Franz Kafka Books

Absolutely wonderful. I found this delightful book far more accessible and practical than Kafka's beautiful, but very grim, short stories and novels. Kafka's conversations with a 17 year old poet show the very human side of this literary genius. Perhaps best of all, you can open almost any page and find an insightful dialog. Kafka, like many other ignored prophets, anticipated the madness of the Holocaust caused by pervasive prejudice, a cult of bureaucratic procedures, and deep fear of exceptional souls who don't follow the official line.

What is most striking and surprising to me about this book of conversations is the tone and voice in which Kafka is said to speak. There is not the qualified, parenthetical and always somehow self - protective, enigmatic and ironic Kafkean voice but instead simple and direct proclamations, statements , generalizations made clearly and without hesitation. Now it may well be that Kafka the older man spoke to his much younger student- admirer Janouch in this way. Rare I suspect were the occasions when Kafka the perpetual son who never married, had no children of his own could take on the role of a kind of senior wiseman. Janouch is cordial and ready to listen to the great man. And in truth I greatly enjoyed many of the pronouncements which had something of Kafka in them, but did not strike somehow because of the tone as authentically Kafkian( not in this case Kafkaesque).
For instance in talking about Poe and his escape into dream , Kafka defends him but warns, " Imagination only served him as a crutch.He wrote tales of mystery to make himself at home in the world. That's perfectly natural. Imagination has fewer pitfalls than Reality."

Or in another instance when Janouch and him meet Kafka's father and the father treats him like a schoolboy and sends him off to home. Kafka defends his father to Janouch with the words, " Love often takes the form of violence."

Or in another instance when they are talking of youth and aging, Kafka says one- dimensionally and definitely. " Youth is happy because it has the ability to see Beauty"

This work is full of such gems , bits of Kafka's talk which we the readers who for one reason or another consider ourselves ' admirers ' of take pleasure in adding to the bits of knowledge we have about him. And this almost as if by knowing a bit more about him when we might somehow rescue him and provide him a bit longer and better life than the one he actually had.
For he , the jackdaw ( He in the book by the way talks about the name 'Kafka ' which means ' jackdaw'and relates himself to this not particularly attractive and solitary bird)has given his readers so so much in literature that we would in some way repay him for his gift.
Jannouch's book may not be completely accurate and authentic. But it is a real contribution to our knowledge of Kafka. It gives us a bit more story, anecdote and statement to add to the legend. He is to be commended for this.

The 1970's expanded version of this book is of questionable authenticity. The expanded edition purports to recall conversations from many decades earlier. The circumstances of the manuscript's discovery don't add up either. As for the original edition, it may be somewhat more reliable, but should be taken with a grain of salt too, especially when there are quotation marks. See ""Janouch's "Conversations With Kafka' Some Questions" in Modern Fiction Studies, Winter 1971-1972, 555-556. Peter F. Neumeyer

Have you ever met a man who is so very shy and humble, that unlike Christ, who would take disciples, he stood alone by himself, remained unknown to all of us, till after he died, his friends started deparately publishing/telling his stories? Yet he still remained in the mystery. Not because he is lack of charm and wisdom, but because almost 80 years passed and a time that such a great soul lived has vanished so completely, we know no one that ever came close, and we no longer can recognize him. If you read the morden text-book literature ciritic, you would be so completely lost in the noise of the scholars, that you never know the truth.

I also read the first edition a couple years ago, (knowing that it was out of print for years, I photocopied the book page to page) it was also to my great surprise to see the book in print now, without knowing that the new edition has added many more flesh to the great man it described. I also found every page of it fascintaing to read, I like to have it in my reach, and randomly open one page and read. I also doubted how a 17year old can record the long comment by Kafka that he could hardly understand - so I close my eyes and try to imagine a young man in love with poetry and music, with a memory and heart that is still untainted - and I believe he can write this book.

If you love Kafka's book, I can challenge you with 99% assurance that you don't understand what he is telling you. If you follow the morden text-book critic like a dog, then you are absolutely wrong. If you still have space for truth in your mind, I challenge you to read Kafka more carefully, closer to your heart and, if you still don't understand him well, read his letters, diaries, and try this book as well. To me, this book helps greatly! It is eye opening! It is a must for any one who likes Kafka's work.

I'm surprised to see this book is in print. I stumbled on a copy of the 1971, revised second clothbound edition in a community college library and have never seen it anywhere else.

Kafka is a hard man to know, let alone to like, through his fiction. One feels respect, admiration, awe ... but perhaps not affection or warmth. This book, compiled by a youthful acquaintance from his memories of chats with Kafka, provides a wonderfully human, if dubiously accurate (how could he remember all these lengthy quotations?), image of the man.

