Franz Kafka Books

Adapted from the nightmarish short story from early 20th-century author Franz Kafka, Peter Kuper's graphic novel version breathes new life into angst-ridden hero Gregor Samsa, an overworked young salesman who finds himself getting stepped on--figuratively--after waking up as a giant cockroach. While Kuper's writing seems simple enough, he also decorates the word bubbles to further distinguish each character. And what characters this book has! While the reader may find the Samsa family's reaction of Gregor transformation to be natural, he/she may actually find Gregor's treatment to be deplorable regardless. And the rough black/white artistic style Kuper brings to the table merely adds the mood for an already dark, dreary story. A nightmare that goes on long after you wake up.

This comic is unrated: Adult Situations.

franz Kafka's "The Metamorphosis" is an absolute favorite of mine. The amount of analysis that has been put into this book by writing critics is simply amazing. We are talking about a story that is fifty something pages long! The great thing is that the story itself is very simple the meaning behind it has been debated for decades.

I recommend this version by Bantam Classic because it is almost pocket size and they provide a suprisingly extensive and varied amount of essays on the possible meanings.I think I payed six bucks! Freaking awesome!

Read this story

As strange and surreal Kafkas "The Metamorphosis" is, it is really about all of us, and just how far we are all willing to go to become who we really are, and truly understand ourselves. The book provides an excellent method for keeping in touch with yourself, and discovering things you never knew. Just stay away from the Raid can.

Literature throughout history has tried to exemplify the personal identity of human beings, but none has done it so creatively and as hilariously as Franz Kafka's masterful novella, "The Metamorphosis". Kafka has created the most absurd situation; a traveling salesman wakes up one morning to find that he has turned into a giant dung beetle. Yet Kafka uses the absurdity of this premise to exemplify how the unfortunate Gregor Samsa (the man-bug) frees himself from a life of servitude and monotony, to assert his own personal identity through his metamorphosis. Franz Kafka uses brilliant symbolism, hilarious tone, and unique characterizations to exemplify the plight and transformation of this unfortunate salesman and it is through these tools that Kafka creates an absurd experience that any reader can relate to.

The use of symbolism throughout this story is what truly allows the reader to understand and appreciate Gregor's push towards independence. Gregor was transformed into a bug, but Kafka uses this transformation as a symbol for Gregor's metamorphosis towards humanity. Before Gregor's transformation, he only lived life to serve others, but through his metamorphosis Gregor slowly comes to meet his own desires, seeking a more personal independence and even coming to appreciate music and art. But most importantly, it is through Gregor's final understanding of love that Kafka truly exemplifies how human the insect truly is. Kafka uses the symbolism of Gregor becoming a bug to represent the tragedy of the life that Gregor was leading, and his metamorphosis symbolizes a more gradual metamorphosis towards an individual humanity. By physically disassociating Gregor from humanity, Kafka perfectly exemplifies how human Gregor has really become. Kafka's use of symbolism is what truly makes the reader's experience relatable to the tale. Although nobody could ever experience what it feels like to wake up as a giant insect, Gregor's struggle for an identity is a trial that is real and relatable to all of us. Kafka represents independence as what truly makes Gregor human, and this same truth exists within all of us. It is through the symbolism of the metamorphosis that Kafka relates this to us, the readers, and he does this brilliantly.

The tragedy and emotional connection that Kafka elicits to the reader is of true merit, but the book's success lies in its ability to tie this tragic tale with such a humorous tone. "The Metamorphosis" is an obvious tragedy and it expresses a very serious message. Kafka leaves us no choice but to pity Gregor for the eventual state of his life, but despite all of this, Kafka has written one twisted and hilarious story. The dark, humorous tone that Kafka injects into his words is apparent from the very first sentence, as the story begins with an immediate shock: "One morning, as Gregor Samsa was waking up from anxious dreams, he discovered that in bed he had been changed into a monstrous, verminous bug" (1). Kafka's very light and nonchalant voice perfectly emulates the tone of the entire book, and it makes this absurd, while admittedly unfortunate situation to be incredibly laughable. Even when Gregor's family is contemplating murdering him, Kafka injects a satirical wit into the tone of the dialogue that the obviously tragic situation is unfortunately funny. Kafka uses humor perfectly to further exemplify the pain that Gregor and subsequently his family experience as they live through this "metamorphosis" and it ultimately makes the sorrowful events that much more apparent. The absurdity of the story makes the connection between reader and bug an ironic parallel that intensifies the humor of the story. Kafka has created a storyline that readers relate to and appreciate, but the sheer humor of the story allows the reader to appreciate this connection even further. The storyline is absurd and unbelievable, but because the reader is forced to relate to this situation, despite the logical impossibilities, we as readers can appreciate the connection we make with Gregor even more. The absurdity of the story enriches our ability to connect with the text.

