A Dream

She sees nothing and hears nothing; but she undoes her apron-strings all the same, and attempts to wave me away with her apron. Unfortunately, she is successful.

Though limpid, Kafka’s style is also puzzling. He was sharply conscious of the problems of perception, and of the new forms of attention made possible by media such as the photograph and cinema. When he engages in fantasy, his descriptions are often designed to perplex the reader: thus it is difficult to make out what the insect in The

I was a child and believed I could always ask questions of anyone

Blumfeld wanted to make everything particularly clear to this boundlessly thick-witted creature, but consequently, he simply repeated everything too often, now keys, now room, now wardrobe, and as a result the boy stares at him as if he were not a benefactor but a seducer.

No one will read what I write here; no one will come to help me;* if to help me were set as a task, all the doors of all the houses would stay shut, all the windows closed, everyone would lie in their beds with the covers pulled over their heads, the whole earth a shelter in the night. There is good sense in that, for no one knows of me, and if he

regarded Zionism with some scepticism. The story ‘Jackals and Arabs’, apparently set in Palestine, can be read as a satire on the impractical messianic fantasies of some extreme Zionists.

Indeed, in fairy-tales everything is done on the wing, and my consolation belongs to fairy-tales too.

To struggle against this stupidity, this world of stupidity, was impossible!