At times he seems pragmatically direct, even patronising to his listener: "There is too much noise in your poems; it is a by-product of youth, which indicates an excess of vitality. So that the noise is itself beautiful, though it has nothing in common with art. On the contrary! The noise mars the expression...." Sometimes he can be sardonic, as when he refers to newspapers as the vice of civilization -- they offer the events of the world with no meaning, a "heap of earth and sand" -- and remarks, "It's like smoking; one has to pay the printer the price of poisoning oneself." (Good thing he didn't live to see TV!)

More often, Kafka comes across as some sort of Zen master: "Just be quiet and patient. Let evil and unpleasantness pass quietly over you. Do not try to avoid them. On the contrary, observe them carefully. Let active understanding take the place of reflex irritation, and you will grow out of your trouble. Men can achieve greatness only by surmounting their own littleness."

Janouch relates a story from his father that Kafka once paid a powerful lawyer-friend to help out an injured laborer with his application for a disability pension, get his rightful compensation, and beat Kafka's employer, the Accident Insurance Institution.

Give this book five stars for interest and readability, three stars for shaky accuracy, and average at four.

This edition offers a sample of Kafka's best short stories with the original German and English translation on facing pages. It is a wonderful sort of "training wheels" for those who are ready to tackle German literature in the original.

The stories themselves are highly challenging. Kafka is regarded as a profit of modern alienation, but that doesn't capture the complexity of his thought. His masterpiece, The Metamorphosis, is here. In it Gregor Samsa awakes one morning to find he has turned into a giant bug. With that simple, but startling device, Kafka has a vehicle for exploring the inner dynamic of a family, and the mix of selfishness and altruism which informs our relationships with one another. On the surface, it would seem that Kafka is affirming the increasingly common notion that all altruism is really disguised selfishness - yet the story's bleakness suggests that Kafka himself knows that the vision is incomplete. This is the truth, he says. But is it the whole truth?

In another great story, In the Penalty Colony, Kafka presents us with a society that was once ordered around a great torturing device. The society is in the process of moving away from the torture device, and that would seem to be a good thing. But Kafka is more challenging than that. Does a vision of the world which imagines no role for suffering really speak to our deepest selves? We are repulsed by the old order, but the new order seems to be missing something.

So in one neat package, you can learn some German and struggle with a challenging vision of the world. That's a bargain, in my book!

This book provides five short stories, with English and German versions provided side-by-side: German on the left hand side, English on the right. This can definitely save time with a dictionary (but can also be a crutch - so watch out and discipline yourself).

I'm assuming that you will be reading this to help study German. After about two years of a language you should be able to read a book on your own (slowly but surely), but many books will still be too complex. The stories here are at a level that could be read during a German 3 class, or higher. I don't recommend this book during a German 1 or 2 class. Instead try Graded German Reader by Cossgrove during German 1. (It is expensive, but is very good if you know almost no German.) At a German 2 level move onto comic books like Tintin and Asterix, which have more complex grammar but use pictures to reinforce. Oh and by the way try replacing .com with .de on large websites for the German version. (This works on Amazon!) Especially look for fashion pages and "light" reading. You can understand more than you think!

However, if you are a fan of Kafka then this is a good book for you. First you know about Kafka and what you are getting into. Second you can refer to the English for better understanding. So it allows you to read Kafka at any level. Metamorphosis (the guy turns into a huge bug) was the hot story for a bit in high school because of the subject matter, and you will probably want to read it at some point.

The most enjoyable aspect of language learning, for me, is the experience of reading literary masterpieces in the original. The side-by-side format is perfect for those intermediate students of German who would like something more substantial than the usual textbook fare. I would like to have seen more stories printed, or perhaps a second volume, but I do appreciate the variety available in this edition. The English translations tend to be more literal and wooden than the better all-English versions in print, but that is all the better. Once you've read Kafka in the original, you won't want to go back.

I have used this book at our university in a German class (Introduction to German Literature) and in a Literature in Translation class. Students appreciated the duel langauge format. For my students of German, the facing translation aids in setting the context so that they can deal mor quickly with the German text. I would recommend this book for those with some German who are interested in Kafka's short fiction. I would have liked having the " Hunger Artist" in the collection as well as a German vocabulary section (as one finds in other Dover texts), but otherwise I found the book most helpful. The entire series offers excellent books at wonderful prices!

