Franz Kafka Books

Kafka's writing works at many levels. I am sure almost every school of Literary Criticism makes its own special narrative of Gregor Samsa's transformation into an insect, and the subsequent trials and tribulations he knows.
On one level Samsa is Kafka and he is telling us the story of his own self- contempt, the world of his own family relations, the world in which a powerful dominating father reduces his son to nothing more than an object of disturbance and villification.
On another level Samsa is clearly the artist seeking his own form of transformation and expression. He is the outcast in a Society which refuses to recognize him for what he is.
On a third level we are seeing a historical prophecy for what is to happen to Kafka's world and family - that they are to be destroyed mercilessly by those ' superior beings' who morally are most evil.
One of the startling elements in the story is seeing how once its premise is given, and Samsa is an insect, how he operates on that basis. The tremedous seriousness with which he takes himself indicates perhaps Kafka's questioning of the possibility of truly making ' redeemed lives' lives of blessedness given the circumstances of the social and political milieu given here.
Kafka imagines himself, imagines his own being crushed, and yet continues beyond this story to others.
There is a sense as I write this that I have not gotten it right. I have the feeling that I missed the story in a certain way.
Perhaps this too is part of the experience the reading of Kafka gives. The world does not only fail to meet our specifications for it, even those parts of it we choose to focus on have their own strange pathways to different kinds of meaning.
These multiple readings taken together perhaps provide some ense of who Kafka is , and what his work means.
But do they really?

Professor Stanley Korngold translates Franz Kafka's novella, "The Metamorphosis" (1915), and edits this Norton Critical Edition. Even though Korngold's translation was done in 1971, it stands as an excellent idiomatic rendition of the original German manuscript. Korngold includes in this volume a section entitled "Kafka's Manuscript Revisions," which reflects more recent German scholarship. Korngold's page-by-page annotations to the novella elucidate details which serve to clarify the text for close readings. Following the novella, ("Die Verlandlung," in German), is a section of pertinent exerpts of Kafka's Letters and Diaries. The next section of the volume, "Criticism," contains a collection of seven essays, which were written between 1970-1995. A Chronology of Kafka's life and work and a Selected Biography are also included.

Professor Korngold has done a masterful job with this edition of "The Metamorphosis." Kafka's masterpiece, according to Korngold, "...is perfect, even as it incessantly provokes criticism." For the transformation of Gregor Samsa into the "monstrous vermin" disturbs readers who want and need to "control" the text. To do otherwise is to accept the hopelessness that is at the center of Samsa's existence. For the uninitiated readers, who are often first-year university students in required literature courses, "The Metamorphosis" often defies facile interpretation. Thus, the critical essays, which include poststructuralist, psychoanalytic, feminist, cultural, and historicist literary theories about the novella, are very helpful to frustrated students who may have been given essay assignments. Of particular note is Korngold's critical discussion of Kafka's "literalization of the metaphor."

My suggestion is to read "The Metamorphosis" first (in this excellent Korngold translation) and to note one's immediate reactions to the text. Then, one can explore the other sections of this critical edition at one's leisure. Finally, one can re-read the text again. ("The Metamorphosis" is short enough that it can easily be read in one sitting.)

This Norton Critical Edition is highly recommended for inclusion in first-year university literature curriculae, as well as for AP high school English or World Literature courses. Franz Kafka was one of the literary geniuses of the twentieth century, and "The Metamorphosis" is an excellent introduction to his writings.

Professor Stanley Korngold translates Franz Kafka's novella, "The Metamorphosis" (1915), and edits this Norton Critical Edition. Even though Korngold's translation was done in 1971, it stands as an excellent idiomatic rendition of the original German manuscript. Korngold includes in this volume a section entitled "Kafka's Manuscript Revisions," which reflects more recent German scholarship. Korngold's page-by-page annotations to the novella elucidate details which serve to clarify the text for close readings. Following the novella, ("Die Verlandlung," in German), is a section of pertinent exerpts of Kafka's Letters and Diaries. The next section of the volume, "Criticism," contains a collection of seven essays, which were written between 1970-1995. A Chronology of Kafka's life and work and a Selected Biography are also included.

