Into the White

Into the White lays bare a hidden overall logic in Kafka's work. Kafka's fictitious characters, instead of restoring an initial balance - as it is the case in most fiction -, do everything they can to maintain the imbalance. The book shows that this should be linked to Kafka's own relationship to his calling as a writer. Although 'called', Kafka always felt that he could never really 'enter the gate of his vocation': he could only wait before the open but unapproachable entrance. Writing carried a promise for Kafka that was unfulfillable. Hence, by keeping open the imbalance of its fictious characters, Kafka's prose tries to sustain the promise. Into the White examines in great depth why the discussed promise is indeed unfulfillable. Inthe stories that deal with this afa himself always points to the tense relations between the artist and his or her public. By drawing on contemporary research into the constitution of human self-consciousness -which is itself charactarized by a 'hybridism' between the private and the public, between nature and culture - Into the White brings surprising but also perfectly recognizable insights into the nature of fiction and narrativity, and more broadly, into the process of generating meaning. The book also sheds new light on many aspects of popular culture.