I am not a huge fan of Kafka's style of writing but I did enjoy reading this book due to the side by side english and german wording. I found myself hopping back and forth to see how the German was translated into English. And, since my German is not perfect and Kafka writes with a complex sentence structure, the dual set up was perfect for me. These are some of Kafka's best stories, particularly the Metamorphisis.

Check Your Review of
Collected Stories (Everyman's Library)
by Franz Kafka, et al

Here is your review the way it will appear:

= ÊÊ the Muir's in tux and bow tie
Reviewer: Michael Sympson from Florida
It has become customary for a current translator to preface his production with a little critique of his predecessors, especially the Muirs Ð after all we are not supposed to put our light under a bushel, but just between you and me: a great translator is just as rare as a great author, there might be billions and quadrillions of stars in the Universe, but the nights are still dark and the zodiac shows the same old signs since the countdown began at 11.00 am on Sunday, April 27th, 3877 BC. (central European time). Perhaps if the pay would be better there would be more stars in the firmament over Grub street.

So, since this is not the best of all worlds, only the best of all possible worlds, if not the only possible world, we better brace ourselves for surprises when a latter day translator of some repute allows to compare the "Country Doctor," perhaps Kafka's finest achievement, in his new version, with the established rendition of the Muirs. The very first sentence draws the line. Neugroshel (ÒThe Metamorphosis, in the Penal Colony, and Other StoriesÓ) thinks he knows better than the author and trims the sentence to bite-size:

"I was in a great predicament: an urgent trip lay ahead of me; a dangerously ill patient awaited me in a village ten leagues away; a heavy blizzard filled the vast space between me and him; I did have a wagon, lightweight, with large wheels, just the right kind of wagon for our country roads. Bundled up in my fur coat, holding my instrument bag, I stood in the courtyard, ready to travel; but the horse was lacking, the horse." But Kafka didnÕt write for the ÒToronto StarÓ and felt no obligation to chop his sentences to anemic tidbits for the weak digestion. The Muirs thought so too:

"I was in great perplexity, I had to start an urgent journey; a seriously ill patient was waiting for me in a village ten miles off; a thick blizzard of snow filled all the wide spaces between him and me; I had a gig, a light gig with big wheels, exactly right for our country roads; muffled in furs, my bag of instruments in my hand, I was in the courtyard all ready for the journey; but there was no horse to be had, no horse." Perhaps not the choice of words, but syntax and rhythm are incomparably closer to the original; in fact, this sentence alone deserves to be copyrighted for eternity and should oblige every succeeding translator to quote the Muirs. And why stop with the first sentence? The entire story is coming across splendidly. And by the way, the doctor used a gig, not a wagon, Mr. Neugroschel.

ÒEvery author creates his own pedigreeÓ says Jorge Luis Borges; and we know from KafkaÕs own testimony whom he had chosen as his models. Charles DickensÕ white hot fusion of language and imagery left its mark on ÒAmerica;Ó Flaubert taught Kafka the discipline to say extraordinary things in ordinary language and seek for the one befitting word; and late in his life, Heinrich von KleistÕs marvellous economy of structure and style left an indelible impression on Kafka. To some extent, Kafka even appreciated Friedrich Nietzsche. Just recall the rants and paragraphs of endless to-and-fro soliloquies in Ôlegalese,Õ KafkaÕs variety of the interior monologue.

Such were, what Kafka himself had recognized as formative influences. His friend Max Brod however, preferred to add Kierkegaard to this list and to belittle Nietzsche. BrodÕs view prevailed with the critics of his generation. KafkaÕs work drifted into the murky neighborhood of existentialism and of nebulous metaphysics for the secular seeker. For most critics and many readers, Kafka had turned from an artist to a saint. Regrettably the Muirs picked up on this trend and this sometimes slanted their choices in the phrasing - notice ÒI had to start an urgent journey ... :Ó Neugroschel was right to play it down in his rendition. Against all appearances, Kafka is not a latter day John Bunyan.

According to Stephen King (you are right, how could I sink so low) the two most important ingredients of fiction are empathy (the readerÕs) and the ability to hypnotize (on the authorÕs part). The man is right, and Kafka does possess hypnotic powers if the reader is willing to yield to his magic. KafkaÕs stories are dreams, not more real than fairy tales, and full of symbols as confusing as in a nightmare. The Muirs had enough artistic instinct to actually perceive that, and all things considered, produced a translation, which will remain the standard for still a very long time to come.

