The Blue Octavo Notebooks - Misplaced Pages

Book by Franz Kafka

The Blue Octavo Notebooks (sometimes referred to as The Eight Octavo Notebooks) is a series of eight notebooks written by Franz Kafka from late 1917 until June 1919. The name was given to them by Max Brod, Kafka's literary executor, to differentiate them from the regular quarto-sized notebooks Kafka used as diaries. Along with the octavo notebooks, Brod also found a series of extracts copied out and numbered by Kafka. Brod named this brief selection "Reflections on Sin, Suffering, Hope, and the True Way" and included it in The Great Wall of China.

Publication

When Brod published Kafka's diaries in 1948 he decided to omit the octavo notebooks, because he considered their contents more philosophical and literary than the regular diaries Kafka kept. The Octavo notebooks were later included in a volume of fragments and uncollected writings published in 1953, along with the numbered extracts. The notebooks first appeared in English in Dearest Father: Stories and Other Writings (Schocken Books, 1954). Some English printings removed the extracts from their original place in the notebooks to avoid repetition.

The Blue Octavo Notebooks were published in English in a single volume edition by Exact Change (1991, ISBN 1-878972-04-9). This edition includes the complete notebooks, the numbered extracts, and Max Brod's original notes.

Analysis

Scholars have noted that from late 1917 until June 1919, Kafka stopped writing entries in his diaries, and instead wrote in these notebooks, the bulk of which were aphorisms. The notebooks contain fragments, but like much of Kafka's writings they allude to important themes about the human condition. The notebooks express Kafka's interest in Judaic studies, though he continued to live a secular life. Kafka was reading Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling during the time he wrote in these notebooks.

External links

Blue Octavo Notebooks Quotes

References

The Zürau aphorisms of Franz Kafka. F Kafka, R Calasso, G Brock, M Hofmann - Random House, Inc., 2006
Kafka, Nahman of Bratslav, and the Judaic Literary Imagination. JA Kanofsky - Symposium, 1999. Heldref Publications.
Sara Teresa Shafer, "Bound and Undetermined: Kafka, Abraham and the Meaning of Suffering", in Bev Hogue and Anna Sugiyama, eds., Making Sense of Suffering: Theory, Practice, Representation, Leiden, Netherlands: Brill Publishers, 2011.

Franz Kafka (works)

Novels

Short stories

1902–1912	"Shamefaced Lanky and Impure in Heart" "Description of a Struggle" "Wedding Preparations in the Country" "The Judgment" "The Stoker" The Metamorphosis "The Aeroplanes at Brescia"
1914–1917	"In the Penal Colony" "The Village Schoolmaster" "Before the Law" "Blumfeld, an Elderly Bachelor" "A Country Doctor" "The Hunter Gracchus" "The Great Wall of China" "A Message from the Emperor" "A Report to an Academy" "A Dream" "Up in the Gallery" "A Fratricide" "The Next Village" "A Visit to a Mine" "Jackals and Arabs" "The Bridge" "The Bucket Rider" "The New Advocate" "An Old Manuscript" "The Knock at the Manor Gate" "Eleven Sons" "My Neighbor" "A Crossbreed" "The Cares of a Family Man"
1917–1923	"The Refusal" "A Hunger Artist" "Investigations of a Dog" "A Little Woman" "The Burrow" "Josephine the Singer, or the Mouse Folk" "A Common Confusion" "The Truth about Sancho Panza" "The Silence of the Sirens" "Prometheus" "The City Coat of Arms" "Poseidon" "Fellowship" "At Night" "The Problem of Our Laws" "The Conscription of Troops" "The Test" "The Vulture" "The Helmsman" "The Top" "A Little Fable" "Homecoming" "First Sorrow" "The Departure" "Advocates" "The Married Couple" "Give It Up!" "On Parables"

Short story
collections

Diaries and
notebooks

Letters
and essays

Plays

The Warden of the Tomb

Category

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