Franz Kafka, in a letter to Oskar Pollak (1904): "Altogether, I think we ought to read only books that bite and sting us. If the book does not shake us awake like a blow to the skull, why bother reading it in the first place? So that it can make us happy, as you put it? Good God, we'd be just as happy if we had no books at all; books that make us happy we could, in a pinch, also write ourselves. What we need are books that hit us like a most painful misfortune, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, that make us feel as though we had been banished to the woods, far from any human presence, like a suicide. A book must be the ax for the frozen sea within us. That is what I believe."
James Joyce.
“Welcome, O life, I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race.”
I posted the James Joyce quote to show what he said was the purpose of his art.
Nothing at all about challenging or shocking people.
But, after writing the above, Joyce went on and wrote one of the most challenging works of art of the English language Its purpose was not to challenge but to create.
Similarly, with tour Kafka quote, he is describing properties of art he values. Never does he say the challenge Is the purpose, but he is describing the effect art he likes has on him.
And I’d also say what Kafka is describing is a personal preference and in no way reflects the purpose of any and all art.
Keep in mind as well that Kafka wrote that when he was only 20 years old.
That is the sort of thing a young man says and thinks.
I sure did.