Franz Kafka, The Jewish Patient

In this unique and fascinating study, Sander Gilman unravels the strange tale of Kafka's relation to his body, to the specific Jewishness' of his illness, and to his masculinity. Gilman's knowledge of Kafka's cultural and historical period, and specifically the cultural fears surrounding European Jews, opens the medical case of Kafka's famous body: the tall, gawky figure, wracked by deep anxieties about maleness, sickness and suffering. With access to Kafka's medical records, Gilman engages in a fascinating analysis of hyperchondria, anorexia, homosexuality, turn-of-the-century ritual slaughter, and myths about the relationship of body type to character.