Description: Kafka's interest in and use of China establish him as a principal commentator in Western discourse on the Orient.
Goebel studies four representative works by Kafka that explore the problems of the Western representation of the Orient: his 'Description of a Struggle'; several letters to Felice Bauer, offering an interpretation of Chinese poetry in connection with the conflict between writing and Kafka's love for Felice; the canonical story 'The Great Wall of China', parodically appropriating sterotypes of China's stagnant history and authoritarian emperors for a refutation of colonialist ideas of progress; and the sequel 'An Old Manuscript', dramatising China's invasion by foreign powers and the breakdown of crosscultural communication. Elucidating these themes from a broadly comparative perspective, Goebel shows Kafka to be one of German modernism's most intriguing and self-reflective writers on the Orient.ROLF J. GOEBEL is Professor of German at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.
Brief description: ROLF J. GOEBEL is Distinguished Professor of German, Emeritus, at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.
Review Quotes: An essential contribution dedicated to unearthing the references to political contexts hidden in Orientalist texts.-- "INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF MODERNISM"