This is my absolute favorite book by my favorite writer, Kafka. As a 17 year old student at a boarding high school, my writing teacher lent me her copy of "The Metamorphosis" (the Muir translation), which I instantly fell in love with. I immediately bought the Everyman's Library edition of Kafka's Collected Stories, which I believe to be the best collection of Kafka's stories out there. There is a controversial topic over which translator best captures Kafka's intent, this book uses the Muir translation in the first half which I believe, though it may not be as accurate as the Corngold translation, flows better languistically and is easier to read. The book, while visually pleasing, arranges the stories in the most sensible way: instead of placing the stories in alphabetical order, like the other books, it arranges them chronologically in the book they were originally in (e.g. stories that were published in "Meditations" are in the Meditations section and not scattered about). Choice stories include "In the Penal Colony," "Report to an Academy," "The Metamorphosis," and, the most heart-wrenching and simply beautiful, "Josephine the Singer or the Mouse Folk," which was arguably the last story Kafka wrote before his death in 1924. The book also contains a number of unpublished stories (make that 'unfinished,' as unfortunately many break off mid-text, contain a note of 'two pages missing...' and then continue on, leaving the reader a little baffled), which will content those who have read absolutely everything that Kafka published. While it does not contain "The Trial," "The Castle," or "Amerika" (although it has the first chapter, "The Stoker"), it contains, I'm pretty sure, everything else. The book also has a lengthy introduction, but I would advise the reader to first read the book and then the introduction, because the intro alludes to stories in the book and is confusing unless you have read the story that they're talking about. A short literary chronology is also included. This book is well worth the money and I highly recommend it. This is possibly the most beautiful collection of stories I have ever read.

Kafka's insight into human nature is amazing. Truly amazing! His stories connect to us, how we're feeling, and what we're feeling. They incapsulate the sometimes futile nature of life, and the underlying guilt of it all. A definite must read!

Comparing these translations to other versions, these translations are horrible. With Kafka, even just one word can change the entire meaning of his work. I would recommend Malcolm Pasley's translations of Kafka instead.

When one considers Kafka has had so much influence on literature that the word "Kafkaesque" was invented to describe his thoughts and effects on us (how many writers can claim their "own word"!),it is surprising that only three notable biographies on him exist. This one is by a man who knew Kafka closely for the last half of his life.When they met Kafka was 19, he died one month short of his 41st birthday.The author's reverence makes the reader become passionately attached to the subjects of Kafka's inner feelings; his reserved,taciturn approach to people, his obsession with pure thoughts, his sensitivity to noise, his devotion to the the earth,its humans,animals and plants. Even now, three quarters of a century later, the reader feels the exasperation, the frustration, the torment Kafka suffered under his materialistic, social climbing father who dominated and eventually ruined his son. The book cannot be called lively,Kafka's lifestyle was not frolicsome. However, it is never dull. His clandestine trysts with the sleazier side of Prague nightlife takes the reader by surprise.Then comes Brod's stunner of a revelation only unearthed in 1948, twenty-four years after Kafka's death.??? The last quarter of the book is the best.Intense and sorrowful, just as Kafka would have wanted it. For those looking for the intellectual side of Kafka the book offers insights into his appreciation of Goethe (his idol),Thomas Mann, Flaubert and Dickens, among many others. Brod's ace is his ability to quote the sensitive Kafka; viewing the fish at a Berlin aquarium after Kafka became an ardent vegetarian he is quoted, "Now I can at last look at you in peace,I don't eat you anymore". Also his reverence for all life as when a nurse placed flowers near his deathbed," One must take care that the lowest flowers over there, where they have been crushed into the vases, don't suffer. How can one do that? Perhaps bowls are really the best." And then the "humorous" Kafka on hearing that he had TB," My head has made an appointment with my lungs behind my back." When Kafka died tragically young he joined the likes of the Romantics Byron (36),Shelley (29) and Keats (25) as a group who had dedicated their lives to the betterment of mankind and had all died when life should have just been beginning. As with the Romantics,one is left wondering what Kafka would have achieved given another forty years. One will never know, but for an interesting observation of his 40 years,"Franz Kafka-A Biography" is the book.

Max Brod was Kafka's best friend. Kafka willed his writing to the flames and Brod rescued them, and helped make them known to the world.
Brod was a writer of considerable accomplishment and output yet to his great credit he recognized that it was Kafka who was the great genius who mankind would come to reread and reread.
The biography tells the story of Kafka's difficult quest to live and write. It contains much of what Kafka reportedly said and is thus rich in his own unique voice.
It is not the most comprehensive nor the authoritative biography but it is the first and most influential .And it is the one which helped save the name , and give the work of this great genius to the world.

