Book Review: Letter to His Father by Franz Kafka

The tormented writer who wanted peace of mind

This is a letter from Franz Kafka to his father, Hermann Kafka. Frankz Kafka is known as one of the most influential writers of the 20th century, with eerie books such as The Trial, The Castle, and Metamorphosis.

In a letter directed to his father, he confesses the deep shame and alienation developed during his childhood. That is still ingrained in Franz despite maturing into adulthood. Kafka’s upbringing was troublesome, to say the least. He felt a substantial burden placed upon him by his father, a man that was always intellectually and physically stronger than him, towering over Franz as a predator gazes upon its prey. None of Franz’s choices made either in his professional career or in his romantic life seemed to impress the family’s overseer. Franz Kafka acknowledges that his father was a decent man and maybe would have even been friends with him in another life if he was not the son of immense Hermann Kafka. Kafka, the name that he never truly filled with pride and respect, almost always sick and too weak to put the vigor his father expected from someone carrying his name.

I found that reading this letter was the rawest insight into the mind of one of the greatest writers, which made me realize that the stories, such as The Trial and The Castle, were written from a place of pain and alienation, where he is the protagonist of the story. He is Mr.K, a man that has been put on trial where he never comes to know the crime he is being persecuted for, nor the nature of the judicial procedures taking place. Kafka wrote about how it felt to be an inadequate tiny human in an unforgiving absurd world that gives you nothing but existential anxiety and a life full of torment. It is haunting reading the words of a dead man that did not desire great riches and luxury. He wanted nothing more from life than to be accepted by his father and live his days peacefully without the demons that came from within. Instead, he was faced with a cruel life cut short by tuberculosis.

This point is illustrated in the following quote:

“… it is, after all, not necessary to fly right into the middle of the sun, but it is necessary to crawl to a clean little spot on Earth where the sun sometimes shines, and one can warm oneself a little.”

I will give this book a 5/5 as I believe that Franz Kafka has captured the fundamental fears and desires that we all have as humans. I think that everyone can be reminded of a point in their lives where they felt like a deficient creature in a foreign country. The fact that the topic Kafka is writing about is so unremarkably normal is what makes this letter timeless and forever relevant.