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“Alas,” said the mouse, “the whole world is growing smaller every day. At the beginning it was so big that I was afraid, I kept running and running, and I was glad when I saw walls far away to the right and left, but these long walls have narrowed so quickly that I am in the last chamber already, and there in the corner stands the trap that I must run into.”
“You only need to change your direction,” said the cat, and ate it up.

(A Little Fable, Franz Kafka)

It saddens me how few appreciate how funny Kafka was. Contrary to what may seem on the surface, his humor is everything but neurotic: it is sane and courageous, courageous against all odds. And unlike modern attempts at comedy, with their sexual overtones and attack on conventions, Kafka’s humor is subtle and mocks no one. 

At times he may sound grotesque, with his unique brand of dark gallows humor thrown in, but it is all within the spirit of the central joke in his work – establishing our human self is a terrible struggle that results in a self whose humanity is inseparable from that same terrible struggle.

As Kafka once stated, and, I dare to envision, bearing a smirk on his face – “There is hope, but not for us”. Priceless.