Franz Kafka gets left on read
Imagine getting a letter everyday, from Franz Kafka. The writer had two largely epistolary relationships in his life, and the letters from his first show a picture of what seems to have been a rather lopsided affair, with Kafka waiting long spans between letters from his beloved, while he writes near-daily. When they do write in turn, they often write about writing "the way others talk about money." Seen through his eyes, getting ‘left on read’ feels like an event of literary import, rather than an all-too routine social disappointment. Translation from the German my own. 13 May 1913 … When Max was in Berlin then, and spoke with you on the telephone, you were, as I can so well imagine, very cheerful and confident, you laughed a lot, but among other things you said, “there's no point, he writes me rather a lot, but he makes no sense in the letters, I don’t know what he’s bargaining for, we’re not coming closer to one another and there’s no chance, for the time being.”...