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Peter Stephens andMartin Wassermann

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Riffraff

Postscript

When Franz Kafka was asked how he thought Oskar Baum's writings on the blind would be received by the reading public, his response was that "the world should open its arms to these children." In general, Kafka's assessment proved to be correct, for Baum's writings were appreciated during his own lifetime. But, unfortunately, I believe that many contemporary readers could easily find a story like "Riffraff' to be quite lacklustre. Baum would not be insulted by this remark. His rejoinder to the criticism that his story lacked excitement would be that the ruling quality in his work was not a "sense of excitement," but, rather, a "sense of reality"; and that reality for most blind individuals was not sensational. Baum would argue, instead, that sincere attempts by the blind to resolve their everyday conflicts, as in the case of Tonda Mlvec in "Riffraff," provided the sightless with a sufficient amount of stimulation and adventure. Indeed, for Baum, it was, specifically, these very commonplace, yet challenging, struggles by the sightless which motivated him to share his realistic stories with the general public.

Oskar Baum (1883 – 1941)

Page(s) 121

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