← Previous Post: | Next Post: →

 

Brod’s Broad’s Brood Broods

Max Brod, you recall, ignored Kafka’s request (in writing) that he destroy all of his manuscripts… Which, you know, I guess was okay since Kafka’s manuscripts were really good.

But then Brod gave all the originals plus lots of other not-yet-released stuff to his girlfriend, who was nuts and hid it away, and then she left it all to her children (now old ladies), also nuts. Nuts and mercenary.

They’ve been selling it off bit by bit (it resides in Israel and Switzerland in bank vaults) for millions. To Germany.

Israel, finding this grody to the Max, and quite certain Brod intended all of it for the state of Israel, has been suing for decades, etc.

Here’s the latest chapter of The Trial:

… Four safety-deposit boxes were opened in Zurich Monday by order of the Israeli court, revealing a wealth of Kafka-related manuscripts that now are being catalogued. In the next few days, five other safe deposit boxes are to be opened in Tel Aviv.

When the very first of the total of 10 boxes was opened last week in Israel, one of the sisters, Eva Hoffe, is reported to have burst into the bank in an effort to prevent the vault from being opened, shouting “It’s mine, it’s mine!”

Though present this week in Switzerland, Ms. Hoffe was barred from the bank vault and from the conference room where the papers were examined.

… The library has produced evidence that Max Brod intended the manuscripts for it and, in three decades of frustrations worthy of Kafka himself, found its deal to receive the papers repeatedly blocked by Ms. Hoffe.

Sure, there’s a limerick or two here. I’ll give it a whirl. Later.

****************************

Okay. So here’s what they find in the vault.


Codicil

Dear Max, here’s my scariest thought:
That this writing, so painfully wrought,
Will fall to some bitches
Who’ll sell it for riches
And, oddly, will never be caught.

Margaret Soltan, July 21, 2010 7:30AM
Posted in: kind of a little weird, limericks

Trackback URL for this post:
https://www.margaretsoltan.com/wp-trackback.php?p=24516

4 Responses to “Brod’s Broad’s Brood Broods”

  1. Bill Gleason Says:
    July 21st, 2010 at 9:25AM

    …and so at last into the human harmony.

  2. Brett Says:
    July 21st, 2010 at 10:58AM

    Selling Franz’s works to the goyim
    Is not the best way to employ ’em.
    Donate to the library
    These papers extraordinary
    So everyone else can enjoy ’em.

  3. Margaret Soltan Says:
    July 21st, 2010 at 12:37PM

    Good one, Brett.

  4. University Diaries » Brod’s Broad’s Brood Broods Revisited Says:
    October 15th, 2012 at 8:44PM

    […] glad to be able to reuse this, one of UD‘s greatest post titles. The original post, from 2010, described Israel’s […]

Comment on this Entry

UD REVIEWED

Dr. Bernard Carroll, known as the "conscience of psychiatry," contributed to various blogs, including Margaret Soltan's University Diaries, for which he sometimes wrote limericks under the name Adam.
New York Times

George Washington University English professor Margaret Soltan writes a blog called University Diaries, in which she decries the Twilight Zone-ish state our holy land’s institutes of higher ed find themselves in these days.
The Electron Pencil

It’s [UD's] intellectual honesty that makes her blog required reading.
Professor Mondo

There's always something delightful and thought intriguing to be found at Margaret Soltan's no-holds-barred, firebrand tinged blog about university life.
AcademicPub

You can get your RDA of academic liars, cheats, and greedy frauds at University Diaries. All disciplines, plus athletics.
truffula, commenting at Historiann

Margaret Soltan at University Diaries blogs superbly and tirelessly about [university sports] corruption.
Dagblog

University Diaries. Hosted by Margaret Soltan, professor of English at George Washington University. Boy is she pissed — mostly about athletics and funding, the usual scandals — but also about distance learning and diploma mills. She likes poems too. And she sings.
Dissent: The Blog

[UD belittles] Mrs. Palin's degree in communications from the University of Idaho...
The Wall Street Journal

Professor Margaret Soltan, blogging at University Diaries... provide[s] an important voice that challenges the status quo.
Lee Skallerup Bessette, Inside Higher Education

[University Diaries offers] the kind of attention to detail in the use of language that makes reading worthwhile.
Sean Dorrance Kelly, Harvard University

Margaret Soltan's ire is a national treasure.
Roland Greene, Stanford University

The irrepressibly to-the-point Margaret Soltan...
Carlat Psychiatry Blog

Margaret Soltan, whose blog lords it over the rest of ours like a benevolent tyrant...
Perplexed with Narrow Passages

Margaret Soltan is no fan of college sports and her diatribes on the subject can be condescending and annoying. But she makes a good point here...
Outside the Beltway

From Margaret Soltan's excellent coverage of the Bernard Madoff scandal comes this tip...
Money Law

University Diaries offers a long-running, focused, and extremely effective critique of the university as we know it.
Anthony Grafton, American Historical Association

The inimitable Margaret Soltan is, as usual, worth reading. ...
Medical Humanities Blog

I awake this morning to find that the excellent Margaret Soltan has linked here and thereby singlehandedly given [this blog] its heaviest traffic...
Ducks and Drakes

As Margaret Soltan, one of the best academic bloggers, points out, pressure is mounting ...
The Bitch Girls

Many of us bloggers worry that we don’t post enough to keep people’s interest: Margaret Soltan posts every day, and I more or less thought she was the gold standard.
Tenured Radical

University Diaries by Margaret Soltan is one of the best windows onto US university life that I know.
Mary Beard, A Don's Life

[University Diaries offers] a broad sense of what's going on in education today, framed by a passionate and knowledgeable reporter.
More magazine, Canada

If deity were an elected office, I would quit my job to get her on the ballot.
Notes of a Neophyte

Archives

Categories