Those of us who feel that Mozart might have been right, when he complained to his father about having to give music lessons for enough money to live, will find Max Brod entirely on our side in FRANZ KAFKA, A BIOGRAPHY, when it comes to "Philistines who are of the opinion that it is enough if genius has `a few hours free'--they don't understand that all the available hours barely suffice to guarantee to an even tolerably uninterrupted ebb and flow of inspiration and repose its right and proper far-flung arc of oscillation." (pp. 88-89). Kafka obtained a doctorate in jurisprudence on July 18, 1906, did a year of unpaid practice in the law courts typical for those who intend to be called to the bar, and tried to find a job with office hours that would be through at 2 p.m. each day. In July 1908, he began working at the Workers' Accident Insurance Institute for the Kingdom of Bohemia in Prague. Work is tiring, so "Kafka tried sleeping in the afternoon and writing at night. That always went all right for a certain length of time, but he was not getting his proper sleep." (p. 80). With television providing entertainment at all hours, and people eating enough to produce sleep apnea to wake them constantly for another gasp of breath after we are too fat to sleep normally, it is not surprising that people find themselves in a state of mind which matches whatever Kafka was writing.

I checked a few biographies to see how much emphasis had been given to Kafka's work on the job, since reading recently in a book by Peter Drucker that Kafka does not get enough credit for requiring people in the presence of falling objects to wear safety helmets. Max Brod had been a friend of Kafka in school, and worked for years in the post office while writing a book, so he was doubly aware of Kafka's attitude toward his work, because he allowed Kafka's feelings to determine his own occupation until he could no longer stand "Suffering that has been raised to a degree that can only be described as fantastic." (p. 81). Brod quotes a letter in which Kafka's attempt to describe his work is comical.

"people fall, as if they were drunk, off scaffolds and into machines, all the planks tip up, there are landslides everywhere, all the ladders slip, everything one puts up falls down and what one puts down one falls over oneself." (p. 87). When he was appointed a drafting clerk, all the new clerks had to listen to a member of the Board, who had "given them a talk which was so solemn, and so full of fatherly sanctimoniousness, that he (Franz) had suddenly burst out laughing, and couldn't stop. I helped the inconsolable Franz to write a letter of apology to the high official." (p. 87).

By December 28, 1911, Kafka complains in his diary that, due to his family's share in a factory "they made me promise to work there in the afternoons!" (pp. 89-90). Max Brod thinks this mess is responsible for "his later absorption into the world of sorrows that finally led to his illness and death. . . . but the disaster was essentially caused by the fact that a man so tremendously richly gifted, with such a rich creative urge, was forced just at the time when his youthful strength was unfolding himself, to work day in and day out to the point of exhaustion, doing things which inwardly didn't interest him in the least." (p. 91). This must be my favorite theme, in all of literature, that people are kept so busy, they would have to be fools to take the time to see what anyone else is doing. Kafka wanted to be able to depend on others "to keep everything running in the same good order as usual; for after all, we are men, not thieves." (pp. 91-92). This biography is written with the greatest friendly involvement in the life and death issues of its subject. At the end, concerning a medical report on July 14, 1908, "that Kafka, because of his affected nerves and `great cardiac irritability' had to give up his position" (p. 248) it was only to be considered an excuse "to transfer to the semi-government Accident Insurance Institute, where the work was considerably easier." (p. 248).

This biography will be most meaningful to those who are familiar with Kafka's writings. Many further items are also available. "Kafka's letters to Milena, her letters to me, and Janouch's recollections provide indispensable documentation for the period of Kafka's life in which THE CASTLE was being composed--documentation which is all the more important because Kafka's diary stops completely during the writing of the novel, and is relatively meager for the few years he had yet to live." (pp. 221-222).

Chapter VII, The Last Years, has the beginning of Kafka's friendship with Dora Dymant in the summer of 1923. At the end of July he left Prague to live with her in Berlin, published four stories and used the title, "A Hunger Artist" for the collection. On March 17, 1924, Brod brought Kafka back to Prague to live with his father and mother again. (p. 203). Taken to a Vienna clinic, Kafka was then "transferred at the end of April" (p. 204) to a sanatorium, where, "cared for in every way by his two faithful friends, Kafka spent the last weeks of his life--so far as the pains he suffered allowed it, patiently and cheerfully." (p. 205).

This famous biography was written in 1937. Appendixes include a chronological table which ends, 1952, Death of Dora in London (August). A postscript (p. 213) at the end of Chapter VII reveals that the first German edition ended at that point. Chapter VIII, New Aspects of Kafka, includes "we are faced with the inevitable distortion of his image." (p. 215).

