Reviews for Henrik Ibsen

The average rating for Henrik Ibsen based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2017-03-16 00:00:00 Fred Herrman This is a pretty good little biography of Kafka's life. Its does a very decent job to summarize the complexities of Kafka's life, his influences, and does a really effective job in bringing this in historical and geographic context, or at least to the extent a 160 page book (which essentially has 60 pages of text while the rest is intermittently filled with images of Kafka, Prague, his etchings, and so on) can allow. Id say this book would be really good for people who have read his collected works and are big Kafka fans. The author makes a point of mentioning the key works that formed the foundation of his style and substance (ie. "The Judgement") and marked his progression as a writer (i.e. "The Metamorphosis", "The Trial", "The Castle", "Josephine the Singer", etc.). The only problem I had with it was its brevity and the fact the author chose to gloss over key texts like "The Hunger Artist". But for a little picture filled bio book, it had more to say about Kafka than it was expected to. All in all, I give it 4 stars. Possibly not for Kafka scholars writing their 500 page thesis on "Description of a Struggle", but definitely for readers who want to know a little bit more about his life and interests.

Review # 2 was written on 2013-04-06 00:00:00 Pierre Scheuner This is a short book and not really a full biography (It is part of a series: "Overlook Illustrated Lives is a series of photographic biographies..." ) I thought it was well written, with many interesting photographs, drawings, etc. of Kafka, family and friends. Kafka is one of my most beloved authors so I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. The author did not have a literary/theoretical ax to grind, so that was good, and I learned that Kafka read Kierkegaard, which seems entirely as it should be, but I never knew that. Highly recommended to anyone who would like an overview of Kafka's life in connection with reading his novels and stories. (Part of the poignancy of Kafka has to do with his death and the fates of many of those he cared for: He died in 1924 of TB, which infected and silenced him even before it killed him. His parents died in the 1930s. In the background you can practically feel the gathering darkness: All three of Kafka's sisters died in the camps, his uncle committed suicide to avoid deportation, his great love Milena also died in a camp. But his best friend, Max Brod, escaped to Palestine with the manuscripts that Kafka had instructed him to burn--thank god he disobeyed! All of these facts, to me, radiate throughout Kafka's writing's, making him one of the great prophet of the 20th Century.)