{"id":149703,"date":"2020-12-29T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-12-29T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=149703"},"modified":"2020-12-11T16:58:36","modified_gmt":"2020-12-11T21:58:36","slug":"the-pleasures-and-punishments-of-reading-franz-kafka-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/29\/the-pleasures-and-punishments-of-reading-franz-kafka-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The Pleasures and Punishments of Reading Franz Kafka"},"content":{"rendered":"

We\u2019re away until January 4, but we\u2019re reposting some of our favorite pieces from 2020. Enjoy your holiday!<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Franz Kafka. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.<\/p><\/div>\n

Reading the work of Franz Kafka is a pleasure, whose punishment is this: writing about it, too.<\/p>\n

In Kafka, no honor comes without suffering, and no suffering goes unhonored.<\/p>\n

Being asked to write about Kafka is like being asked to describe the Great Wall of China by someone who\u2019s standing just next to it. The only honest thing to do is point.<\/p>\n

Once, a student approached Rabbi Shalom of Belz and asked, \u201cWhat is required in order to live a decent life? How do I know what charity is? What lovingkindness is? How can I tell if I\u2019ve ever been in the presence of God\u2019s mercy?\u201d And so on. The Rabbi stood and was silent and let the student talk until the student was all talked out. And even then the Rabbi kept standing in silence, which was\u2014abracadabra\u2014the answer.<\/p>\n

Having to explain the meaning of something that to you is utterly plain and obvious is like having to explain the meaning of someone<\/em>. Providing such an explanation is impossible and so, a variety of torture. One of the lighter varieties, to be sure, but torture nonetheless. It is a job not for a fan, or even for a critic, but for a self-hating crazy person.<\/p>\n