This biography lets you on the inside of not only a great writer but on the inside of a close friendship between two writers and friends. It's written in a rather relaxed way, the way only good friends can be with one another. I read a biography on Kafka many years ago and it left me a bit indifferent about Kafka. This biography lets you feel the warmth and exuberance of the man, the everyday of this extraordinary writer. You can almost imagine yourself in his childhood home, meeting the family, understanding how Kafka became Kafka, how the seeds for his stories were planted and evolved. This biography had all the intimacy of an autobiography. Anyone who would like to know the tender underside of the beast, this is the biography you're looking for.

Kafka stories, with Kuper artwork. Kuper's style seems to match Kafka in a very pleasant, memorable way...

From the introduction by Jules Feiffer:

"To 'classically illustrate' Melville, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky et al doesn't make them accessible, it makes them mute... add pictures and panels and balloons to the text, and the secret of communion that gives fiction its power is betrayed... Kuper... doesn't do what I hate, he does what I love. Jazz. This book is a series of riffs, visual improvisations on short takes by the old master. It becomes a diverting, even daring, high wire act... and it works. Like Bird doing "Embraceable You", it may not be Gershwin, but it's art. And I, for one, talk back to it."

Peter Kuper never writes text for his for-the-sake-of-argument-let's-call-it comics; if, for some reason, he does use text, he borrows it from Kafka. Give It Up! is a collection of short stories by Kafka adapted by Kuper, prior to his more ambitious attempt with 'The Metamorphosis', published separately; for the most part, the stories in this collection are better. Kuper stretches the bounds of sequential art with these stories, and comes up with stuff that is highly expressive and incredibly communicative, and compliments the old master's text perfectly while also making them entirely new. That much can be seen from the very first story, 'A Little Fable', one of Kafka's most famed creations -

"Alas, the world is growing smaller every day. At the beginning it was so big that I was afraid, I kept running and running, and I was glad when at last I saw walls far away to the right and left, but these long walls have narrowed so quickly that I am in the last chamber already, and there in the corner stands the trap that I must run into.

You only need to change your direction, said the cat and ate it up."

Kuper spreads this very short text - and one of the most beautiful and succinct written in the English language - over four pages, but what he does with them is absolutely awe inspiring, so that it's criminal to even refer to it as comics. He resigns to none of the common assumptions and rules of the medium, and instead lets his imagination run wild and uses the page spreads and compositions serve as a tool to help create the very feeling of claustrophobia that the text does, but he never loses touch with the reader who always knows exactly how to interpret the pages. In 'The System' Kuper performed the difficult task of creating truly communicative and involving comics with no text whatsoever; he manages an equally impressive fit in these short stories. This is a beautiful book and highly recommended to any comic book reader and any art and/or literature lover.

Brilliant interpretation of Kafka's nine short tales by illustrator Peter Kuper. This thin book is neither for the faint-hearted nor for those who prefer a light-hearted comic read. Kuper brings into powerful focus the intensity and dark, twisted side of humanity as Kafka would have wished it done. One is literally drawn into the stories by the compelling and solid strokes of the artist. A graphic novel of the highest standard

This is a small but insightful overview of the life and work of Kafka. Robertson provides new insight into aspects of Kafka's life and legend. He presents the interesting idea that Kafka himself had the idea of this legend and consciously worked to cultivate it. In this Kafka is compared to Byron who too in his own way helped create an image of himself which dominated an Age.
Robertson analyses the critical relationship of Kafka to his father Hermann. The overwhelming power and physical presence of his father contributed to Kafka's own sense of inadequacy, fear, frustration. " I will tear you apart like a fish" his father said in one notable childhood incident.
Robertson who has written on Heine, on Mann and is an expert in German Literature has a deep, intimate knowledge of the Kafka world . The work gives in a short space a clear conception of the writer whose anxieties and ambiguities , whose sense of fear and foreboding , were transformed into a Literature of incredible intensity , horrifying beauty.

Almost all of the Very Short Introductions from Oxford University press do at least a decent job of introducing their subject, and most of them are accessible enough that newcomers can gain an appreciation of the topic without too much work.

This volume on the iconoclast writer Franz Kafka (1883-1924) is no different. Robertson gives an overview of Kafka's life, and goes on to explore specific themes important in Kafka's writing - with special emphasis given to "bodies" (as in physical bodies) and "institutions". A special exploration of Kafka's religious thought is also quite interesting.

Cosntant reference is made to the plots of Kafka's novels and many of his short stories, and excerpts from journals and letters also appear throughout.

However, there is a certen lack of coherent vision or high-level organization in this book; Robertson covers a great deal, but it seems as if the book could have used a bit more editing and re-organization - a bit more fluidity in the narrative and clarity in the layout - to make it great instead of merely good.

Despite this, I recommend it to anyone interested in the subject.

