We Are All Max Brod

We read Kafka autobiographically because there is no other way. And it's not the readers' faults. This is just in the unconscious literary discourse. We simply know too much about him; so much so, that we can't help but see his father, his paranoia, even the status of Jews in Europe at the time, the closing of fate so to speak. If only there were more allusions to Buber in his work (it's in his diaries).

I also get shivers every time I think of Kafka and Rilke in the same room, perhaps saying hello to each other (unlikely), not knowing who the other is.