Professor Korngold has done a masterful job with this edition of "The Metamorphosis." Kafka's masterpiece, according to Korngold, "...is perfect, even as it incessantly provokes criticism." For the transformation of Gregor Samsa into the "monstrous vermin" disturbs readers who want and need to "control" the text. To do otherwise is to accept the hopelessness that is at the center of Samsa's existence. For the uninitiated readers, who are often first-year university students in required literature courses, "The Metamorphosis" often defies facile interpretation. Thus, the critical essays, which include poststructuralist, psychoanalytic, feminist, cultural, and historicist literary theories about the novella, are very helpful to frustrated students who may have been given essay assignments. Of particular note is Korngold's critical discussion of Kafka's "literalization of the metaphor."

My suggestion is to read "The Metamorphosis" first (in this excellent Korngold translation) and to note one's immediate reactions to the text. Then, one can explore the other sections of this critical edition at one's leisure. Finally, one can re-read the text again. ("The Metamorphosis" is short enough that it can easily be read in one sitting.)

This Norton Critical Edition is highly recommended for inclusion in first-year university literature curriculae, as well as for AP high school English or World Literature courses. Franz Kafka was one of the literary geniuses of the twentieth century, and "The Metamorphosis" is an excellent introduction to his writings.

For the reader new to Kafka as a writer, there is a lot of baggage to be thrown off: everything implied by the cliche 'Kafkaesque' we've gathered from films, other books and the like (alienation, angst, modern man and the Absurd, the terror of totalitarian bureaucracy, etc.); everything, in other words, that has made a caricature of an original vision.

So, for the first-time reader of Kafka, there are some pleasant surprises in 'the Metamorphosis'. The novella is often very funny - Gregor's orientation to his condition (he enjoys running up the walls and hanging off the ceiling) and the reaction of his family and manager provoke some priceless farcical set-pieces. It is a Gothic story - about a salesman who turns into a monstrous vermin, and the aghast reaction of his family; there are some unexpected frissons in the story we would normally expect from the horror genre. It is a portrait of a complacent middle-class family in decline, a la Galsworthy, or a study of the artist in an impoverished family with a weak but aggressive father, like Joyce's 'Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man'. There are even elments of sentimental melodrama in the way Kafka loads up the sympathy for his monster in the face of almost caricatured hostility - I found myself welling up once or twice.

This is not to diminish Kafka's dark and frightening vision, just to suggest how much of his art depends on play, with narrative modes and genres, with narration, with reader's expectations. The horror, anxiety, unease, if you like, is actually quite marginal on the surface - the oppressive vastness of his familiar bedroom as perceived by Gregor in his new form; the endless vista of an adjacent hospital. It's under this surface that the true anxiety lies - the gaps in the narration, the unreliability of Gregor's perceptions and interpretations, the ambiguity of Kafka's language, the witholding and gradual unfolding of details. There don't seem to be any mirrors in the Samsa household, but the story is full of mirror-like tableaux - the portrait of the lady in furs; the photo of Gregor as a young soldier; the image of domestic life viewed every evening by Gregor in darkness.

If only all classics were treated with the respect of this edition. the translation is mostly smooth and fresh, with occasionally clumsy constructions and jarring Americanisms (are there really trolleys and foyers in Kafka's world?). The critical apparatus provides endless intellectual nourishment - manuscript revisions revealing the precision of Kafka's writing; an account of the story's genesis, creation and background through letters, diaries and related Kafka works; and seven critical essays from perspectives as varied as feminism, psychoanalysis, new-historicism and linguistics, some infected by the usual blights of literary criticism (e.g. undigested globs of French theory making argument and prose impenetrable; distortion of text to produce biased interpretaions), but which insightfully open up the astonishing density and ambiguity of a 40-page fable, offering ingenious, mutually excluxive, even contradictory readings that are all very plausible, and yet ultimately miss Kafka's elusive enigma.

This little book, actually, "letter" will get to your heart. Its one of the most human prose I have ever read, the intimate conflits in a father-son relationship. No not stop until you find it, you will not regret it.

This is a letter never sent. It is written from Kafka the tormented son to his father Hermann. It tells of the relationship of father and son, as seen by the son. But a good part of the son's seeing is his understanding of his father, and his father's perception of and disappointment with him. It is an analysis of his father's life also , and in a way an attempt to make a kind of connection with the distant father the son has not really had in life.
For anyone who has had a difficult father whose love and approval they so much longed for , and did not have - this work will be a soul- opening one. It is painful, deep, true and as with all Kafka somehow mysteriously deep and beautiful .
A great great work of a great great genius.

