Noel’s Reviews > Letters to Milena > Status Update
Noel
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“What I’m afraid of, afraid of with wide-open eyes, helplessly drowned in fear (if I could drown in sleep as I drown in fear I would be no longer alive) is only this inner conspiracy against myself � which is perhaps based on the fact that I who, in the great Game of Chess am not even Pawn of a Pawn, far from it, yet now, against all the rules of the game and to the confusion of the game…�
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— Sep 28, 2024 11:32PM
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Noel’s Previous Updates
Noel
is 98% done
“[L]iving authors have a living connection with their books. With their very existence they fight for or against them. The real independent life of the book begins only after the death of the writer, or, more correctly, some time after his death, for these eager men still go on fighting awhile for their book beyond their death. Then, however, it is alone and can rely only on the strength of its own heartbeat.�
— Oct 15, 2024 06:33PM
Noel
is 92% done
“[A]ll the time I’m trying to convey something unconveyable, to explain something inexplicable, to tell of something which I have in my bones and which can be experienced only in these bones. Fundamentally it’s perhaps nothing but that fear of which we have already talked so often, but fear extended to everything, fear of the greatest as of the smallest—�
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— Oct 15, 2024 12:51PM
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Noel
is 92% done
“You say, Milena, that you don’t understand it. Try to understand it by calling it illness. It’s one of the many manifestations of illness which psychoanalysis believes it has uncovered. I don’t call it illness and I consider the therapeutic part of psychoanalysis to be a hopeless error. All these so-called illnesses, sad as they may appear, are matters of faith,�
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— Oct 15, 2024 12:35PM
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Noel
is 91% done
“Yes, torturing is extremely important to me, I’m preoccupied with nothing but being tortured and torturing. � The stupidity inherent in this (realization of stupidity doesn’t help) I once expressed as follows: “The animal wrenches the whip from the master and whips itself so as to become master, and doesn’t realize…�
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— Oct 15, 2024 12:15PM
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Noel
is 89% done
“I’ve spent all afternoon in the streets, wallowing in the Jew-baiting. “Prasivé plemeno”—“filthy rabble� I heard someone call the Jews the other day. Isn’t it the natural thing to leave the place where one is hated so much? (For this, Zionism or national feeling is not needed.) The heroism which consists of staying on in spite of it all is that of cockroaches…�
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— Oct 15, 2024 11:55AM
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Noel
is 89% done
“I’m reading a Chinese book, “bubácká kniha�. I mention it because it’s concerned exclusively with death. A man lies on his death-bed and in the independence given him by the proximity of death, he says: “I’ve spent my life trying to fight lust and to put an end to it.� Then a pupil mocks his teacher who speaks of nothing but death:�
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— Oct 15, 2024 11:42AM
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Noel
is 85% done
“Lonely imperfection has to be endured through every moment, imperfection shared by two does not have to be endured. Hasn’t one got eyes to tear them out and a heart for the same purpose? And yet it isn’t so bad, it’s all an exaggeration and a lie, everything is an exaggeration, only the longing is true, this cannot be exaggerated.�
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— Oct 14, 2024 09:37PM
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Noel
is 78% done
“I’m dirty, Milena, infinitely dirty, which is why I make so much fuss about purity. No people sing with such pure voices as those who live in deepest hell; what we take for the song of angels is their song.�
— Oct 14, 2024 07:35PM
Noel
is 66% done
I can’t help wondering what Kafka’s feelings would be on Zionism today. I guess simply being able to understand the question would completely change his life�
“I won’t meddle in the fight between you and Max [Brod, always an active Zionist]. I stand aside, see each one’s point of view, and am safe. You are undoubtedly right in what you say, but now we are changing places.�
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— Oct 13, 2024 08:45PM
“I won’t meddle in the fight between you and Max [Brod, always an active Zionist]. I stand aside, see each one’s point of view, and am safe. You are undoubtedly right in what you say, but now we are changing places.�
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Noel
is 48% done
“Once as a very small boy I was given a Sechserl [a ten-Kreuzer piece during the Austro-Hungarian monarchy] and felt a great urge to hand it to an old beggar woman who sat between the Grosse and the Kleine Ring. But the sum seemed to me enormous, a sum which probably never before and been given to a beggar, so I was ashamed in front of the beggar woman to do something so unheard-of…�
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— Oct 11, 2024 09:25PM
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Sep 28, 2024 11:33PM
“…even want to occupy the place of the Queen—I, the Pawn of the Pawn, thus a figure which doesn’t exist, which has no part in the game—and then perhaps the place of the King himself and even the whole board, and that, if I really wanted this, it would have to happen in another more inhuman way.�
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(I’m sorry for littering your feeds with quotes of torment—I just find Kafka immensely reassuring. I haven’t talked about this on here but have a crippling case of OCD (among other things) that’s gotten increasingly worse in recent years and I’ve spent much of it practically bedridden or caught in spirals of apocalyptic terror, in and out of mental hospitals and emergency rooms. Lately, I was put on this new medication, cold-turkeyed it, was put on another medication, and cold-turkeyed it again but with frightening withdrawal symptoms so I started it again yesterday.)
(It feels silly to write any of this because I recognize I’m privileged in many other ways, but I just wanted to explain if only to myself why this is making me feel this way.)
Hi Noel, what you describe sounds terrifying indeed. Don’t know what to say except that I am glad you find some solace in reading Kafka. I wish you a nice Sunday. Hang in there.
Always cheering for you from here, Noel. As Jeroen said, hand in there! And never mind about sharing the quotes with us. Hey, we all evolve like that, learning from others and what they have to share with us! Wishing you the best!
Thanks Jeroen, wishing you a nice Sunday, too.
Thanks, á. Okay, I won’t :) Wishing you the best.
Fingers crossed that you will find the right support soon, Noel - and if of some solace, your strong response to Kafka's letters is very relatable. Reading this in a time that was really tough, his words made me feel alive again - I hope reading him will bring you some succour as well.
Every simple Kafka line, teaches us something...
