The Terror of Art: Kafka and Modern Literature

by Martin H. Greenberg

This is a book about Kafka's art. More specifically, it endeavors to describe and define his main narrative form—what I call the "dream narrative"—and trace its evolution from its beginnings to its culmination in The Castle. Kafka is an easy writer to appreciate, a hard one to understand; his antithetical art combines very great simplicity with tortuous complexity, starkness with obscurity. It is able to do so without falling into artificiality thanks to its natural truth of form, thanks to a form which is true to nature. And the nature to which it is true—the natural phenomenon whose truth Kafka makes his own—is the dream.

241 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 1968

About the author

Martin Harry Greenberg was an American academic and speculative fiction anthologist. In all, he compiled 1,298 anthologies and commissioned over 8,200 original short stories. He founded Tekno Books, a packager of more than 2000 published books. In addition, he was a co-founder of the Sci-Fi Channel.

For the 1950s anthologist and publisher of Gnome Press, see Martin Greenberg.

Reviews

[Kevin Fitzpatrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

"However the modern writers, unlike the poets of the old universal literature, stood opposed to and spiritually outside the world they lived in; they condemned its values rather than glorifying them. Heirs of Rousseau (as we all are) in wieghing society in the scales of human good, rather than living in it as given (the lot of man before the advance of modern consciousness), they renewed the dissent of the Romantics poets witha a a civilization that was anti-poetical, anti-spiritual, anti-vital. But unlike the great Romantic poetry, which at the beginning of the nineteenth century could still turn its back on the city and affirm the positive of Nature without being guilty of a flight from reality, the great modern literature was stuck in the world it condemned; lacking any ground to stand on, it was condemned to negative universality. Kafka's dream-story form, when it finally embraced the entire modern world, considered as a universal idea, and foreced it to submit to poetization in "The Castle," became a kind of negative epic. It could go no further." (Greenberg, pg. 220).

The above quotes, in its style and content, really sums up well the positive attributes, as well as the deficits, of Mr. Martin Greenberg's beguiling, besotting (with ideas), and be-devlled work concerning Franz Kafka's glorious works of Modernism, "Kafka The Terror of Art." Consisting of seven chapters, each concerned with one work of Kafka's rightly celebrated art, this book is, once one has overcome any objections (justified or not) to Greenberg's 'all-too-stolid' style of writing, a quite enjoyable and erudite exploration, by someone familiar with the well worn paths of Modernism, of the work of Franz Kafka. Starting with the 'breakthrough' work of "The Judgement," and then taking the reader through the high points of Kafka's storied career ("Metamorphosis," "The Trial," "Amerika," "The Castle"), the author does a more than serviceable job of explaining exactly how Kafka, in his too brief life, and faced with his considerable personal and societal obstacles, created some of the finest psychological portaits of the plight of the artist in our arid, none-too-fertile modern world. Indeed, the writer seems more than well grounded in his understanding of all things Kafka, as well as in the other Modernists (Yeats, Pound, Eliot, and, especially, James Joyce) that Kafka can be fruitfully compared with, so much so that one feels buoyed into an 'oceanic' feeling concerning all things literary (or at least Modernistic). This feeling makes the reading of this tome (the 'perfect' length at 220 pages) an enjoyable one in almost every aspect. Justifiably seen as a bell-weather in 'Kafka-esque' criticism, this book makes every minute you spend with it rewarding on multiple deep and profound levels. This is a fine book!

[Lucas Sipe · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kafka: The Terror of Art is an older work by Martin H. Greenberg that seeks to talk about Franz Kafka's writings in a holistic, united way. Greenberg begins by discussing some biographical/ historical stuff but quickly moves into a discussion of The Judgement, The Metamorphosis, and The Penal Colony. He's pretty critical of The Judgement, in that it's inferior the greatness Kafka later produces, but still addresses some major themes in the work. Crucially, this is where Kafka, so Greenberg articulates, arrives at his preferred style (The Dream- Narrative) albeit still raw and not yet fully fleshed out. From those short stories, the author moves to a discussion of Amerika, The Trial, and The Castle. Throughout these texts, Greenberg highlights continuity in Kafka's style, philosophy of art, and spirituality.
For the good, I think Greenberg's critical appraisal of The Metamorphosis and The Trial are quite excellent. They might not be total novel, although they might have been in his time, but having someone spell out the deeper themes/ ideas within those works was really interesting. Already I want to reread both works to try and get more out of them. At his best, Greenberg clearly elucidated the complex ideas behind these works and really demonstrate how amazing Kafka is. He's not as big of a fan The Penal Colony as I am but is still fair.
Far too often, however, Greenberg drowns out any great analysis by overburdening the reader with flowerful language and complex sentences. Kafka isn't a simple author by any means but Greenberg is almost unbearable in the way he writes about Kafka. Outside of the sections on The Metamorphosis and The Trial, Kafka's "easiest" works to get, Greenberg confuses words for intelligence. Over the course of the work, to be sure, I came to get what he was arguing for but individual sections largely failed to convince or were so confusing that they didn't help. In particular, the section on The Caste, Kafka's best work, bounces between enlightening and confusing with incredible speed. At one time I think I'm getting what Greenberg is talking about and then a paragraph later, everything has changed without notice and Greenberg is rambling about something. Nothing about The Castle in particular stayed with me and what did was because of the connection with The Trial.
It would be incorrect to say that Greenberg failed in his mission. By the end of the work, I did come to understand the connection and path in all of Kafka's major works. At the same time, however, that was more or less in spite of Greenberg. Kafka was such a brilliant writer that the connection between all his works only need a light touch to bring it out but Greenberg would rather let his own voice dominate Kafka's.