Kafka and Weil: Self-shedding and decreativity in our writing practices

All writers turn their backs on the world, in a sense, when they sit at the desk, and they also forget themselves in the act of writing. Some writing practices are more overtly connected to renunciation. Contemporaries Franz Kafka and Simone Weil both held renunciative conceptions of their ambitions and expression: ‘self-shedding’ and ‘decreation’ respectively. Kafka sought this primarily through a writing practice that he described at times as redemption, penance and prayer; Weil’s approach included contemplative reading and writing practices, Christian prayer and political activism. Decreativity – a strange word but an age-old idea – makes it possible to see fragmented, difficult and sometimes pathologised writing and writers in another light. Through three short works by Kafka – “At Night”, “Two Antagonists” and the aphorism “A cage went in search of a bird” – this article contemplates decreativity in our writing and reading practices, laying the groundwork for a radical reconsideration of their scope and value.