The great swimmer

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The great swimmer is a prose fragment by Franz Kafka from 1920. It was only published as part of the complete work.

An Olympic swimming champion announced to a festive audience that he could not swim at all.

Emergence

The fragment was written down at the end of August 1920. At that time, an Olympic swimming competition was taking place in Antwerp. The large float is not part of the conventional compilation of Kafka's works. It is part of the fragments from the so-called convolutes . He appeared u. a. in the Critical Kafka Complete Edition Nachged Schriften und Fragmente II . Reiner Stach used this fragment in his biography Kafka. Dedicated to the years of knowledge in greater detail.

content

A first-person narrator reports how he returns to his hometown as a world record swimmer and is cheered by the people. An automobile drives him to a ballroom, where a company, including a minister and the mayor's wife, awaits him. Food is served. Beautiful girls are present. A fat man gives a speech.

The swimmer is irritated from the start. He doesn't know where his hometown is. He doesn't understand the language that is spoken here. In his opinion, the guests are behaving strangely. Some guests are sitting noticeably upside down, namely with their backs to the tables. The fat man weeps when he speaks.

The swimmer is urged to give a speech himself. He admits that although he set a world record, he actually can't swim. Besides, he is probably not in his fatherland, since he doesn't understand a word here. But that doesn't bother him very much. The fact that he heard from the speech of the previous speaker that it was "bleakly sad" is even too much knowledge for him.

He wonders if there is a mistake. The fragment ends with the words “But let's go back to my world record”.

Text analysis

The narrator reports a great outward triumph. He is greeted with a double call: " The great swimmer ". He is courted by high-ranking personalities and beautiful girls. The fact that a minister is present frightens him. The girls smile at him with long looks, but contact with them does not seem possible. The whole thing also has something dreamlike about it. Regarding the events in the ballroom, he says “ maybe everything was lit up too much ”. The swimmer doesn't understand her language, he is probably irritated, but that doesn't affect him inside. On the contrary, he doesn't even want to deal with them.

The question of swimming remains. At the beginning he postulates himself that he had achieved a world record in swimming. In speaking to an audience that is unfamiliar to him, he confesses - or pretends - that he cannot swim at all. You could even see a slight mockery in the speech (“ I've always wanted to learn” ). It is not possible to judge being or appearing from the text.

Biographical references

In this fragment, two themes are taken up that are strongly related to the reality of Kafka's life. As a pupil and student, Kafka was shaped by a “fear of exposure that determined his everyday school life”. He constantly expected to be caught in his ignorance. Kafka's visions of fear were present in Kafka's final years. The classic courtroom scenes in his texts describe a repressed, but not permanently suppressible feeling of guilt and the embarrassing accusation. In the present fragment, the narrator anticipates the exposure, but actually he also uses it to distinguish himself from these strangers who want to cheer him.

The second fact from Kafka's own vita is the subject of swimming. Kafka himself was an excellent acrobatic swimmer who always took the opportunity to swim while traveling. His laconic commentary on the beginning of the First World War on August 2, 1914 is famous: “Germany has declared war on Russia. - Afternoon swimming school ”.

Quote

  • Dear guests! I admit I have a world record, but if you asked me how I achieved it, I wouldn't be able to give you a satisfactory answer. Actually, I can't swim at all. I have always wanted to learn it, but there was no opportunity to do so.

Self-testimony

  • In October 1920 Kafka wrote the following note: “I can swim like the others, only I have a better memory than the others, I have not forgotten that I was once unable to swim. But since I haven't forgotten it, being able to swim doesn't help me and I still can't swim. "

reception

  • Reiner Stach p. 403: “The swimmer fragment is part of a dense series of literary experiments on a total of 51 loose sheets, which are now combined in the“ Konvolut 1920 ”. They show the pattern of multiple attempts that is typical for Kafka: narrative approaches, separated from one another by horizontal lines, interwoven with recurring motifs, in different stages of their development, mostly without a heading ... "

output

  • Post-traced writings and fragments II. Ed. Jost Schillemeit, Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, ISBN 3-596-15700-5 , pp. 254-257.

Secondary literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Stach p. 403
  2. ^ Post-legacy writings and fragments II. Ed. Jost Schillemeit, Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, ISBN 3-596-15700-5 , pp. 254-257.
  3. ↑ Alt. P. 75
  4. ↑ Alt pp. 205/206
  5. ↑ Franz Kafka diaries ed. by HG Koch, M. Müller and M. Pasley Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag 2002 ISBN 3-596-15700-5 p. 543
  6. ↑ Franz Kafka: Nachgelassene Schriften und Frage II , ed. by Jost Schillemeit. Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2002, ISBN 3-596-15700-5 , p. 334.

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