Who on earth can adequately introduce a writer of Kafka's stature in the few short (and very tiny) pages the "Very Short Introduction" series allows? Only someone like Ritchie Robertson, a man who has thought and written extensively on Kafka, Mann and other German authors. Ritchie is succinct, respectful, loving and clear and (miracle of miracles) manages to combine autobiography, analysis and a helping hand to all those either curious or flummoxed over the enigmatic Kafka.

He discusses F.K.'s modernist and uneasy relationship with the body, his representation of modernist thought and philosophy, and much more. He even tackles the Aphorisms, something not many writers, academic or otherwise, are willing to attempt. It's hard to believe that so small a book could cover so many bases so well. There are more thorough bios and analyses out there, but for its size (and cost), this tiny one was a delightful surprise. It's a trustworthy place to start.

Amusement is likely to be the aim of most people who read this book, but those who can appreciate a deeper side, in those moments when our relationship with reality is in bad shape, might also study this book as a higher intellectual calling. If intellectuals in modern society have lost the high standing that they had when intellectuals could be expected to support basic norms, it might be due to their ability to identify with the level of mental acivity evident in this book more readily than with the norms of a society in which people desparately need to believe that they are being understood. First, I would like to recommend this book to people who would like to do some original thinking in the area of religion. In my own religious history, it was surprising how well I could identify with the Edgar Allan Poe-ness of my nature, whenever ultimate problems needed to be faced. I have come to realize that, for the intellectuals of the world, the works of Edgar Allan Poe are like a collection of worn out American horse feathers compared to the depth which can be imagined by those who read the works of Kafka. I'll vouch for that, too.

The essence of Kafka is in these parables and paradoxes. In these short pieces many of them excerpts from longer walks we can feel the heart of his puzzling, mysterious, unique genius. Also in them we feel the way Kafka makes of a seemingly abstract argument a mystery story . There are parables on many different subjects, from Quixote and Sancho, to the Great Wall of China, and from Prometheus and the Vulture, to the Parable itself. Often there are variants of the parable and variants of the paradox and Kafka makes us feel not simply how elusive a single definition of a reality can be, but how wonderous and strange it can be also.
Of course in Kafka there is also dread , anxiety and a whole sense of the world as being somehow stranger than we can think or even imagine .Even the everyday details of life which Kafka is so much a master of making into parables of poetic beauty turn mysteriously into something else which we cannot really hold in mind or finally define.
Who reads this book reads a work of genius, the condensed essence of one of mankind's most original literary minds.
What a pleasure what a wonder what a dream.

Too bad this book is out of print. All of the stories are on the short side so it is nice to peruse when one does not have a whole lot of time to read but wants something stimulating. Sometimes they are only a page or so long but will leave you thinking about them for a few minutes - this book really engages the reader and encourages mental activity. I think Kafka's mysterious style is quite excellent, and I encourage anyone who has liked his other works to give tthis lesser known collection a chance

Canetti presents a readable overview of Kafka's intense correspondence with Felice Bauer, providing a rough biographical sketch of the author during this turbulent (two abortive engagements to the same woman) yet productive (Metamorphosis, e.g.) time in his life. I don't think Canetti succeeded in proving his notion that Kafka's landmark novel The Trial is a fictionalized representation of his oddly doomed relationship with Felice, but he does point out several interesting parallels which can enhance your enjoyment of Joseph K's misadventures. The real value of Canetti's book is, in my opinion, the fact that it will probably inspire you to read Kafka's own diaries and the actual letters to Felice themselves, and probably with a greater appreciation as well.

Elias Canetti fascinated with the genius of Kafka reads one set of the 'letter- diary' literature , that between Kafka and his two - time fiancee Felice Bauer. Canetti sees the letters of Kafka to Bauer as an astounding work of literature, a guidebook to the soul.
Kafka met Felice Bauer in August 1913 a day after gathering together the writings of his first published work, "Meditations" . Two days after meeting her he sat down and wrote for nine hours straight , his breakthrough story 'The Judgment' As Cannetti sees it the meeting with Felice Bauer led to one of the most productive literary periods of his life.
The three- month idyll ended when the efficient, strong, but not very literary- Bauer showed no enthusiasm for Kafka's first work, and instead praised the works of those whose names we do not know today.
This small work traces one chapter in the life of one mankind's greatest literary artists, the one who more than any other made the precise description of his own anxieties and fears an eternal part of the collective human soul portrait.
This work is too filled with many insightful passages by Canetti who reads the life of Kafka with sympathy admiration and understanding.

