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Gerard J. McGarrity, PhD
Camden, NJ

JAMA. 1975;231(6):571.

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To the Editor.—

I'd like to offer an alternate interpretation to N.Y. Hoffman's views of Franz Kafka's latent homosexuality and lack of erotic themes in his love letters in her otherwise excellent critique (229:1623, 1974). Max Brod, Kafka's lifelong friend and biographer, distinguishes between the introspective, pessimistic, and private Kafka of his diaries and works and the humorous, optimistic, and life-loving public man.

Kafka often sent love and kisses to Brod in his letters. This is the public Jewish man speaking in Prague of the early 1900s. Brod indirectly comments on this only once, when he presents several Kafka letters with the general introit: "They appear to me to be especially characteristic documents of a boundlessly rich spirit which never succumbed to routine or convention." In one letter Kafka states: "This... is a kiss from me to you—in front of the whole populace."

Regarding K's lack of erotic themes in . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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