Kafka and the Travelling Doll is a beautiful story written by Spanish writer Jordi Sierra i Fabra about an enchanted encounter between the writer Franz Kafka, and a heartbroken little girl. Kafka is widely regarded as one of the major literary figures of the 20th century, and his work typically features isolated protagonists facing bizarre or surrealistic predicaments, and incomprehensible socio-bureaucratic powers. Among his most notable works are The Metamorphosis and The Trial where he explores themes of alienation, existential anxiety, guilt, and absurdity.
As the story goes, Kafka was walking through Steglitz Park in Berlin where he meets a little girl who was crying because she had lost her doll. To calm her down, Kafka tells the girl that the doll was probably away on a trip, but not to worry as he was a postman and the doll will surely send her a letter. He arranges to meet the girl the next day to deliver the letter.
That night, with the intensity that he applied to all his writings, Kafka composes a letter from the doll to replace the girl’s loss with a different reality. The next day, in the park, he reads the letter to the little girl: “Please do not mourn me, I have gone on a trip to see the world. I will write you of my adventures.”
For three weeks Kafka continues to write letters from the doll recounting her adventures and reads them to the little girl. The doll grows up, goes to school, meets other people, but always reassures the little girl of her love while complaining of the obligations of her doll-life that prevent her from returning to live with the little girl at this time. By the end of the three weeks, the little girl no longer misses the doll. Kafka has given her a new reality curing her of her unhappiness.
As a last gift for the little girl, Kafka gives her a new doll that obviously looked different from the original doll, but an attached letter explains: “My travels have changed me…”
Many years later, the now grown girl finds a letter stuffed into an unnoticed crevice in the cherished replacement doll: In part it reads: “Everything that you love, you will eventually lose, but in the end, love will return in a different form.”
For some reason, as a Cuban exile who lost his country as thirteen-year-old boy six decades ago, I relate intensely to this story. The loss of country was certainly agonizing for me, as it was for my fellow exiles. Like many of my exile generation, I have never returned, and I have never been able to visit my parents’ grave in Havana’s Colon Cemetery. For years, Kafka’s themes of alienation, existential anxiety, guilt, and absurdity were very real to me.
And, those of us that fought the Castro regime in the underground resistance and from exile, often felt like Kafka’s isolated protagonists facing bizarre and surrealistic predicaments, and incomprehensible socio-bureaucratic powers. But, like the little girl in the story, I have now learned not to miss my country of birth because I live happily in a new reality. I have gone, with the doll, on an extended trip to see the world and to write of my adventures.
And yes, “My travels have changed me…” My new reality has cured me of my unhappiness. I have learned to cherish our individual birth rights of life, liberty, and property. I have sought to pursue the learnings of freedom, and to delight in the protections of the rule of law which is the legal foundation for liberty. I aspire to enjoy the prosperity obtainable by contributing my talents in a free market economy, and to proudly build a future in liberty, and of liberty for our children and grandchildren.
For Kafka, writing was a “form of prayer.” And these many years later, like the little girl in the story, I too have found, in a previously unnoticed crevice of life, that even though I once lost the country I loved, love of country eventually returns in a different form.
As the story goes, Kafka was walking through Steglitz Park in Berlin where he meets a little girl who was crying because she had lost her doll. To calm her down, Kafka tells the girl that the doll was probably away on a trip, but not to worry as he was a postman and the doll will surely send her a letter. He arranges to meet the girl the next day to deliver the letter.
That night, with the intensity that he applied to all his writings, Kafka composes a letter from the doll to replace the girl’s loss with a different reality. The next day, in the park, he reads the letter to the little girl: “Please do not mourn me, I have gone on a trip to see the world. I will write you of my adventures.”
For three weeks Kafka continues to write letters from the doll recounting her adventures and reads them to the little girl. The doll grows up, goes to school, meets other people, but always reassures the little girl of her love while complaining of the obligations of her doll-life that prevent her from returning to live with the little girl at this time. By the end of the three weeks, the little girl no longer misses the doll. Kafka has given her a new reality curing her of her unhappiness.
As a last gift for the little girl, Kafka gives her a new doll that obviously looked different from the original doll, but an attached letter explains: “My travels have changed me…”
Many years later, the now grown girl finds a letter stuffed into an unnoticed crevice in the cherished replacement doll: In part it reads: “Everything that you love, you will eventually lose, but in the end, love will return in a different form.”
For some reason, as a Cuban exile who lost his country as thirteen-year-old boy six decades ago, I relate intensely to this story. The loss of country was certainly agonizing for me, as it was for my fellow exiles. Like many of my exile generation, I have never returned, and I have never been able to visit my parents’ grave in Havana’s Colon Cemetery. For years, Kafka’s themes of alienation, existential anxiety, guilt, and absurdity were very real to me.
And, those of us that fought the Castro regime in the underground resistance and from exile, often felt like Kafka’s isolated protagonists facing bizarre and surrealistic predicaments, and incomprehensible socio-bureaucratic powers. But, like the little girl in the story, I have now learned not to miss my country of birth because I live happily in a new reality. I have gone, with the doll, on an extended trip to see the world and to write of my adventures.
And yes, “My travels have changed me…” My new reality has cured me of my unhappiness. I have learned to cherish our individual birth rights of life, liberty, and property. I have sought to pursue the learnings of freedom, and to delight in the protections of the rule of law which is the legal foundation for liberty. I aspire to enjoy the prosperity obtainable by contributing my talents in a free market economy, and to proudly build a future in liberty, and of liberty for our children and grandchildren.
For Kafka, writing was a “form of prayer.” And these many years later, like the little girl in the story, I too have found, in a previously unnoticed crevice of life, that even though I once lost the country I loved, love of country eventually returns in a different form.
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