PRAGUE
THE KAFKA ROLLER COASTER
Don’t bend
Don’t water it down
Don’t try to make it logical
don’t edit your own soul according to fashion
Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.
Franz Kafka 1883-1924
The spirit of Kafka is detectable in every street corner in Prague. There is a certain joie de vivre in the absurdities of daily life. Kafka is wrongly believed a sinister writer, in fact, in his writing, there is humor in all the tragic.
Cafe Slavia
Kafka was also a sociable creature, and the coffeeshops of Prague his natural biotop, where he, unlike his protagonists indulged in company and readings of his writings, much to the acclaim and laughter of his friends.
With his friends, Kafka regularly attended cabaret programs at the Lucerna Cultural palais – a place still reminiscent not only of the grandeur of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, but also of present day surrealism: In its passage, artist David Cerny, the enfant terrible of contemporary art, has suspended St. Wenceslas from the delicately tiled ceiling like a Damocles sword. There are more people dangling from above in the streets of Prague: Artist Michal Trpak’s installation “Slight Uncertainty” has dozens of cement figure clutching their umbrellas in mid-air.