Kafka's ability to interpret humanity through this great piece of work was ultimately in his ability to invent the perfect character. Gregor Samsa is one of the most pathetic, yet endearing figures in literature. Kafka's characterization of Gregor was perfect in representing his message throughout the story, because Gregor's evolution was the point and purpose of the entire novella. In only forty-five pages, Kafka creates a character that is interesting and dynamic. We see him grow and fall, all the time evoking certain responses within the reader. Franz Kafka has brilliantly invented Gregor so that all readers can appreciate him, pity him, and relate to his struggle and growth throughout the book. This is what makes the book so enjoyable to the reader, we want to respond to the protagonist, and Kafka has invented a conflict within Gregor that is seemingly universal to the development of mankind. There is no background to the tragic figure given before we are lunged into the heart of the story and the author has made it so that there is none needed. Kafka makes it obvious how miserable Gregor's state of being was before his awful transfiguration, and the reader is forced to be emotionally connected to this struggle. Kafka creates a character that is realistic, seemingly simple, but with complex thoughts and emotions as his struggle progresses. Franz Kafka has created a character that resonates with readers that familiarize with his struggle; this is what makes his story such a success.

Franz Kafka is clearly a masterful writer and completely unique in his style and approach to storytelling. He has reinvented a storyline that is seemingly ordinary if not overlooked and recreated in a hilarious, yet completely intricate drama. Kafka has created something that all readers can appreciate as the simplicity and ambiguity of the story allows for people to interpret Gregor's tragic story in many different ways. Franz Kafka was blatantly purposeful in his creation of this obviously ridiculous storyline, because the symbolism that he creates and the characters that he invents allow the reader to experience and interpret this story for themselves. "The Metamorphosis" is just great writing; it will leave the reader feeling sad for the tragic hero, while laughing hysterically at the absurdity of the situation that Kafka creates. This book is a literal classic and is a story that will leave you feeling enlightened and slightly bemused, but ultimately more appreciative of life, family, and the personal humanity that each one of us has created for ourselves.

I just recently read this and am still attempting to digest and understand what Kafka was getting at with this story. Many other reviewers have weighed in with their opinions - please do go through them. I think what I feel to be the fact is that the story is indeed an indictment of the bourgeois lifestyle; Gregory literally becomes a bug after years of being treated like such by his boss and managers. This is a must-have for anyone reading/studying classical literature.

Kafka is one of my all time favorite writers, but try as I might, I can't get through the Mark Harman translation of The Castle ... it comes across like a laundry list of details, at least compared to the other versions I've read.
A tour de force of literal accuracy, perhaps, but it just isn't funny.

Hearing about Kafka's work is not enough: you really need to read it and experience it yourself. It's hilarious, and unfortunately all too true.

In this book, a surveyor, named K., arrives in a village and tries to get in to the castle in order to get permission to stay there and do his work, but falls into a quagmire of disfunctional bureaucracy. This may sound like a dreary read, but the book is really very funny, and reminded me too much of the real world. K spends most of the book on a fruitless quest to meet an official named Klamm who might be able to help him get into the castle. I laughed out loud at some of the ridiculous conversations he has with some of the villagers, and later I gasped in amusement and dismay as I learned more about this twisted world.

Kafka never finished writing this book, and the restored text, of which this is a translation, ends in the middle of a sentence. However this doesn't really make it any less satisfying to read. While it is not clear where the last couple of pages are going, just before that there is a long paranoid rant by one of the villagers which is great.

This translation seems to be more accurate than the older, Muir translation. There are some things that sound kind of weird here, but they sound weird in the original too.

I offer the startling proposal that Franz Kafka's The Castle is, after all, about life as it is lived by all of us.

The novel is difficult for us "post post moderns" for several reasons.

The first is that the action is set in a time and place which no longer exist: Prague in the Austro-Hungarian Empire before and possibly during World War I.

Kafka's readers were familiar with the social structure and physical description of the village and Castle of his story. But it is not easy for us to understand the relative rank and relationships between the Count Westwest, the Count's authorities, the villagers, peasants, officials, stewards, substewards, lawyers, domestics, gentlemen, chairmen, chamber maids, coachmen, school teachers, innkeepers, land surveyors, gentleman's servants, fire chiefs, shoe makers, and so forth. But we have to form an imaginative relationship with and between all of them so that we can enter into the complex of social and psychological relationships presented in the book.

The geography of the village and especially of the Inn, with its corridors, tap room, etc. is presented in vivid detail but is unlike anything we are likely to encounter in modern life, and therefore it seems almost dreamlike even though it was obviously part of Kafka's daily experience and is in no way "Kafkaesque."

