COMPLETELY KAFKA: A Comic Biography, centenary of his death honored in fun-to-read format

COMPLETELY KAFKA: A Comic Biography
NICOLAS MAHLER (tr. Alexander Booth)
Pushkin Press
$19.95 trade paper, available now

Rating: 5* of five

The Publisher Says: A delightfully witty and original graphic biography of Kafka, published to coincide with the centenary of the author’s death

This bold and sharply funny new look at Kafka is told through Nicolas Mahler's distinctive graphic novel style and minimalist illustrations. Full of fascinating details and witty, absurdist illustrations, it’s a delightful tribute to one of the world’s great writers.

Franz Kafka not only wrote prose, he was also passionate about drawing: at one time, he even said it satisfied him more than anything else. In this graphic biography, acclaimed artist Nicolas Mahler echoes Kafka’s own minimalist drawing style in a unique and surprising approach to the great writer’s life and work.

Drawing extensively on Kafka’s fiction, letters, and diaries, Completely Kafka illustrates the major and minor details that formed his life, from struggles with self-doubt and writer’s block to a failed plan for a series of cheap travel guides.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: When people want to say "this stinks and I don't know what the hell is going on" in one word, they reach for "Kafkaesque" to do the job. This is, as all eponymizations must of necessity be, a gross oversimplification and misrepresentation of an extremely complex and, in my never-remotely humble opinion, beautiful body of work. Nicolas Mahler's selections from Kafka's fiction and his letters are very cannily chosen to be effectively illustrated in his minimalist style:

The lines, the volumes they define, the handmade feel of the brushstrokes, all echo the effect of Kafka's prose in my reader's ear. They are bold, they delineate spaces and fill them with interesting images; they are clear, unambiguous in themselves and still make the gestalt ambiguous; they do not use vivid colors but rely on contrasts, shapes, edges to convey their sense.

Offered as a corrective to the sloppily used eponym and an expansion of real understanding of Kafka and his intentions in a short, unpretentious, enioyable package on the centenary of his death.

Very highly recommended for those whose idea of Kafka pretty much ends at using "Kafkaesque" when at the DMV or the county tax office.