Kafka’s Stereoscopes: The Political Function of a Literary Style. By Isak Winkel Holm. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2021. 269 pages + 5 b/w images. $121.50 hardcover, $28.76 e-book, $35.95 paperback.

In this study, Holm sets out to participate in what has become the dominant position in Kafka studies as of late: to attest that Kafka was not “an apolitical and solipsistic writer” (1). Holm claims that Kafka’s strategy of presenting two opposing perspectives when describing characters or events is key to evoking “a political moment” for readers, suggesting that this unsettling stereoscopic experience prompts readers to see the constructed, and thus not inevitable, structure of communities in the world in which they live. Holm lays bare three theses as he proceeds, and this is thesis one: that Kafka uses a stereoscopic strategy (presenting opposing perspectives of the same event).

Holm argues that this literary technique derives in part from Kafka’s fascination with the Kaiserpanorama he observed in 1911. The Kaiserpanorama was a large rotating cylindrical box, surrounded by numerous chairs for viewers. Viewers used binocular optics to peer inside at pairs of slides, the slides presenting dual perspectives that merged into a vision of a three-dimensional object or person. Explicating Kafka’s diary comments, Holm emphasizes Kafka’s keen interest in the sense of the uncanny emerging from this experience: that unnerving apprehension of things or people that seem lifelike but at the same time do not. However, Holm quickly leaves the uncanny effect of the Kaiserpanorama behind (despite this being Kafka’s emphasis) to move toward his claim that Kafka strategically presents opposing views of how a community functions: orderly versus disorderly. This insight that Kafka’s stereoscopic portrayals focus on community is Holm’s second thesis.

In what he calls his third thesis, Holm relies on Hannah Arendt’s work that targets moments when groups of people act together in concert to enact “the worldbuilding capacity of man,” “breaking with a petrified order of things and recreating the foundation of communal life” (13). Holm argues that readers of Kafka’s stereoscopic portraits of communities experience an ephemeral moment of “the political” “to prompt a kind of political thinking endowed with this worldbuilding force” (13). Holm himself acknowledges that many other critics have noticed Kafka’s use of dual perspectives (75). Moreover, his third thesis is never fully substantiated (and perhaps cannot be, as it relies on imagined readers’ experiences of Kafka’s works, reading experiences that vary widely). Therefore, the contribution Holm’s study offers lies in his second thesis: in some intriguing discussions of how many of Kafka’s works center on the juxtaposition of opposing perspectives of communities.

Holm’s book is divided into three sections. The first part explores Holm’s three theses (Kafka’s use of two opposing perspectives, the focus on community, and the evocation of aesthetic reflection infused with the political). His exploration in Part One works its way through four disparate texts (no justification is offered as to why this particular collection is chosen). These works include the short piece “Fellowship,” Kafka’s diary observation of young women working in his family’s asbestos factory, and the stories “The Judgment” and “Investigations of a Dog.” In this constellation, the discussion of “Fellowship” is intriguing, revealing a way of considering a variety of Kafka’s short, perplexing pieces through the lens of how they portray community. In his analysis of “Investigations of a Dog,” Holm takes his readers on a lively walk through the dog’s musings to consider how the present dog community is more rigid than older generations that could more easily accommodate change. Holm misses Kafka’s acute critique of the reification of labor in his discussion of the asbestos factory scene, and the discussion of “The Judgment” remains rooted in the oft-noted opposition between Georg’s and his father’s understanding of the circle of community members (such as the friend in Russia).

In Part Two, Holm turns to two experiences that influenced Kafka’s stereoscopic perspective, discussing first Kafka’s experiences of the Yiddish Theater and then Kafka’s advocacy for funds to care for war veterans. The discussion of the Yiddish Theater is engaging and insightful, capturing the impact of the staging that so fired Kafka’s imagination. However, this discussion might have been better placed earlier in the book. The second section here moves from Kafka’s interest in war veterans to a discussion of “The Great Wall of China.” This section, like the discussion of “Investigations of a Dog” earlier, would be a useful critical reading to consider in undergraduate courses.

In Part Three, Holm turns his attention to (necessarily brief) discussions of Amerika, The Trial and The Castle. Holm’s analyses of the stereoscopic perspectives in Amerika and The Trial do not reveal any surprisingly new critical paths. Most readers of Amerika can easily discern how Karl Rossmann gets enamored of his own naively enthusiastic defense of the Stoker (what Holm labels the legal community perspective) but then gets swallowed up by the claustrophobic embrace of his uncle (the familial community). Similarly, it is not difficult for readers of The Trial to observe how Josef. K. embraces the stance of a political candidate in his first appearance at “the court” but is then dismayed to realize that he is operating in a very odd, private space. Holm notes that although Josef K. fails to bring about a political moment, the experience of reading the novel does what K. cannot; the stereoscopic strategy works on readers, Holm claims, to “reconfigure the image of communal life” (220). Besides being unclear, this claim cannot be substantiated in any way, a problem indicative of Holm’s third thesis throughout his book.

However, Holm’s analysis of The Castle is richly suggestive. Scholars and students alike will find much to provoke thought and instigate intriguing classroom discussions here. The stereoscopic (dual) perspectives Holm explores are, on the one hand, the route to castle access defined by formalized, rule-bound subordination to a bureaucracy that evokes awe and fear (the polis, although a twisted one), and, on the other, an intimate route through desire, bliss, attraction, and repulsion (the oikos). It is in offering up readings of texts like this that Holm excels; it is when pushing to his third thesis, making claims about readers’ experiences of a political moment when confronted by stereoscopic perspectives, that the argument falters.

Holm is erudite and passionate about Kafka’s life and works, and in his concluding remarks he shares how Kafka’s “On the Question of the Laws” intersects with issues vexing our contemporary global society. He touches on exclusionary immigration laws, disaster preparation that compels compliance with state control, and neoliberalism that limits the possibility of political critique or change by transforming citizens into competitive entrepreneurs or zealous consumers. One is left wistful that these compelling lines of inquiry are not explored throughout the book.