The Sons

Anyone who thinks that youth revolt began in the 1960s should read this book!

When I first read the 3 stories (before reading the Introduction), my interpretation had more to do with societal abuse than paternal abuse. This also might have to do with my taking The Trial as context. I saw the stories as 3 different examples of a young man suffering at the whim of an uncaring society, and that success hinges only on a combination of luck and eloquence of speech. In "The Judgement" the son is lucky in life and fortune, but not eloquent, leading to that shocking end. In "The Stoker" the son is lucky (in the end) and eloquent, leading to what looks like a happy ending (although I understand this might not be the case in later chapters of 'America' that this was included in.). Finally in "The Metamorphosis", the son is unlucky and uneloquent in the extreme (not even able to speak in fact), leading to a devastating and gradual decline.

I read the Letter and the Introduction next, and saw that the intended theme was actually the struggle between fathers and sons. This theme too is extremely powerful, and is not one usually considered for the era of the writing.

Upon further reflection, I think that the societal and paternal perspectives of the stories actually fit together well. After all, the representatives of the society we find ourselves in are the generation previous to us who enforce its rules. The abuses of a father are abuses of the world, and that seems to resonate with Kafka's own troubles in life.

Let’s begin with the fact that any collection containing “The Metamorphosis” has to be good. There are very good reasons why this is a classic. For those of you who haven’t heard, a man wakes up to find he has turned into a cockroach. For those of you who have heard but not bothered (or read at such speed – as required by some instructor or other authority figure – that you missed the nuance), it is not so much about the transformation into a cockroach as it is a study of the man and his family. This is a story you want to take the time to read, and you want to take the time to absorb it.

But, on to the rest of the collection. Apparently, Kafka had a desire that these three stories (“The Judgment” about a son who is heading toward marriage but finds he has not lived up to his father’s expectations, “The Stoker” about a son who has been forced to leave his family and, after landing in America, finds more than one authority figure replacement, and the previously mentioned “The Metamorphosis” about a son who turns into…well, we’ve already been there) be brought together in one collection to help present his overarching theme about sons, fathers, and families. Collecting them this way does indeed help strengthen that theme. And this is enhanced by the inclusion of “Letter to His Father”, a “critique” written by Kafka about his father and the life Kafka wound up living.

However, compared to “The Metamorphosis”, everything else is just interesting – not bad, but just interesting. Two hints about reading this specific collection. Read “Letter” first as it does provide insights into the thoughts that made up the short stories. And save the introduction for later (at least after reading “The Judgment) as there is a spoiler. Maybe a minor spoiler, but a spoiler nonetheless. ( )

At one point in his career, Kafka made a request of his publisher that three of his stories be published together in a single volume, citing “an obvious connection among the three, and, even more important, a secret one.” The publisher did not honor this request in Kafka’s lifetime, but Schocken Books has since made Kafka’s envisioned volume a reality, including use of Kafka’s suggested title: The Sons.

The first story is “The Judgment,” where a dutiful son contentedly looks after his feeble, aged father and prepares for his wedding… until a bout of nearly incomprehensible guilt utterly alters the relationship and the son’s plans. Next is “The Stoker,” the short story that is also the first chapter in the unfinished novel Amerika. Here a rejected, homesick youth temporarily finds a replacement for the father he has left behind in Europe. Rounding out Kafka’s trio is his famed piece “The Metamorphosis,” where Gregor Samsa awakens to find he has transformed into a giant insect, a situation that he regards with a surreal and comical lack of amazement, but which causes great consternation for his dependent parents and sister. The stories are, of course, excellent. More tightly written and polished than the fragmentary novels Kafka left behind, they highlight Kafka’s taste for absurdity in the midst of banality and his characteristic injection of sly humor into scenarios that are sad or nightmarish from the characters’ perspectives.

The editors of The Sons included one final piece, a piece that was not in Kafka’s request to his publisher. Indeed, this piece was among the personal papers that Kafka asked to have burned unread after his death. It is Kafka’s “Letter to His Father.” Written when Kafka was thirty-six years old, the lengthy letter endeavors to answer his father’s question of “…why I maintain I am afraid of you.” Stripped of the playfulness of Kafka’s fiction, the letter is like a dash of cold water in the face - both painful and clarifying. Suddenly the bizarre behavior of the sons in the preceding stories, their ingratiating, slavish devotion to fathers who reward them with rejection, intimidation, and violence, becomes more comprehensible as one reads the naked railings of Kafka to the father he both admired and feared. I’ve seen this letter dismissed as being unrealistic: objectively, Hermann Kafka was not a violent monster. This misses the point. This is not an objective assessment of the complex relationship between a parent and child. This is the desperate plea for understanding from a wounded adult child, speaking bluntly and truthfully about his subjective experience of the relationship. It is the tragic story of a clash of personalities; of a timid, sensitive child overwhelmed by a vigorous, aggressive parent. That the parent was likely well-intentioned and never understood the injurious affect he had on his son does not change the son’s experience. Even more tragically, the letter makes it clear that even at the age of thirty-six, Franz Kafka still on some level perceived himself as a scrawny little boy, disappearing in the shadow of his strong father. Speaking from my own personal experience, I will warn you that if you’ve had any similar issues with your own parents, reading this letter will likely activate some painful emotions, but it can also provide a sense of catharsis.

Any of the individual stories in this brief collection is a worthwhile read on its own. Together they pack a powerful punch. I do advise keeping the publisher’s order and saving reading the “Letter” for after reading the fiction. Enjoy the stories and see what you get out of them. Then read the letter, and perhaps revisit the stories, and see if you have a new perspective on Kafka’s multilayered literary creations.