A Book Must Be the Axe for the Frozen Sea Within Us
The Words That Buoyed My Memoir Writing
One of the best expressions of what books do for the soul comes from Franz Kafka. Often portrayed as dark and depressive, Kafka was equally capable of expressing an extraordinary sensitivity to the beauty of life. In late 1903, Kafka writes to his childhood friend, the art historian Oskar Pollak:
“Some books seem like a key to unfamiliar rooms in one’s own castle.”
This expression is a metaphor for tapping into the body’s innate wisdom through storytelling. Stories are medicine. Stories can be a door to energetic shifts in our field. This is where healing happens.
Months later, in early 1904, he expanded on his opinion in another letter to Pollak:
“I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us. If the book we are reading doesn’t wake us up with a blow on the head, what are we reading it for? So that it will make us happy, as you write? Good Lord, we would be happy precisely if we had no books, and the kind of books that make us happy are the kind we could write ourselves if we had to. But we need the books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us. That is my belief.”
Kafka had a short and tormented life. He was a gifted writer, a charming, intelligent, and humorous individual. Instead of concentrating on his writing efforts full-time, he held a routine office job, and this exhausting double life was distressing. After many years, he decided to devote himself to writing. One year later, he died of tuberculosis just before his 40th birthday. Before his death, he explicitly instructed that all his work should be destroyed.
His request was ignored. Kafka’s stories became well-known, and his recognizable storytelling led to the term “Kafkaesque.” Taken from his fictional space, this term is used in our language to describe frustrating circumstances. In his stories, bureaucracies subjugate people in surreal and frightening scenes to evoke irrational, confusing, and helpless emotions without a clear path to resolve. His stories give the feeling of being trapped in a maze.
I encountered Kafka’s inspiring words in the early stages of writing my memoir, The Seller of Secrets. “A book must be the axe for the frozen sea” became my mantra. The words became buoyant objects I held onto for stability and support as I navigated the emotional waves of transcribing my healing journey. They became my life raft while navigating the fact-finding maze I found myself in. They helped me address my fear and vulnerability in writing about sensitive topics. The phrase became a prompt to keep going when I allowed self-sabotage, doubt, and fear to creep in.
As I wrote, I visualized an axe in my mind, and chapter by chapter, I used it to chip away at my frozen sea. With each crack, I accessed, interpreted, and made sense of difficult memories and revealed truths that certainly felt “Kafkaesque” at times. I found my lost parts within the fractures. I carefully excavated each one and reassembled her with great care.
Words are powerful and hold a remarkable ability to shape and inspire. One hundred and twenty years later, Kafka’s inspiring words buoyed my writing efforts and helped me wield my axe with persistence and an intentional purpose of healing my mind, body, and soul.
Read something that affects you like a disaster. Allow yourself to grieve deeply. Open your mind and heart to access a greater degree of awareness.
Find a quote that lifts you. A simple quote can transform and liberate. Use it to tap into your inner wisdom. Gather what you know, what you do not know, what you want to figure out. Connect with nature. Look deeply into your rearview mirror. Introspection can serve an extraordinary purpose.
The doors that you perceive to be closed are just waiting for you to walk through.
Spring is the perfect time for renewal.
In service, peace, and love,
Kathleen