Letter 11 feels like a battlefield between Kafka’s hand and his mind, between what he wants to write and what he allows himself to write.
It feels as if his hand is writing the letters in secrecy from his head but then, once his head gets a peek into what has been written, it immediately demands the words to be scratched or the addressee changed from Milena to “the fire”.
Franz does this often in his letters: he attacks and then momentarily retreats, starts opening up then interrupts himself with a definitive “no! no more!” – one step forward, one step back – a dynamic stillness which can be destroyed only by a thunderous confession.
So many sentences unsent, so many letters burnt – one might think K is trying to abide by rules he has set himself (certain words shall not be written, certain words shall remain unsaid, unsent).
The Quiet World, Jeffrey McDaniel
In an effort to get people to look
into each other’s eyes more,
and also to appease the mutes,
the government has decided
to allot each person exactly one hundred
and sixty-seven words, per day.
When the phone rings, I put it to my ear
without saying hello. In the restaurant
I point at chicken noodle soup.
I am adjusting well to the new way.
Late at night, I call my long distance lover,
proudly say I only used fifty-nine today.
I saved the rest for you.
When she doesn’t respond,
I know she’s used up all her words,
so I slowly whisper I love you
thirty-two and a third times.
After that, we just sit on the line
and listen to each other breathe.
Nonmilitary Statements, Dunya Mikhail (tr. by Elizabeth Ann Winslow)
1
Yes, I did write in my letter
that I would wait for you forever
I didn't mean exactly “forever”
I just included it for the rhythm.
2
No, he was not among them.
There were so many of them!
More than I've seen in my life
on any television screen.
And yet he was not among them
he has eyes
and gestures
and anxiety
but he was not among them.
3
It has no carvings
or hands.
It always remains there
in front of the television
this empty chair.
4
I dream of a magic wand
that changes my kisses to stars
at night you can gaze at them
and know they are innumerable.
5
I thank everyone I don't love.
They don't cause me heartache
they don't make me write long letters
they don't disturb my dreams
I don't await them anxiously
I don't read their horoscopes in magazines
I don't dial their numbers
I don't think of them.
I thank them a lot
they don't turn my life upside down.
6
For the sake of the scenery
I immigrated to this city.
I gradually begin to get closer
to its plastic trees
and the view folds up around me
like a picture book of flowers does
to a breathless butterfly.
7
Why, my dears?
Why do you come
only in my dreams?
8
I drew a door
and sat behind it
ready to open it
as soon as you arrive.
The Horse Fell Off the Poem, Mahmoud Darwish (tr. by Fady Joudah)
The horse fell off the poem
and the Galilean women were wet
with butterflies and dew,
dancing above chrysanthemum
The two absent ones: you and I
you and I are the two absent ones
A pair of white doves
chatting on the branches of a holm oak
No love, but I love ancient
love poems that guard
the sick moon from smoke
I attack and retreat, like the violin in quatrains
I get far from my time when I am near
the topography of place ...
There is no margin in modern language left
to celebrate what we love,
because all that will be ... was
The horse fell bloodied
with my poem
and I fell bloodied
with the horse’s blood ...
Here once again Franz reminds Milena (and thus, us) of the perception that his physical maladies are merely a manifestation of his spiritual diseases. [I am spiritually ill, my lung disease is nothing but an overflowing of my spiritual disease.]
The same notion was mentioned in Letter 4, where he wrote: [You see, my brain was no longer able to bear the pain and anxiety with which it had been burdened. It said: “I’m giving up; but if anyone else here cares about keeping the whole intact, then he should share the load and things will run a little longer.” Whereupon my lung volunteered, it probably didn’t have much to lose anyway. These negotiations between brain and lung, which went on without my knowledge, may well have been quite terrifying.]
Later on, Milena used this in her obituary for Franz: [Dr. Franz Kafka, a German writer who lived in Prague, died the day before yesterday in the Kierling Sanatorium, near Klosterneuburg bei Wien. Few people knew him here, for he was a recluse, a wise man in dread of life. He had been suffering a lung disease for years, and although he worked to cure it, he also consciously nourished it, and fostered it in his thoughts. He once wrote in a letter: when heart and soul can’t bear it any longer, the lung takes on half the burden, so that it is distributed a little more evenly—and that’s the way it was with his disease. It lent him an almost miraculous tenderness and an almost horribly uncompromising intellectual refinement. Physically, however, Franz Kafka loaded his entire intellectual fear of life onto the shoulders of his disease.]
The artworks I'd like to recommend for Letter 11 are:
The Field in June, Joan Snyder
Ocean / Moon / Crimson Symphony, Joan Snyder
my dear Reader, sending all the love from my corner of the world ... tathève 🌼