A life at the foot of a castle mountain. The life, truth and narration in Water Benjamins writings on Franz Kafka

Subject to analysis is the theological vision ascribed by Walter Benjamin to Franz Kafka, in particular, Benjamin's concept of a 'life at the foot of a castle mountain' and the messianic potential inscribed in such a life. To this end, the author discusses a number of categories, such as narration, parable, gesture, as well as distortion, recurrence and a 'life turned into the Scripture'. He identifies the Benjamin/Kafka theology as an extreme case of Gnosticism without a gnosis; his argument is that in his interpretation of Kafka, Benjamin played or trifled with the idea of salvation though a narrative.