Dear List,

While reading a novel by Murakami I learned that the name “Kafka” means “raven” in Czech.

Whenever I find a scene involving squirrels, otters or minks, I think about “Cinderella” (associated to Blanche, in a ghostly fourth dimension). When I read about ravens (like Lenore Raven and her obvious literary links, as shown by B.Boyd’s notes for PF, and Nabokov’s own in his commentary to Eugene Onegin and Romantism), my first association is the most obvious one, namely, Poe’s poem.

It’s almost ninety percent certain that Nabokov would have known that “Kafka” means “Raven” ( should Murakami’s information be correct), yet I don’t remember his calling attention to it, inspite of the importance of Kafka in Nabokov’s eyes. Or did he mention it in his lecture on Kafka, or elsewhere? He transforms and animates lots of names (Herzog, Eliot, aso), why not Kafka’s?  

Can anyone help me elucidate this rather casual item?