"It is not Kafka's fault that his wonderful writings have lately turned into a fad, and are read by people who have neither the ability nor the desire to absorb literature"
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Hesse draws blood with a velvet knife: he praises Kafka as “wonderful” and, in the same breath, turns the knife toward the crowd now claiming him. The opening move matters. By exonerating Kafka (“not Kafka’s fault”), Hesse frames literary reputation as something that happens to an author, not something an author controls. Fame is weather: it blows in, it flattens nuance, it deposits readers who treat books like accessories.
The word “fad” is the tell. Hesse isn’t only annoyed that Kafka is popular; he’s diagnosing a modern pattern where difficulty becomes a status object. Kafka’s work is famously resistant to quick consumption - it thrives on dread, ambiguity, and a kind of moral vertigo. Calling it a fad implies that the very thing worth reading Kafka for is exactly what fad-reading avoids: sustained attention, discomfort, and interpretation without the comfort of tidy answers.
Then comes the double charge: “neither the ability nor the desire.” Hesse splits the problem into competence and will, suggesting the deeper offense isn’t ignorance but indifference - a refusal to meet art halfway. That’s also self-protection. As an author who watched European culture turn anxious, mechanized, and trend-driven between wars, Hesse is defending literature as a practice, not a product. The subtext is elitist, yes, but also anxious: if even Kafka can be reduced to a craze, what chance does any serious writing have of surviving mass taste without being hollowed out?
The word “fad” is the tell. Hesse isn’t only annoyed that Kafka is popular; he’s diagnosing a modern pattern where difficulty becomes a status object. Kafka’s work is famously resistant to quick consumption - it thrives on dread, ambiguity, and a kind of moral vertigo. Calling it a fad implies that the very thing worth reading Kafka for is exactly what fad-reading avoids: sustained attention, discomfort, and interpretation without the comfort of tidy answers.
Then comes the double charge: “neither the ability nor the desire.” Hesse splits the problem into competence and will, suggesting the deeper offense isn’t ignorance but indifference - a refusal to meet art halfway. That’s also self-protection. As an author who watched European culture turn anxious, mechanized, and trend-driven between wars, Hesse is defending literature as a practice, not a product. The subtext is elitist, yes, but also anxious: if even Kafka can be reduced to a craze, what chance does any serious writing have of surviving mass taste without being hollowed out?
Quote Details
| Topic | Writing |
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