Hugo Wetscherek, ed. Kafkas letzter Freund. Der Nachlass Robert Klopstock (1899-1972). Mit kommentierter Erstveroffentlichung von 38 teils ungedruckten Briefen Franz Kafkas. Roman.

Malone, Paul M.

Hugo Wetscherek, ed. Kafkas letzter Freund. Der Nachla[beta] Robert Klopstock (1899-1972). Mit kommentierter Erstveroffentlichung von 38 teils ungedruckten Briefen Franz Kafkas. Roman. Vienna: Inlibris, 2003. 312 pp. Hardcover.

The so-called Kafka industry continues to produce scholarly investigations of every imaginable aspect of the Prague author's life (and some studies do seem at least as much indebted to the scholars' imagination as to their researches); this sombre black clothbound book, however, seems at first sight rather peripheral to Kafka himself. One might be tempted to dismiss the orange facsimile of Kafka's signature (Ihr FK: "your FK") that glows from the front cover as a marketing ploy, and indeed the majority of the book contains documents that truly are marginal to Kafka's life: a catalogue of Robert Klopstock's own manuscripts, whether original poems, translations from Hungarian, or medical articles; likewise a catalogue of the manuscripts of Giselle Klopstock, Robert Klopstock's wife, whose connection to Kafka is even more tenuous--they never met--but whose ambitions as a writer and translator were even greater, than her husband's.

Robert Klopstock's brief but warm friendship with Franz Kafka in the author's last days--they were originally fellow consumptives in the Matliary sanatorium, where Klopstock returned during his medical studies for his practicum--culminated with Kafka's death in Klopstock's presence, on 3 June 1924, in a scene that anticipates Beckett:

Kafka: Gehen Sie nicht fort.

Klopstock: Ich gehe ja nicht fort.

Kafka: Aber ich gehe fort. (Dies.)

It is hardly ironic that Klopstock should have gone on to specialize in pulmonary disorders, given that he himself had been a sufferer; it may be so, however, that he went on to discover and promulgate treatments that might have prolonged his friend Kafka's life, with the apparent result that Klopstock felt some guilt in later years (89)--though I suspect that adding years to Kafka's life would ultimately have meant that less, rather than more, of the Prague author's works would be available to us now.

There is, nonetheless, a compelling story in these documents and the accompanying biographical and critical essays. On the one hand, there is the story of forced emigration to America and the beginning of a new life. Here, while the Klopstocks' literary dreams founder despite their rapid acquisition of English and their connections to prominent German-speaking exiles and emigres--including the brothers Mann and Albert Einstein--they soon find themselves both acclimated and assimilated: as Robert's career as a thoracic surgeon becomes increasingly prominent, he moves his practice to a prestigious Park Avenue address and converts from Judaism to the Episcopalian Church (Giselle having already been baptized as a Protestant in Hungary in 1939; 90). Ultimately, Robert dies at the age of 73 in 1972, to be remembered as a pioneer in the treatment of tuberculosis, with Giselle surviving him until 1995.

This is no sunny rags-to-riches story, however. Debts plagued the Klopstocks for years, and Robert was fated to be involved in another prominent literary demise: the drugs with which Klaus Mann took his own life in France in 1949 may well have been supplied by Mann's friend and physician Robert Klopstock. Certainly Klaus's father Thomas--whose recommendations had helped lay the foundations for Klopstock's American medical career--blamed Klopstock, and cut all ties with him (89). Even Kiopstock's major claim to some literary renown, his early friendship and correspondence with Kafka, was continually clouded by the former's tendency to wilfully obstruct scholars and publishers who wanted access to the letters; a tendency which cannot be explained by any pecuniary motives, since even in the worst financial straits he never attempted to capitalize on his late friend's fame (88-9).

This could easily become the stuff of melodrama were it not for the mainly documentary nature of this volume, and the well-balanced objective tone of the accompanying essays, which maintain human interest without pathos or sensationalism. The true worth of this book, however, may lie in its portrait of Kafka as Klopstock's friend, and not the reverse. Kafka not only encouraged Klopstock's literary ambitions, but despite failing health went to work behind the scenes as his advocate in his search for his brother Hugo Georg, taken prisoner of war by the Russians and then apparently remaining willingly in the Soviet Union until 1923; and further aided Klopstock in applying to study medicine at the University of Prague. Klopstock's Kafka is well aware that he has connections to people of literary and cultural importance, and is both willing and able to pull strings in a friend's cause, with remarkable success. This depiction is a valuable corrective to the almost unworldly theological figure originally propagated by Max Brod, a figure whose artificial nature has repeatedly been pointed out, but whose ghostly presence still haunts much Kafka reception and criticism. It would be well worth it if this volume exorcised that ghost once and for all.

Kafkas letzter Freund is well-produced in general, with many reproductions in black and white of documents and photographs. Unfortunately, the outer black cloth binding seems rather thin and wore down to the cardboard in a couple of spots quite quickly in my briefcase; however, a pocket inside the cover contains a nicely-reproduced facsimile of one of Kafka's postcards to Klopstock, written from Berlin with a lengthy postscript by Dora Diamant. The back cover is emblazoned with Kafka's own blurb, again in orange: "Lieber Robert, was sind Sie doch fur ein Mensch!" All in all, this book well explains why Kafka might have felt such enthusiastic sympathy.

Paul M. Malone

University of Waterloo