Tag: Franz Kafka
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Robert Klopstock: Kafka’s fellow patient, friend, and doctor
Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “If I had known then what I know now, Franz would be sitting here talking to us.”– Robert Klopstock, M.D., to Kafka scholar Angel Flores, early 1940s Franz Kafka (1883–1924) was born to a German-speaking Jewish family in Prague. He got a law degree at his father’s insistence but worked as a…
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Knock, or The Triumph of Medicine
Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “The man who feels well is actually sick and doesn’t know it.”—Dr. Knock Jules Romains (1885–1972), author of the play Knock, or the Triumph of Medicine, was a novelist, poet, essayist, playwright, and short story writer. He was considered one of the best writers of his generation.1 This paper presents a detailed…
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Franz Kafka, A Country Doctor, (and Bob Dylan)
Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “Certainly doctors are stupid, or rather, they’re not more stupid than other people but their pretensions are ridiculous; [but] you have to reckon with the fact that they become more and more stupid the moment you come into their clutches . . .”— Franz Kafka1 Franz Kafka (1883–1924), a German speaking Czech,…
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The anatomy of bibliotherapy: How fiction heals, part III
Dustin Grinnell Boston, Massachusetts, United States A cure for loneliness In the video “What is Literature For?” produced by The School of Life, author Alain de Botton claims that books are a cure for loneliness. Since we cannot always say what we are really thinking in civilized conversations, literature often describes who we genuinely are more…