I've never really read Kafka. I bought the Castle, looked at all the words, spent an embarrassing amount of time on each page, but I could not absorb their meaning. Which was fine with me. In fact I was glad Kafka never finished the novel because the thought of pretending to read another page was too painful to consider.
Then I read Broyard's memoir and I start to feel cheated. How come this Kafka guy didn't change my life! Influence my thought. I blame him of course and not my sub-par intellect.
Aside from making me greedy, Anatole Broyard's memoir made me hungry for Greenwich Village circa 1940's. Circa anytime actually. I liked his sentences. I understood all the words. I'll probably even remember some of them for a long time.
I knew I liked Greenwich Village but I didn't know why until now. The neighborhood has met a lot of dreamers. Heard a lot of crazy ideas. Witnessed a lot of stories unfold, like Broyards. You feel it when you're there but it's always nice to know the juicy details.
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