KAFKA—THE LAWYER AS WRITER?

KAFKA—THE LAWYER AS WRITER? Although I enjoyed posting about Stendhal’s reading the civil code to warm up before writing, I don’t know what to make of this practice (some think he was jesting). I had saved an item from the NB section in the TLS (March 27, 2009) which commented on the publication of FRANZ KAFKA: THE OFFICE WRITINGS. Kafka was a lawyer who worked in the Workmen’s Accident Insurance Institute in Prague. The note (by “J.C”) lists the titles of some of the Kafka’s writings published in the book: “Accident Prevention in Quarries”, “The Scope of Compulsory Insurance for the Building Trades”, and “Fixed Rate Premiums for Small Farms using Machinery”. I have always thought that Kafka’s day job was painful for him, and his feelings may have been reflected in the thought of a man turning into a cockroach or the bureaucratic horrors of some of his stories. But could writing dull legal memoranda have helped his writing in the same way that reading the civil code helped Stendhal?