Letters to Mi…Lene?
A Pocketbook Appraisal of Franz Kafka’s “Letters to Milena”
“I just read, the letter, your essays, again and again, convinced that such prose does not exist merely for its own sake, but serves as a signpost on the road to a human being, a road one keeps following, happier and happier, until arriving at the realization some bright moment that one is not progressing, simply running around inside one’s own labyrinth, only more nervously, more confused than before,” (Kafka p.17).
*While this is a reverential post about my favorite author and his writing, this is not my assent to the publishing of his private correspondence.*
More than a serendipitous cipher for my brand, “Letters to Milena” has become a cornerstone of my artistry and the thread of solace from which I pull. Kafka’s letters are the roughly 105-year-old (73 since their publication) phantom cradle that blankets a surrealist’s soul.
In an age of contrived perfection, Kafka invites a uniform understanding of our interiority. Anxiety, doubt, imposter syndrome, and a distorted sense of otherness are all requisites to the human experience. They were never meant to be smothered but rather alchemized into our comprehension of self and society. Kafka never asks for understanding; in fact, he rejects it, and yet receives it tenfold.
Franz Kafka & Milena Jesenská largely relegated their relationship to written correspondence - an interpersonal dynamic that has grown in prevalence due to the emergence of social media. As I colloquially joke, they are the “situationship final boss”. I won’t issue a sweeping statement for my generation, but there is indeed a modern familiarity in the disillusionment of distance. The initial romanticism that rots when forced to grow in unyielding liminality.
I don’t subscribe to idolatry, but it is irrefutable the impact Franz Kafka has had on the literary community. His letters to Milena are one of many indelible contributions. He is the ping in the heart of word that will carry through in perpetuity.
- Lene Karnstein