Definitely read this book if you can ever find it and if you like Kafka. It's a deeply personal, open-minded, unapologetically contradictory analysis of the relationship between one over-bearing, opinionated father and his timid son. One of the best books I've read

This book is a fascinating set of aphorisms that Kafka wrote while retreated from the world and recuperating from tuberculosis. Italian Kafka scholar Roberto Calasso frames the context with an insightful introduction and afterword. The aphorisms have been published much as it is assumed Kafka wanted, each on a separate page. Here is Kafka's philosophy in the raw, and it is fascinating. This is not a book to be devoured, but to be periodically sipped from so that the reader can savor and reflect on each aphorism.

In April 1917 Kafka went for an eight- month visit at the home of his sister Ottla and her husband in the Bohemian town of Zurau. Shortly after arriving he began to spit blood, the sign that tuberculosis truly had come. According to Calasso's introduction this did not dishearten Kafka but rather liberated him. Calasso says that the eight months in Zurau were the happiest of Kafka's life as they enabled him to be away from the family, the office, the questions of marriage , the areas in life which disturbed him. He could be totally within himself in the realm Calasso says Kafka most at home in.
As a student Calasso came across these aphorisms in original manuscript. He noticed that they were written in an unusual way. Usually Kafka crowded his writing line after line into his notebooks. Here each aphorism was presented on its own on a single page. And this is the way this edition of them presents them, one at a time surrounded by much empty space. As Calasso points out most of Kafka's aphorisms were not what we ordinarily think of as that, though some were close. His aphorisms might be parables, or small narratives. The key is that the few lines they consist in must be seen in isolation surrounded by empty space, so that they can be read in themselves with maximum concentration.
If I recall rightly most of these aphorisms were published in a work of Kafka edited by his friend, Max Brod.
In any case the paradoxical beauty, the tremendous depth of Kafka's thought is found here in these isolated entries. I would take exception to the 'puff of the publisher' that they represent Kafka's 'philosophy'. Kafka was not a philosopher and did not have a philosophy but rather his own way of seeing and thinking about the world, an uncanny remarkable original and hauntingly painful and beautiful way.

Writing about Kafka is just as difficult and always more useless (in the Kafka-esque sense) than reading Kafka. Really the only people who ought to be allowed to write about Kafka are those who live in caves or at the bottom of wells or in high mountain towers and have studied Kafka's work for fifty years. He evades interpretation, as Harold Bloom pointed out, which is another way of saying he is hard to understand.

I think the best way to take these aphorisms is with something like the steely commitment of a scholar-monk in the dark ages piecing together out of rare manuscripts the arcane glories of a past world. The extreme heroism of the writer must summon forth a similar heroism in the reader. One must live with Kafka rather than devour him.

Only a fool would seek to interpret Kafka in an amazon review. I am, of course, a fool so I would suggest that the phrase "The impossibility of spirit" would be not too much more deceptive, partial, or misleading a statement than any other when considering Kafka's work. Certainly for Kafka the spiritual and the political are both present (or absent; one sees what I mean!); great writers like Theodor Adorno are simply wrong to read Kafka as only or primarily a political writer. Both possibilities must be kept in mind.

These days, in literature, Kafka is often made the signatory of many more minor literary projects engaged in by lesser though esteemable writers. It is helpful to return to the reluctant master himself to be aware of life's inextinguishable distances. Kafka wasn't trying to create the "Kafka-esque" or be strange in a way that would appeal to hoardes of white middle class semi-intellectuals. He was trying to set down in clear and readable prose what he thought and what he felt whether he had anything in common with it or not.

Amazon will not permit me to give Mr. Franz Kafka as many stars as I would like. My choices are limited to only five.

Poor 16 year old Karl is send to America,
because he has been seduced by a maid.
Hardly a reward. In America he finds work
at the Hotel Occidental. At the hotel he
is in charge of one of the 30 elevators.
And hopes to climb to the top of this
new world, however meagre his
startposition seems.

