Max Brod: When Kafka read aloud himself, this humor became perfectly clear. Thus, for example, we friends of his laughed quite immoderately when he first let us hear the first chapter of The Trial. And he himself laughed so much that there were moments when he couldn’t read any further. Astonishing enough, when you think of the fearful earnestness...

http://web2.law.buffalo.edu/faculty/westbrook/KafkaLaughter....