Unpublished drawings and Uncompleted novel of Kafka at the centre of Israel Legal Battle….

There is a struggle going on between Israel and Germany, between a Jewish refugee family from Prague and Israeli public opinion over a collection of papers that might include unpublished works by the celebrated 20th Century writer Franz Kafka.

Kafka became famous in spite of himself. Just before he died in 1924, the young novelist, who suffered from various mental and physical illnesses, entrusted his friend, Max Brod, with a collection of handwritten documents.

He asked him to destroy the unpublished manuscripts after his death. Brod ignored his friend’s last wishes, allowing the world to enjoy great works such as The Trial and Metamorphosis.

The rest of the papers, possibly including great literary treasures – no-one is quite sure – are locked in safety deposit boxes in Switzerland and in Israel along, it is thought, with money and other private belongings of Esther Hoffe.

Scholars believe the deposit boxes contain unpublished drawings by Kafka. Maybe even the original manuscript of Kafka’s uncompleted novel, Wedding Preparations in the Country.

See more HERE.

Metamorphosis

So you wake up one morning as a Chav – in fact you could be king of the Chavs, for all I know!

No, scrap that, EMPEROR of the flaming Chavs! In fact, you’re behaviour could make Ming the Merciless look like Mother Teresa of Calcutta (Agnesë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu – now, of course, Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, since her beatification by Pope John Paul)!

Anyway, you wake as a Chav (like Gregor Samsa in Kafka’s ‘‘Die Verwandlung’’ – “The Metamorphosis” – who woke terribly transformed), so what are you going to do about it?

Let’s give this a little thought: Samsa in Kafka’s novel found himself transformed into a giant earwig-like or cockroach-like insect; subsequently he became a burden to his family who kept him locked up and isolated in his room. Obviously Kafka used Samsa and his fate as a metaphor for oppression (in this instance the oppression of Capitalism and duty) and alienation (from society).

Now, as a Chav, duty won’t be much of a problem for you – other than excise duty, that is. And likely the only oppression you experience is the cost of Stella, aka “wife beater”, and the whiney neighbours who secretly (illegally?)film you taking a dump on their front lawn after a night down the pub with mates. Naughty, naughty, neighbours.

In fact, chances are after your metamorphosis, you could become an oppressor yourself – to neighbours, local authority officials, police, you name it. So you’ll soon come to realise being a Chav does have advantages. You, most likely, will alienate society! You’ll certainly piss off your neighbours at the very least (but not the really hard cases, eh?).

So, as a brand new Chav, what should you do to begin?

Make a “to do” list, prioritise your objectives: a five point list is good; ten points is better. But remember – it’s best to include a “time scale”, a deadline by which to achieve your chosen objectives! You should also keep in mind, as a Chav, you’ll no longer be numbered among the seven million or so semi-literate individuals living within UK borders; instead you’ll have joined the vast number of happily illiterate folks, the unintelligentsia, who spend their time watching six year old repeats of Big Brother on digital TV while consuming Doner Kebabs and dripping rancid lamb fat on the sofa.

So, the list (an example):

1. Fink upmarkit – go fer Shish Kebab. An not a crappy half a pitta with chips stuffed in, niver. Go the ‘ole hog. Big bits of burnt greasy meat. Yum, yum, yum. From tonite.
2. Get an ASBO. ASP. Aim to win three of these special Nu Labor awards by end of Feb. Show yer a man (sorry) MAN and not a big woman’s pee thing.
3. Don’t take ketamine wen you’ve bin sniffing Bostick or nail varnish remover or doin a lot ov weed – unless yer Income Support or other benefit payments are late. From next week.
4. Each time a cop car passes, shout in yer loudest voice: “Can I smell bacon?” From Today.
5. If it move, shag it (not yer stupid sisters/bruvers, unless nofink better about/available).

Over Arching Goal:

Wot would everyone say if we Chavs behaved like the countries of the world? I’ll tell yer. They would say wer stupid, crass, ignorant, hopeless. That’s right, init? Yet they’re worse, in they? So it’s about time we took over.

So, to recap: you’ve woken one morning, climbed from bed, glanced in the mirror and quietly said: “My God, I’m a Chav.” Despair not. While the word Chav supposedly stands for “Council House and Violent” later usage has diminished the need of a “Council House” though a particular attitude of mind, supported by irrational tantrums, violent outbursts and total selfishness, is essential. Make your “to do” list now.

Remember: fail to plan and you plan to fail!

