Wohryzek, a fellow convalescent. A littlenwhile later Milena Jesenska Polakova,nwho was translating his work into Czechoslovakiannand who was lovelessly married,nfell his way. Not only did he letnboth women know of one another’s existence,nbut even let Milena’s husband innon the triangle. The only piece of dishonestynperpetrated by Franz Kafka was hisnsubversive aid to employees who soughtncompensation from the insurance institutenat which he spent most of his adultnlife grinding away, and in which he eventuallynrose to an indispensable position.nIf London was a naive knave, Kafkanwas a self-proclaimed “diabolical innocent.”nHe was conscious of the damagencaused by his father’s condemnation andnhis mother’s emotional detachment.nPart of his reluctance to marry and raise anfamily was his sense of the potentialnhavoc he could raise with his offsprings’npsyches. How often have we heard fromnthe Pepsi Generation the incantation,n”I’d make a miserable parent”? Hownoften this has led to the fiarther demoralizationnof the spirit which is best expressednby Kafka’s comment: “We arennihilistic thoughts that come into God’snhead”? Yet Kafka’s aversion to parenthood,nwhich he envied in others, was notntotally produced by Mr. and Mrs.nKafka’s clumsiness.nBy growing up in Prague, Kafka hadninherited an unavoidable curse—nHeidegger would callously call it a “facticity”—hisjewishness.nAnti-Semiticnstreet gangs and Czech nationalistsnpersecuted Jewish citizens and unmercifullyntormented their children in thenschools. Kafka spent his youth denyingnthe fact that his father, although only anlackadaisical synagogue-goer, made hisnliving as a ritual slaughterer for koshernmeats. Kafka could have thrown in thenother overworked complaint of the MenGeneration: “Who’d want to bringnchildren into this screwed-up world?”nKafka’s feelings of being senselesslynjudged and condemned, an innocentnwith no right to petition, have servednwell as the prototype of modern man’sndisposition before totalitarian statismnand an unreachable God who has madenit everyman’s lot to suffer mortalityndespite our individual merits. Thoughnhe might have been a much finer mannthan Jack London, Kafka brought intonthe world a literary offspring far morendevastating and permanent than London’sndated balderdash. Socialism andnAryan supremacy have wilted, but thenterm “Kafkaesque,” used to describe anynsituation in which the feckless intellecmalnfeels incompetent, will stay with usnat least for the rest of this century.nThe trouble with the Kafkaesque perspectivenis that it is existentialism’s mainncop-out. According to Sartre, existentidnman is totally free to be whatever henchooses. He is the animal that namesnhimself; he calls the shots; in fact, henbrings whatever essence he prefers intonhis own being. This goes much fiirthernthan Jack London or Mark Twain tellingnus that morals are less important than anTuff GuysnTill- uilr proi;rain with a nipidly dimini.shiiign<.l;in. Sjtiiniay Sij^hl Live.nupcii.s by iiitormiiig viewers ilvar ir i.<;norij»iii’.iiin}; iti ‘cw York, “rlic nvisi dan-nScroii.’; tit in iVinfiita.” That ^—presLimal>l>n-funny, and Miih humor ‘< responsiblenfur ;i di-ilint- in ratings tl)ainlan’i Ixexplaini-dawai byrhi-dcpanurcnof .M.’!. Radncr. ci. al. .At li-iu’^i wc ihoujihtni( wa-s jupposfd to bf taken in je;.!. F lowev(.-r.nnow wf lind rliav New Yorkcv.s likfnto think that their rapidly crunib]in},’iiiynis spei iai and arc thus wearing danger likiann”I I drawing of a heart )N.Y.” button.n•Ar least that is the nioM plausible extu’-enfor a .scnti-nn- in a Vii’Li^c Vnicc reviewnwritten by Andrew .Sarris. an ostensiblynrational man:n.lilu)iif;h Si^h! ^hijl opcn^ wiih ihi-nLIBERAL CILII RLHnnngood steak; when they strip off civilization,nwe are at least left with instinct andnpower and animal vitality. The existentialistnhas made it imperative thatn”modern man” generate his entire identitynfrom nothingness. London’s creednattempted to abdicate moral responsibilitynby appealing to the survival of thenfittest. Kafka’s world demands that mannaccept his responsibility even for his instincts.nGranted, the way the world is setnup each is given a certain race, location innspace, and is bound by mortality—butneven these things are to be consciously acceptednor rejected. Kafka, like most ofnus, accepted these givens and tried tonwork out his own meaning for them.nSuch a process is essentially religious, butnwhen die help of inherited religion andnthe collective wisdom of past generationsnis spurned out of hand, then, like Kafka,nwe are left in a nightmare world devoidnof meaning or love or anything identifiablynhuman.njv ulslx’nUS/HLnW^in y Tiii^n^m 1, » ^Tn^wmLn’u^iinnnVhVWnn>w ^^fe^nKr-.iphii miinltr nl :i jiinip, it is not annl•^paiall> vii)li[ir movien.After all, street-wise Sarris implies, itnis otily one pandcrer. and life is cheap innthe most populousiity in ^America. Whatnhe would liave thought about the vividnportrayal of, say. the mere mugging of an(ilnuritic is another srorv. Dn17nNovember 1982n