Kafka masterly describes it all
with gallows humor spiked with desperation.
Making it a hilarious read.
The sentences just stand there on the page
and you can hardly do anything but laugh.
E.g.: The kitchen chef told Karl
he had worked in the Golden Goose in Prague.
Karl then told the kitchen chef that
the Golden Goose had been torn down.
And: Karl reasoned that it would have
been insane to turn down a nice
position as piccolo just because he
had finished the first five years
of the Gymnasium school. Here
in America such formal education would
rather be something to be ashamed of.

When people hear the term Kafkan or Kafkaesque,
I guess most people would think of
a dark world,where isolated, guilt-ridden
people face problems that cannot be escaped
or resolved.
Maybe this is also such a story,
but it is also very, very funny.

-Simon

Kafka drives the reader crazy by this epic narration about the adventures of Karl, an adolescent sent to America at the beginning of XX century. While escaping from a stupid love affair Karl is to meet his uncle who will receive him at home and will push him into the secrets of accounting.
Thanks to one of Kafka's eternal "malentendus" Karl is sent to the immigrant's arena and he has to live on his own. Almost penniless, his sole possessions are his battered trunk and an old photography of his parents.
One can't but feel empathy and tenderness for young Karl. Fired by his uncle who was supposed to protect him, Karl has to cope with two drunkards (an Irish and a French) who attempt by all means to abuse of his innocence by promising him a job in the west coast.
Karl then finds a humble place at a big hotel. He is in charge of one of the numerous elevators and works almost sixteen hours a day just to be dismissed due to a new misunderstanding.
At times hilariously, the novel crudely describes the situation of many Europeans who might have dreamed of America as an oasis to later realize they were just joined as a little part of an enormous and unspeakable machine.

El Proceso
Franz Kafka

La pesadilla de Franz Kafka.

Esta pesadilla, es una interminable sucesión de hechos que rayan en el absurdo y en lo incomprensible. Obra de una mente atormentada por ser tal vez tan consciente de su tiempo, de su humanidad y de los días por venir. Kafka tenia una visión que fue incomprendida en su tiempo. Solo a raíz de los acontecimientos posteriores, se logra un entendimiento más o menos cabal de su obra como escritor y de sus relatos de pesadilla, en la que los personajes se ven envueltos en situaciones que parecen estar fuera de su control. El proceso relata la historia de Joseph K., banquero con un futuro prometedor que un día despierta para encontrarse con dos oficiales del servicio policial que se disponen a informarle que esta sometido por un proceso judicial y que tiene que prepararse para un juicio del cual se le informará la fecha. Nunca sabemos en el relato de que es acusado el señor K. Supongo que se le acusa de ser humano, de vivir, de pertenecer a un mundo en el cual no pidió estar. Pero las mías son meras conjeturas y K se enfrenta al proceso solo y desconcertado y cada vez que avanzamos más en la historia vemos que el proceso se torna más envolvente y que cada personaje esta involucrado de manera directa o indirecta con el proceso del cual se le acusa.

Esto es una verdadera pesadilla y a veces he pensado que Kafka quería relatar lo que se sentía estar atrapado entre sentimientos conflictivos, cuando ni siquiera sabes la naturaleza de esos sentimientos; por ejemplo la relación padre e hijo que en kafka aparece con un vinculo excesivo. La novela bien podría ser la relación padre e hijo, en la que el hijo es muy pequeño para entender de que le acusa el padre y cual es el origen de su castigo.

Es una obra excelente. Se hace un poco pesada, pero vale la pena leerla, y complementar esta leyendo la metamorfosis, en la que la alineación llega a extremos horrendos cuando el ser humano es degradado hasta convertirse en un insecto de características horrendas que resulta una carga para la familia.

Luis Méndez.

Si le interesa el existencialismo o si le preocupa el sentido de su existencia y lo absurdo de ciertos mecanismos de funcionamiento de la sociedad moderna, este es un libro que debe leer. O quizás, si lee esta obra maestra, empezará a pensar seriamente acerca de estos temas y sobre el individuo, su relación con la sociedad, la burocracia y el poder. Esta obra fué publicada en 1925 (después de la muerte de Kafka, acaecida en 1924) y es considerada por muchos críticos y filósofos como lo mejor escrito por este autor.
La descripción de la soledad y de la enajenación del ser humano, en la sociedad moderna, constituye el núcleo central de todas las obras de Kafka. Por ello se suele decir que elaboró anticipadamente algunos de los temas tratados luego, en forma recurrente, por los existencialistas.
La descripción que hace, en forma detallada y realista, de la existencia del individuo moderno (del ser humano individual) revela con eficacia lo absurdo e irreal de su condición. Desde una perspectiva metafísica, la absurdidad se funda en la ausencia de Dios y en la imposibilidad de aferrar o comprender todo aquello que va más allá de lo racional.
Desde el punto de vista de lo social, la absurdidad deriva del carácter sofocante y controlador de la sociedad moderna frente al individuo. Abrumado por estas complejidades, el ser humano no tiene más alternativa que refugiarse en su pequeña realidad personal, renunciando a toda certidumbre o a respuestas convencionalmente confortantes.

