I didn't
expect an owl in
Kafka's diaries. I just didn't think of him as a nature guy, if you know what I mean, because I don't know what I mean, but luckily
no one cares, and neither do I. Anyhow! There she was, suddenly, a teacher Kafka meets, "
owlish young fresh face, full of lively tense features." Then,
to my shock, the book was over a couple of pages later, but I should have known, because
translator Ross Benjamin never met a sentence he didn't want to augment with an
endnote. Did every endnote, however, serve an illuminating purpose? I read a lot of them, and I have to say no. But I like his energy!