Yesterday I passed out ...

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Yesterday came a faint ... is a 216-word long prose piece by Franz Kafka , which was written down in an octave booklet , the so-called Oxford Octave Book 2, and the time of its creation can therefore probably be dated to the beginning of 1917. The text, which was unpublished during Kafka's lifetime, immediately follows on a new page in the manuscript of a text that Kafka selected for publication: The New Advocate , the first story in his collection of stories Ein Landarzt .

content

A first-person narrator describes a faint visit to him the day before. The helplessness described as a “tall lady with a long flowing dress and a wide hat adorned with feathers”, who lives in the neighboring house, arrives exhausted and exhausted when the narrator, who apparently lives on a high floor, complains about the taciturn recording while the narrator sees the many steps in front of his eyes and he feels like a sparrow practicing his jumps on the stairs while the impotence ruffles his "soft, fluffy gray plumage". Then he turns to the woman, assuring her that he is sorry, that she desires him, and that she could win his heart. This final verbatim speech is not marked with quotation marks in the manuscript, unlike the words that the helplessness directs to the narrator.

Interpretative approaches

The possibility that the piece of text reflects Kafka's own situation as a writer - an approach that is possible for many Kafka texts - is suggested by Annette Schütterle and expanded by Davide Giuriato in the accompanying review: This can be done in the feathers that the lady on her hat carries, as well as in the plumage of the imagined sparrow, through which the impotence strokes (in the sense that "his writing [...] is taken over by a powerful impotence"), a metonymy for writing can be seen. Giuriato also points out the name with which the Ohmacht addresses the narrator: “Anton”, whose typeface has a certain similarity to the word “author”.

Text and editions

  • Franz Kafka: Stories and other selected prose. Edited by Roger Hermes. Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1996, ISBN 978-3-596-13270-6 .
  • Franz Kafka: Oxford Oktavhefte 1 & 2. Historical-critical edition of all manuscripts, prints and typescripts. Edited by Roland Reuss and Peter Staengle. Stroemfeld Verlag, Frankfurt am Main and Basel 2006, ISBN 3-87877-938-0 .

The full text of the piece is available in the Franz Kafka project at the German Department of the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn ( Octave Book B , one paragraph, beginning with "Yesterday I passed out").

literature

  • Annette Schütterle: Franz Kafka's octave books. A writing process as a "system of partial construction". (= Cultura 33) Rombach Verlag, Freiburg im Breisgau 2002, ISBN 3-7930-9341-7 , p. 131 f.
    • Davide Giuriato: “End of writing. When will it take me back? ”Annette Schütterle reads Kafka's octave books anew - as manuscripts. Review, IASLonline 2003 ( online ).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Roland Reuss: The first two Oxford octave books by Franz Kafka. An introduction. In: Franz Kafka: Oxford Oktavhefte 1 & 2. Historical-critical edition of all manuscripts, prints and typescripts. Edited by Roland Reuss and Peter Staengle. Stroemfeld Verlag, Frankfurt am Main and Basel 2006, ISBN 3-87877-938-0 . "Franz Kafka-Heft 5", p. 3 ff.
  2. ↑ Oxford Octave Book 2, Bl. 29 r , line 7 ff.
  3. ↑ Oxford Octave Book 2, Bl. 29 v , line 11 ff.
  4. ↑ Oxford Octave Book 2, Bl. 29 v , line 10.
  5. ↑ comparisons about the sentence from the Process "Should I accuse, may I at the beginning of the process and finish it now wants to begin at the end it again," the both to the process that the accused Josef K. just leads, as well as the process of writing the Process novel. Malcolm Pasley: Scripture is immutable ... essays on Kafka. Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1995, ISBN 3-596-12251-1 , p. 193 f.
  6. ^ Annette Schütterle: Franz Kafkas Oktavhefte. A writing process as a "system of partial construction". Rombach Verlag, Freiburg im Breisgau 2002, p. 132.
  7. ↑ Davide Giuriato: “End of the letter. When will it take me back? ”Annette Schütterle reads Kafka's octave books anew - as manuscripts. Review, IASLonline 2003 ( online ).