Today is the first day of the rest of your life. Your behavior from this point on must (MUST) have far reaching social ramifications. When approached or arrested by police officers, you say: “No comment” to each question asked. Confronted by Social Workers explain you are suffering from ODD (Oppositional Defiant Disorder) which will be sufficient mitigation for even the most extremely aberrant behavior imaginable (especially with your now much lower IQ).

Remember: The World Is Your Oyster.

In particular you should express (with me) a particular debt of gratitude to Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, and Nu Labour whose policies (pursued with such single-minded vigor) constitute one of the biggest experiments in social engineering ever witnessed in this nation; and without which the concept of a “Chav” could never have existed! The bright fabric of our day-to-day lives would accordingly have been seriously diminished. Socialism for the oughties has ensured a growing gap between rich and poor. It played the part of Robin Hood in reverse. It ensured we have a Police Force more concerned with “quotas” and “equality” than actual “policing”. The rise of the Chav coincided with an upsurge in the problem of binge drinking and anti-social behavior.

So, a final word or two from our new born Chav?

“Big shout out to all da boys, its fer life an yous knows it! Nu labor is fookin’ beeest! Them Conservative r all twats! I’ll fookin’ kill ‘em! The BNP is like Nu Labor, init? So okay. Izzit right, this election stuff? Fookit, I sez. Lets get twatted , go fookin’ mental, like. Lets just hav a government for life.”

Kafka and Meyrink

Long before the crump, crump of jackbooted feet echoed in those narrow streets where tall houses stood impossibly wedged together – as if in a scene from German expressionist cinema, one of those nightmare’s of Lang or Murnau or Pabst; this set cluttered with light, shadow and darkness, an obvious setting for a tale of lust and madness, a geometrical abstract – long before the coming of the Nazis and the destruction of war, this place had another existence…

Here were strange speculations. The Cabala. Whispered conversations. Gloomy courtyards where rags of clothing hung from washing lines. Groups of grey figures with expressionless faces stepped back at your approach blending with the shadows of those squatting columns of discoloured brickwork. Old Prague. The city of Kafka. Kafka who writes of a man waking from deep sleep to find he has become what he’d dreamed. Oh, yes, in this city dreams are dangerous. ‘A false alarm on the night bell once answered – it cannot be made good, not ever.’ In this city guilt is palpable – here there is no correspondence between the seriousness of an offence and the ultimate degree of penalty. In truth an offence maybe marginal, insignificant, but the resultant penalty is death. The ultimate penalty. In this city Kafka engaged in his twin obsessions: writing and Felice Bauer that woman from Berlin, So schön, whom he met on a fateful August evening in 1912 in Prague, here, in this sprawling city of ghosts and shadows, and to whom shortly afterwards he wrote increasingly more urgent love letters – she was twice his fiancée once in 1914 and again in 1917 without becoming his wife because he loved his art more…more than he loved her, even though his terrible longing for her was a physical trauma to him…she became his heroine in the drama of this city, in the guilt and punishment he acted out ‘until finally under the strain of the superhuman effort of wanting to marry…blood came from the lung.’ So he wrote in 1919 in the ‘Letter to His Father’, the letter that went undelivered, unread, unanswered. Empty recrimination; guilt unappeased.

This city was also home to Meyrink – Gustav Meyrink. He wrote ‘Der Golem’ and ‘Das grüne Gesicht’ the later after being haunted by an horrific apparition with a green face. Max Brod was friend to both Meyrink and Kafka. Here in this city, in these buildings ‘where the swarms of the living had gnawed out caverns and passageways’, where ‘the rows of ornate gables were like a ghostly cemetery floating in the air’. Meyrink studied the Cabala and Buddhism and Hinduism, smoked deeply of hashish, deprived himself of sleep, fasted, practiced yoga and breathing rituals, sang incantations to the darkness without, drank gum Arabic twice daily in the hope of experiencing visions. His books and stories are based on the visions he had. His worse, that terrible green face…he had a fascination with puppets, too, animated forms human in shape but lacking the spark of life – in this city of rags, of grotesque characters, he will act as our guide (in those moments when he’s away from the astral plain or not seeking the Philosopher’s Stone in the excrement flowing in the sewers beneath the city), he will show us…‘The path I am pointing out to you is strewn with strange happenings: dead people you have known will rise up and talk with you! They are only images!’ Only images. The Cabalist and novelist conjoined in the creation of a phantasmagorical world wherein reside Jaromir the deaf mute silhouette artist, Zwakh the marrionetteer, and Hilel the Cabalist. Here at night on the cobbled streets of Prague you’ll hear their voices carried on the wind following you down those narrow, shadow filled streets, like a faint, almost imperceptible taint of madness. Dare you pause, retrace your footsteps? Is that Jaromir now? Is that really him?