Reviews - Lettera al padre

1.26k reviews for:

Lettera al padre

Franz Kafka

4.04 AVERAGE

vada_salome's review against another edition

4.0

dark emotional

linda568's review against another edition

4.25

dark emotional sad fast-paced

yosoyshin's review against another edition

5.0

dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

No puedo decir otra cosa más que comparto un profundo entendimiento en la manera en que comparte sus heridas que se construyeron desde la infancia y que repercutieron duramente en su adultez. Me veo reflejado en él, en su dolor, en su frustración.

wuthrinheights's review against another edition

5.0

emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced

It is indeed quite possible that even if I had grown up entirely free from your influence I still could not have become a person after your own heart.

Reading this book will never fail to break my heart a little. Kafka, pleading, tears dropping on his letter, hoping he could get through to his father. Explaining why their relationship was so strained since he was little, how his father's upbringing scarred him. It is so raw, so honest, so.. relatable.

Of growing up and thinking back on how the people you look up to were so hard on you but then you realise that they didn't even live up to the standards they set for you when you were young. I get it.

But I also get his father (somewhat). That he grew up poor and working hard labour at a young age, that he had his pride and he wanted to raise a good family. Not excusing his abuse, of course, but I get where he's coming from. [Still doesn't discount the effect he had on poor young Kafka.]

If you think about it, this book could be a cautionary tale to parents and their upbringing styles among their children. How their words and behaviour could carve and mould their kids, to set them in life. In here, Franz wrote about how his father's (mis)treatment of him growing up affected him in all areas. His confidence, his social skills, his relationships, his self worth, his ideas on marriage, etc. That a parent could fling words so carelessly but it stays with the child forever.

This book is so, so good. I just wish I could improve my German so I can read the second half of this book in its original language. Thank you for the heartbreak, Frank.