A well documented and beautifully written book on the jewish writers,known as the prague circle, at the beginning of the twentieth century. It captures their identity struggle in a political and cultural prague. Spector gives his readers a treat by unmasking an enigmatic Kafka. We are able to perhaps know a more tender man behind the desk. We can now imagine how Gregor's creator felt. This alone was worth waiting for.

Spector does a brilliant job in reading Kafka together with the other members of what he calls as the Prague circle. The book is challenging to read and it requires a certain level of acquintenance with the field and some German perhaps. In any case, it gives you a different perspective to understand the cirisis within the Prague circle to which Kafka is also included. Territory, territorialization, reterritorialization and deterritorialization cna be considered as the key processes one must understand in reading the book. Even though it seems somewhat consfusing from this Spector eloquently argues and proves his thesis.

So I read this book for a small book club and I could NOT make myself finish it. The whole "no paragraph" thing totally made it unreadable for me. I got through like 2 or 3 chapters before shuting it closed and throwing it on the floor. It had the potential to be a good story too. I say skip it.

The words 'surreal' and 'absurd' are often used to describe this novel. They are both apt. Kafka's account of a man's ordeal before charges he can get no information about is written in prose that is lean and quick to read. And yet, somehow the paragaphs manage to meander off into the next page, or even the page after that. Sometimes this leads us to wonder exactly how we arrived at where we are? The characters in the meantime are in the habit of appearing on Kafka's dreary stage with no introduction. Just as we begin to infer a sense of where they stand, they are off doing or saying something totally unexpected. An oppressive warder will suddenly make a friendly gesture. A priest will call out a name he could not know. It is very surreal indeed.

But I think Kafka's most singular contribution here is not in his surrealist imagery, but in his use of the absurdist's tool. He does not use absurdity to entertain or delight, like Lewis Carroll might have done. He uses it as a lens to scrutinize the real world, and the institution of law in particular. He takes their contradictions, their non-sequiturs, and he amplifies them to humorous effect. He capitalizes 'Law', as if we wouldn't dare to question it. He does such things to better illuminate the room. But if one were to strip away the outer layers of the trial's machinery, and focus instead on its kernel, one would find it to match the real world's in many ways.

Mark Twain has done the same thing with his Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. By rendering out of proportion the habits and beliefs of King Arthur's knights, he is able to show how silly they are. He stands somewhere between Carroll and Kafka in this regard, for though he is not so fanciful as Jabberwockies and Cheshire Cats, he is not so grim as K's trip to the cathedral either.

In the end it is a work that is thought provoking. It is also a bit scattered. There are quite a few deleted passages, unfinished chapters, and the unavoidable nuances that goes with translation. But I like to fancy how this may be what Kafka has intended. The papers of his novel are like the papers in the wake of a real trial. Many of them are misplaced or inaccurate, and a few may even be of dubious authorship. It is amazing how we could use such things to hang a man.

Behind Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, this is perhaps the greatest book in which the author immerses his reader into the protagonist's soul. The damnable truth of the matter is there is little absurd in Kafka's "absurd" prose. This book grips you in the protagonist's fear, despair, despondency, boldness, and indecisiveness. He can trust no one, and everyone turns out to be his enemy. Just imagine how great the story would be if the author lived to complete it. Alas, maybe it would not be as good at all. Anyway, enjoy this classic tale, and learn how little stands between Kafka's written word, and current day.

Reading Franz Kafka makes you feel like you are living in a dream - usually a nightmare. The Trial follows Joseph K for a year; the man is accused, apparently without cause, of a crime. He never discovers what crime.

As K struggles to prove his innocence in a secret and subjective court, Kafka reveals K's psychological deterioration. The controlled banker is slowly transformed into a nervous and unstable defendant.

The continual presence of the 'case' also brings out K's flaws. Instead of confident, he is exposed as arrogant. Instead of ambitious, he is self-centred. He coldly uses people. He becomes isolated.

In the end K surrenders to the situation's senselessness.

The Trial confronts humanity's helplessness by investigating the nature of torture. By depicting fear. Kafka leaves us hoping for some higher power; something or someone to make life meaningful.

I can't "review" The Trial. As George Steiner writes in the introduction: "The thought that there is anything fresh to be said of Franz Kafka's The Trial is implausible." I will however, comment on this particular edition. I have not read any other translation of the novel, but I was satisfied by the job done by Willa and Edwin Muir. The so-called "Definitive Edition" is worth having, not only for the classic translation, but also for the supplemental material: the introductory essay, unfinished chapters, passages deleted by Kafka, excerpts from Kafka's diaries, drawings by Kafka, and Max Brod's postscripts to previous editions.