last ditch, was some­thing scarce­ly thought of, and one sim­ply lay on one’s back, like an invalid, inclined to weep a lit­tle. One blinked as now and then a young­ster with elbows pressed to his sides sprang over one’s head with dark-loom­ing soles, in a leap from the escarp­ment to the roadway.

The moon was already some way up in the sky, in its light a mail coach drove past. A small wind began to blow every­where, even in the ditch one could feel it, and near­by the for­est began to rus­tle. Then one was no longer so anx­ious to be alone.

“Where are you?” – “Come here!” – “All togeth­er!” – “What are you hid­ing for, drop your non­sense!” – “Don’t you know the mail’s gone past already?” – “Not already?” – “Of course; it went past while you were sleep­ing.” – “I wasn’t sleep­ing. What an idea!” – “Oh shut up, you’re still half asleep.” – “But I wasn’t.” – “Come on!”

We ran bunched more close­ly togeth­er, many of us linked hands, one’s head could not be held high enough, for now the way was down­hill. Some­one whooped an Indi­an war cry, our legs gal­loped us as nev­er before, the wind lift­ed our hips as we sprang. Noth­ing could have checked us; we were in such full stride that even in over­tak­ing oth­ers we could fold our arms and look qui­et­ly around us.

At the bridge over the brook we came to a stop; those who had over­run it came back. The water below lapped against stones and roots as if it were not already late evening. There was no rea­son why one of us should not jump onto the para­pet of the bridge.

Lasvit Spacial Magazine: Swirling Kafka
The stars of the night sky, form myth­i­cal con­stel­la­tions traced by a met­al struc­ture, which is mod­u­lar and can be used in var­i­ous com­po­si­tions, exact­ly accord­ing to the client’s wish­es. “That’s also the rea­son why the lights con­vinc­ing­ly make one feel as if they are observ­ing the night sky, although they are in fact stand­ing inside a build­ing. It gives any inte­ri­or a nice­ly inti­mate atmos­phere,” add the Rock­well Group designers.

From behind clumps of trees in the dis­tance a rail­way train came past, all the car­riages were lit up, the win­dow panes were cer­tain­ly let down. One of us began to sing a pop­u­lar catch, but we all felt like singing. We sang much faster than the train was going, we waved our arms because our voic­es were not enough, our voic­es rushed togeth­er in an avalanche of sound that did us good. When one joins in song with oth­ers it is like being drawn on by a fish hook.

So we sang, the for­est behind us, for the ears of the dis­tant trav­el­ers. The grownups were still awake in the vil­lage, the moth­ers were mak­ing down the beds for the night.

Our time was up. I kissed the one next to me, reached hands to the three near­est, and began to run home, none called me back. At the first cross­roads where they could no longer see me I turned off and ran by the field paths into the for­est again. I was mak­ing for that city in the south of which it was said in our vil­lage: “There you’ll find queer folk! Just think, they nev­er sleep!”

“And why not?”
“Because they nev­er get tired.”
“And why not?”
“Because they’re fools.”
“Don’t fools get tired?”
“How could fools get tired!”

 


Franz Kaf­ka (1883–1924) was a Ger­man-speak­ing nov­el­ist from Prague. Dur­ing his life­time, only a small num­ber of his works, many of which remained unfin­ished, were pub­lished; his best-known sto­ries include The Judg­ment, The Meta­mor­pho­sis, Before the Law, In the Dis­ci­pli­nary Camp and A Hunger Artist. After Kafka’s untime­ly death, his friend Max Brod, as an execu­tor of the writer’s will, pre­pared the rest of his works for pub­li­ca­tion (espe­cial­ly the nov­els The Tri­al and The Cas­tle), but also his diaries and let­ters. Kaf­ka is con­sid­ered a mod­ernist writer but the poet­ic qual­i­ties of his writ­ing are time­less and tran­scend all bound­aries, even geo­graph­i­cal ones. That is the rea­son why, as long as a hun­dred years after his death, he is still read and very much loved all over the world.


Mag­dalé­na Plat­zová (1972) is a Czech writer who has been liv­ing in France for a num­ber of years. Grow­ing up in Prague, she stud­ied in the Unit­ed States and in Eng­land, receiv­ing a Master’s degree in phi­los­o­phy from Charles Uni­ver­si­ty in Prague. She worked as an edi­tor and jour­nal­ist at Literární noviny and Respekt, and con­tin­ues to con­tribute to Czech peri­od­i­cals and oth­er Czech media to this day. In 2009–2012 she lived in New York where she taught a course on Franz Kaf­ka at New York Uni­ver­si­ty. Her most recent book, the nov­el Živ­ot po Kafkovi (Life after Kaf­ka), focus­es on the life of Kafka’s fiancée, Felice Bauer, and the world after the Sec­ond World War.

Scroll to top ↑
← Oasis of Light and Sound
Editor’s Letter →
Lasvit Spacial Magazine: Swirling Kafka
The constellations of the night sky and the lights of nocturnal New York City inspired the Constellation collection, designed by Rockwell Group. The series’ centerpiece is a unique light which makes one feel as if looking into the depths of the cosmos.
The constellations of the night sky and the lights of nocturnal New York City inspired the Constellation collection, designed by Rockwell Group. The series’ centerpiece is a unique light which makes one feel as if looking into the depths of the cosmos.
Lasvit Spacial Magazine: Swirling Kafka
Lasvit Spacial Magazine: Swirling Kafka
The centerpiece of the Constellation collection is a horizontal lighting with the recognizable silhouette of the Cassiopeia constellation. The shape of the standing lamp is reminiscent of the Pole Star, while the wall-mounted light evokes Orion’s Belt. “We were looking at the ways light and glass mutually inflect each other in places such as the Metropolitan Opera or the Grand Central Terminal, and then we combined those findings with the Czech glassmaking tradition,” say designers from the Rockwell Group architectural studio.
Lasvit Spacial Magazine: Swirling Kafka
Lasvit Spacial Magazine: Swirling Kafka
Lasvit Spacial Magazine: Swirling Kafka
The stars of the night sky, form mythical constellations traced by a metal structure, which is modular and can be used in various compositions, exactly according to the client’s wishes. “That’s also the reason why the lights convincingly make one feel as if they are observing the night sky, although they are in fact standing inside a building. It gives any interior a nicely intimate atmosphere,” add the Rockwell Group designers.

Discover more

Ceiling Cassiopeia

Ceiling Cassiopeia

Floor Lamp Polaris

Similar articles

Draped in a Translucent Gown

Sincere Reflection

Something Mesmerizing

Swirling Kafka

The Unexpected Symboll-ism of Fungi

Crystal Universe

Popular articles

Oasis of Light and Sound

Monumentality across Media and Sizes

In the Middle of Golden Sands

Nature In The Sky

Getting To Know The Campanas

Identity Creator

Download latest issue
Spacial Magazine
Lasvit

© 2023 Spacial Magazine

Privacy policy

LASVIT s.r.o. Komunardů 894/32, Holešovice, 170 00 Prague 7, Czech republic

Website by: Sharp Objects

Around the WorldEditorialEssaysGuidesLasvit World of DesignLeaders