Mailloux has put effort into this work few would have the ability to mimick. For the new authority on Kafka, look no further than Mailloux's fantastic work. Thanks for what must have been a terriffic effort!

THe 600+ page biography of Kafka is the most detailed and carefully researched available in English. Fascinating and readable account of one of the 20th century's most misunderstood writers.

I love all of Strathem's 90 minute books., especially the philosophy series. This gives a human insight into this complex man ans is a useful priemer for his works. A must read!

An insightful and comprehensive overview of Kafka's life, his significance in literature and history, and a detailed and brilliant discussion - with extended readings - of many of Kafka's most important works. And unlike many other discussions of significant literary, philosophical, and historical figures, Strathern's discussion of Kafka illuminates and emphasizes Kafka's Jewish identity as central to understanding Kafka. Strathern shows great honesty, understanding, and deep sensitivity in his analysis of the historical period in which Kafka lived, and especially of the position of the Jews in Germany and Central Europe at this time. After reading this book you will want to read everything that Kafka has written. It is an excellent introduction to Kafka.

Despite our need to rhapsodize about Kafka The Wounded Original, Anderson drags us back to earth and redirects our gaze to what he really was--a smart guy from an unpleasant home, stuck in a dead-end job he was good at but loathed---who one day as a teen sat on a hillside overlooking Prague and decided to write out "my inner dream-world." That inner life which, as such, reflected the turbulent first quarter of the 20th century, is universal and representative, and thus canonical. But it had its wellspring in the pamphlets, journals, theatre pieces, lectures, the junk science and the fads--and the clothes--that everyone else was viewing at the time.
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This absolutely brilliant little book meditates on a ridiculous and almost throwaway notion-that Kafka's dandyism (and subsequent aesthetic severity) weren't symptomatic so much as the core of all he was trying to be...and say. Exhaustively researched, thrillingly illustrated, Kafka's Clothes is about the smartest treatise on my favorite neurotic I've ever read--and believe me, I've read a LOT. I'm absolutely convinced of Anderson's thesis--he's got the playbills, the magazine illustrations, the diary entries to prove it. And you thought Frank poured over Milena Jasenska's fashion articles because he was in love! You silly!

Anderson's further assertion--that Kafka hid his influences by stripping his prose of all identifying tags--seems to point towards Blooms "Anxiety of Influence" writ large--or small, as the case may be. His arguments are compelling, probable--possible, even, given FK's self-involvement. Anyway, Anderson's clean prose leads the reader into an original look at art and its makers. Just about every Kafka biographer--and tons of academics--quote or gloss this book . If you have even a rudimentary knowledge of his life and work, you'll recognize the truth of Anderson's ideas, especially because he speaks German. It's worth every dime. Hey, remember Dora Diamant's quip that even when the two of them were starving during the Inflation in Berlin, Franz always wore hand-tailored suits? I've read her memoir of those months, and I always thought it was a throwaway comment, not jibing with my hero's ethos. Hmmm.

While his previous two works, "From the Ground Up: A Study of the Use of Prepositions in The Dramatic Works of Nikolai Gogal," and "Metamorphosis," were both gloriously academic and even enjoyable, Mark M. Anderson scores with his newest! (Although I did find his insect to human thing interesting.) "Kafka's Clothes..." gives us an indepth view into the wardrobe of this guy Franz Kafka. I particularly enjoyed the long descriptions of his Wednesday sweater, an article of clothing that echoes vaguely of the modern day sweater-vest. The guy, Franz Kafka, wore a lot of neutrals, mostly like tweed and wool. Anderson gives wonderful insight into the sock drawer not only of the guy but of the time. Engaging. Brilliant? Also, not to be missed is chapter four's retelling of "The Pied Piper." I had no idea that the guy playing the flute was blonde. Who knew?