Read more >><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kafka\u2019s characters have no choice but to suffer Kafka. We readers, however, have chosen to submit to his machinery of our own free will.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":87,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[68282],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-149703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-best-of-2020"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Pleasures and Punishments of Reading Franz Kafka by Joshua Cohen<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Kafka\u2019s characters have no choice but to suffer Kafka. We readers, however, have chosen to submit to his machinery of our own free will.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/29\/the-pleasures-and-punishments-of-reading-franz-kafka-2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Pleasures and Punishments of Reading Franz Kafka by Joshua Cohen\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"December 29, 2020 \u2013 Kafka\u2019s characters have no choice but to suffer Kafka. We readers, however, have chosen to submit to his machinery of our own free will.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/29\/the-pleasures-and-punishments-of-reading-franz-kafka-2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-12-29T16:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/kafka.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1000\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"750\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Joshua Cohen\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Joshua Cohen\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/29\/the-pleasures-and-punishments-of-reading-franz-kafka-2\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/29\/the-pleasures-and-punishments-of-reading-franz-kafka-2\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Joshua Cohen\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/d904af0b27dd99d6158140b4a5140c08\"},\"headline\":\"The Pleasures and Punishments of Reading Franz Kafka\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-12-29T16:00:00+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/29\/the-pleasures-and-punishments-of-reading-franz-kafka-2\/\"},\"wordCount\":254,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/29\/the-pleasures-and-punishments-of-reading-franz-kafka-2\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/kafka.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Best of 2020\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/29\/the-pleasures-and-punishments-of-reading-franz-kafka-2\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/29\/the-pleasures-and-punishments-of-reading-franz-kafka-2\/\",\"name\":\"The Pleasures and Punishments of Reading Franz Kafka by Joshua Cohen\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/29\/the-pleasures-and-punishments-of-reading-franz-kafka-2\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/29\/the-pleasures-and-punishments-of-reading-franz-kafka-2\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/kafka.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-12-29T16:00:00+00:00\",\"description\":\"Kafka\u2019s characters have no choice but to suffer Kafka. We readers, however, have chosen to submit to his machinery of our own free will.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/29\/the-pleasures-and-punishments-of-reading-franz-kafka-2\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/29\/the-pleasures-and-punishments-of-reading-franz-kafka-2\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/29\/the-pleasures-and-punishments-of-reading-franz-kafka-2\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/kafka.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/kafka.jpg\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/29\/the-pleasures-and-punishments-of-reading-franz-kafka-2\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The Pleasures and Punishments of Reading Franz Kafka\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"description\":\"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"width\":696,\"height\":696,\"caption\":\"The Paris Review\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview\",\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/d904af0b27dd99d6158140b4a5140c08\",\"name\":\"Joshua Cohen\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/361166181963048dc96a1b359b3ccd7ee0a6d987e2822b5799842f59896cf76d?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/361166181963048dc96a1b359b3ccd7ee0a6d987e2822b5799842f59896cf76d?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Joshua Cohen\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/jcohen\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Pleasures and Punishments of Reading Franz Kafka by Joshua Cohen","description":"Kafka\u2019s characters have no choice but to suffer Kafka. We readers, however, have chosen to submit to his machinery of our own free will.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/29\/the-pleasures-and-punishments-of-reading-franz-kafka-2\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Pleasures and Punishments of Reading Franz Kafka by Joshua Cohen","og_description":"December 29, 2020 \u2013 Kafka\u2019s characters have no choice but to suffer Kafka. We readers, however, have chosen to submit to his machinery of our own free will.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/29\/the-pleasures-and-punishments-of-reading-franz-kafka-2\/","og_site_name":"The Paris Review","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","article_published_time":"2020-12-29T16:00:00+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1000,"height":750,"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/kafka.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Joshua Cohen","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@parisreview","twitter_site":"@parisreview","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Joshua Cohen","Est. reading time":"1 minute"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/29\/the-pleasures-and-punishments-of-reading-franz-kafka-2\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/29\/the-pleasures-and-punishments-of-reading-franz-kafka-2\/"},"author":{"name":"Joshua Cohen","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/d904af0b27dd99d6158140b4a5140c08"},"headline":"The Pleasures and Punishments of Reading Franz Kafka","datePublished":"2020-12-29T16:00:00+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/29\/the-pleasures-and-punishments-of-reading-franz-kafka-2\/"},"wordCount":254,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/29\/the-pleasures-and-punishments-of-reading-franz-kafka-2\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/kafka.jpg","articleSection":["Best of 2020"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/29\/the-pleasures-and-punishments-of-reading-franz-kafka-2\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/29\/the-pleasures-and-punishments-of-reading-franz-kafka-2\/","name":"The Pleasures and Punishments of Reading Franz Kafka by Joshua Cohen","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/29\/the-pleasures-and-punishments-of-reading-franz-kafka-2\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/29\/the-pleasures-and-punishments-of-reading-franz-kafka-2\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/kafka.jpg","datePublished":"2020-12-29T16:00:00+00:00","description":"Kafka\u2019s characters have no choice but to suffer Kafka. We readers, however, have chosen to submit to his machinery of our own free will.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/29\/the-pleasures-and-punishments-of-reading-franz-kafka-2\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/29\/the-pleasures-and-punishments-of-reading-franz-kafka-2\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/29\/the-pleasures-and-punishments-of-reading-franz-kafka-2\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/kafka.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/kafka.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/29\/the-pleasures-and-punishments-of-reading-franz-kafka-2\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Pleasures and Punishments of Reading Franz Kafka"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","name":"The Paris Review","description":"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization","name":"The Paris Review","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","width":696,"height":696,"caption":"The Paris Review"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/d904af0b27dd99d6158140b4a5140c08","name":"Joshua Cohen","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/361166181963048dc96a1b359b3ccd7ee0a6d987e2822b5799842f59896cf76d?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/361166181963048dc96a1b359b3ccd7ee0a6d987e2822b5799842f59896cf76d?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Joshua Cohen"},"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/jcohen\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/87"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149703"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149703\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":149885,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149703\/revisions\/149885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}