In this story Kafka imagines the god Poseidon sitting at his desk under the waves and crunching numbers. Kafka presents us with a Poseidon whose job as god of the sea no one truly understands. Because he is so busy in his management position, he never gets to enjoy the sea over which he rules. Poseidon would love to find a new job, but what else is he really qualified to do? Kafka ironically and humorously concludes his story, “He liked to joke that he was waiting for the end of the world, then he’d find a free moment right before the end, after completing his final calculation, to take a quick spin in the sea.” I read this story in a new translation of Kafka’s prose done by Peter Wortsman and published by Archipelago Books. Wortsman has chosen a wonderful selection of shorter writings that showcase the range of the author’s brilliance.
Written in 1920 in German but never published during the author’s lifetime. Translated into English by Peter Wortsman, collected in Konundrum: Selected Prose of Franz Kafka, Archipelago Books, 2016; also by Michael Hofmann in Investigations of a Dog and Other Creatures, New Directions, 2017. Hofmann’s version is available to read online in the Paris Review, here
A Personal Anthology 