A 'Critical Edition' of this kind provides layers of interpretative richness to add and enhance those the reader makes on their own. Camus said of Kafka that he demands to be read and reread, that in short the essence cannot be given in a single reading or interpretation but that the text is an invitation to open and endless reinterpretation. This characteristic it might be said belongs to all great art both through the generations, and in the heart and mind of the individual at various stages of their lives.
Kafka however with his ambiguous indefinite narratives which at once seem so abstract and so realistic- which tend always toward parable and symbol seems especially suited for the rereading.
The great stories of Kafka, " The Metamorphosis" " The Judgment"
"To a Penal Colony" "The Hunger Artist" "The Country Doctor" all seem to take us on a trip to a place we vaguely fear going to and which we come to understand as not where we want to be yet where we almost preternaturally had to get to.
The depth of this the irony of it holds us in thrall with its terrible beauty.

This is a terrific collection of Kafka's stories followed by fine critical essays on a number of them. One caveat: Contrary to the implication in the previous reviewer's comments, this edition does NOT contain the famous long story "Metamorphosis." Had there been a "Search Inside!" option, we would have known that Norton did not "select" this great work to be among the "selected stories."

These are Kafka's best letters . He pours forth his broken soul to the woman who can and does understand him. His language is painful and beautiful. Milena the Czech woman married to another Jewish man is too trapped by her life. Their love is impossible also because Kafka within himself is impossible. The letters are powerful and bring a sense of compassion and loss for these two remarkable people who each in his own way ( Kafka through his tuberculosis) Milena ( in a concentration camp) lose their lives when young.

These letters written by Franz Kafka to Milena comprise my most loved Kafka letters. Writing to Felice, his former fiancée, he was less mature - could he be said to have been less himself? In 'Letters to Milena' he asks at one point (I paraphrase) 'Is it you I really love or the existence that you give to me?' Couldn't any of us ask this question of the person we really love and of ourselves when we really love? I think Milena, whom his biographers considered a far more fitting companion for Kafka than Felice; Milena who in Berlin, years younger than the ageless Franz, living desperately and often pennilessly with her loved hurtful husband (who frequently withheld money from her, so that at one point she worked as a railway porter) - this woman who 'lived her life down to the depths' and who was a writer in her own right - really did give Kafka existence in the years they wrote and too infrequently met. She did not let the nervous, procrastinating and intensely self referential Kafka hide from her - which may be part of why he loved her - and when he is finally prevailed upon to visit her, deliciously drolly reassuring her that if he does get onto a train he will likely as not get off it at the right stop, she does not wait until they each arrive at the much discussed meeting point to actually meet him, but goes unflinchingly to his hotel, cutting off Kafka's apprehensions, making everything in their meeting easy, amicable and precious to him.

'If only it were possible to go to Berlin, to become independent, to live from one day to the next, even to go hungry, but to let all one's strength pour forth instead of husbanding it here, or rather - instead of one's turning aside into nothingness!' Kafka wrote in his diaries in 1914 whilst still engaged to Felice. Milena, for a little while, allowed him to feel he was living, the tragedy was that concurrently Kafka's terrible illness was progressing, depriving him of time and physical energy. He was a man who needed so much time, and who had so painfully little, but, notwithstanding his not infrequent sensation of 'turning aside into nothingness', Kafka lived, he lived his whole life as few, very few, ever do, these letters are a testimony to his intense aliveness and to his genius as a writer. I envy Milena, even though she knew eventually she could not leave her husband for Kafka, she was still the woman who received the treasure of these letters. And yet - a reader has to, bewildered, witness and realize the inevitability and sadness of the eventual cessation of Kafka and Milena's communication, witness Kafka poignantly losing his plans for their future and the idea that Milena can live with him, witness both withdrawing and both mourning.

'M was here', Kafka wrote (again in his diaries, 8th May 1922, when he was more or less housebound with his illness) 'won't come again; probably wise and right in this, yet there is perhaps still a possibility whose locked door we both are guarding lest we open it, for it will not open of itself.'

I treasure this book. I've read and reread it so that the pages are all dog-eared, falling out and closely annotated all over. To anyone who finds themselves drawn to Kafka I'd say get your hands on a copy or two.