Interesting story of jealousy & obsession between author and Kafka ( )

The Lost Pages was great fun, and the narration by Lewis Fitz-Gerald was pretty near pitch perfect. The book is a Kafkaesque imagining of the relationship between Franz Kafka and his mentor Max Brod. I was darkly entertained all the way through to the surprise ending, which left me smiling and wanting more.

I listened to the audiobook from W F Howes via hoopla ( )

The year is 1908 in the city of Prague. You’ve written your first book. Everyone wants to be near you, touch you, and hear what you the learned writer has to say. Maybe you do have something worthwhile to impart, your literary opinion is in demand and many would-be authors vie for your attention. Your confidence grows as your fame increases, until a handsome, brilliant stranger befriends you, rivalling your talent and self-assurance. That’s when doubt begins to creep in.

Winner of The Australian/Vogel’s Literary Award 2017, the debut novel of Melbourne author Marija Peričić is an intriguing interpretation of the relationship of Max Brod and Franz Kafka. THE LOST PAGES traces the strange and often fractious relationship between mentor (Max Brod) and protégé (Franz Kafka), where love, rivalry, jealousy and paranoia spiral into madness.

The Lost Pages is a fictional memoir written by Max Brod and imagined to have come from a collection of Kafka manuscripts that were recently discovered in Tel Aviv. An article in the New York Times by Elif Batuman called ‘Kafka’s Last Trial’, follows the court proceedings of unpublished manuscripts and papers of Franz Kafka. This article prompted Marija Peričić to research the lives of Brod and Kafka, making the discovery that the public perception of them was, in fact, quite different to the reality.

Having little or no knowledge of Brod and Kafka, I read THE LOST PAGES with fresh eyes and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Marija Peričić lures us down the winding cobble-stoned alleys of early twentieth-century Bohemia, into the artistic world of the literati. We are drawn into Brod and Kafka’s Prague through vivid descriptions and attention to detail. We can feel Brod’s anguish as he struggles with physical and psychological torment and his admiration of the brilliance and eccentricities of Kafka.

Marija Peričić’s THE LOST PAGES has an air of authenticity, exploring and exposing human frailty and deep desire, making it a compelling read. ( )

http://shawjonathan.com/2018/09/23/marija-pericics-lost-pages/ ( )

Marija Pericic won the Vogel Prize for this stunning debut novel set in Prague in 1908. Pericic reimagines the relationship between literary giants, Max Brod and Franz Kafka.

Knowing little about either novelist, I was quickly drawn into a story full of anguish, tension and human fragility. The author veered away from the known story that Brod was asked by his friend Kafka, on his death bed to destroy all of his unpublished work. Instead, Brod publishes it making sure that posthumously, Kafka is revered and honoured into the future.

What happens though, if history is rewritten? What if Brod, a tortured man with physical disabilities is filled with self-doubt and actually loathes Kafka as his rival? What if Brod falls in love with a girl who loves Kafka? It makes for a compelling read. Does it matter that the work is fiction? It’s an interesting take on historical figures. Events are true but the rest is not.

The writing and development of characters was exquisite as we are taken into Brod’s point of view. His disability is a key theme “The tongues of those who inhabited my world were silent,but their eyes were not. Their eyes spoke, that sea of eyes through which I moved each day. They glanced and looked in secret and averted their gazes, and this looking and not-looking spoke louder than any voice of disgust, curiosity or, worst of all, pity.”

Life in Prague in the early 1900’s is rich with description and mood which changes with the deterioration of Brod’s mind. The twist at the end caught me by surprise leaving me yearning for more. ( )