A third difficulty is the extraordinarily dense nature of the story. The plot of The Castle has been described as simple, and in fact it is simple. But the story has layers and layers of detailed information that interweave, are clarified and sometimes contradicted by the skein of events, and detailed reactions to the events, that run through 25 chapters. We need a map of characters and their relationships with each other to separate the planned ambiguities from the unplanned. Otherwise we quickly become lost in maze of detail, which was not Kafka's intention.

A fourth difficulty is the humor. Humor does not usually travel well, either in time or space. But whether we get all the jokes or not, it is obvious that The Castle is full of humor, from slapstick and pranks all the way to paradox, the absurd, high irony and self-mockery. We need to be on the lookout for humor, everywhere.

Kafka loved Charlie Chaplin and we should not forget that fact while reading The Castle. Chaplin's film, The Tramp, opens with tramp walking down a dusty road with a walking stick and a small -- do we dare say "rucksack?" I would bet that Kafka was inspired to open The Castle with the same image. Chaplin's film, A Dog's life, opens with a tramp gazing up at what looks like a castle with a flag flowing over its crest, and I would wager that Kafka's The Castle was influenced by that film and its opening image as well. To get into the right mood for reading The Castle, I recommend watching both of these silent movies.

Ludwig Wittgenstein once said that "a serious philosophical work could be written that would consist entirely of jokes." The Mathematician John Allen Paulos points out a relationship between the humor of Groucho Marx and the philosophical work of Bertrand Russell and George Pitcher in "Wittgenstein, Nonsense, and Lewis Carroll" shows the same relationship between the humor of Carroll and the philosophy of Wittgenstein. I propose, for someone else to show with quotations, that Kafka does the same with the thought of the Danish thinker Soren Kierkegaard. In fact, the entire novel, The Castle, seems to me to be an absurd and often humorous meditation on the famous saying of Kierkegaard "Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards."

As an example of high irony and self-mockery, one of the characters, Amalia asks K, in response to his professed interest in the Castle,

"The influence of the castle? ... do you really care about such stories? ... there are people who feed on such stories ... but you do not strike me as one of them." "Yes I am," said K, "I am indeed one of them, whereas I am not greatly taken by those who do not concern themselves with such stories and simply make others concern themselves with them." "Well yes," said Amalia, "but people are interested in different ways, I once heard of a young man whose mind was taken up day and night with thoughts of the Castle, he neglected everything else, people feared for his ordinary faculty of reason since all his faculties were always up at the Castle, but in the end it turned out that it wasn't actually the Castle he was thinking of but only the daughter of a scullery maid at the offices, he got her, and then all was fine again." "I would like that man, I think," said K, "As for your liking that man," said Amalia, "I'm not so sure about that, but you might like his wife. Now don't let me disturb you, but I am going to bed ..." p. 205 (All quotes are from the Harman translation published by Shocken Books.)

There are many examples of prankish, almost slapstick humor such as the following,

"Erlanger .. he's known for his memory and for his ability to judge people, he simply knits his brow, that's all it takes for him to recognize anyone, often even people whom he's never seen before, whom he has only heard or read about, and in my case, for instance, he could hardly have seen me before. But though he recognizes everyone right away, he asks first (who you are) as though he were unsure."
p. 238

"[Brunswick] is actually quite quick. It's one form his stupidity takes." p.68

"So you are merely acquainted with the office furnishings at the Castle?" K asked [the chairman] rudely. "Yes," said the chairman, with an ironic and yet grateful smile, "they're the most important things about it." p.67

"... and since the chair stood by the bed they stumbled over it and fell down ... She sought something and he sought something, in a fury, grimacing, they sought with their heads boring into each other's [...]; their embraces and arched bodies, far from making them forget, reminded them of their duty to keep searching, like dogs desperately pawing at the earth they pawed at each other's bodies, and then, helpless and disappointed, in an effort to catch one last bit of happiness, their tongues occasionally ran all over each other's faces. Only weariness made them lie still, and be grateful to each other. Then the maids came up, "Look at the way they're lying there," one of them said, and out of pity she threw a sheet over them. p. 46

Another difficulty that must be overcome is that there are many long speeches where it isn't certain which character is talking. Sometimes it seems as if an omnipotent narrator is telling the story but then it becomes clear, or we recall, that it is one of the characters presenting his unique point of view of events and people. Also, it is important never to forget that K (the main character) and the narrator are not the same person (and, of course, that neither is Kafka!)

Then there is the planned ambiguity. For example K has been called to the village by the Castle to be a land surveyor. But in the first chapter, this is cast into doubt by a telephone call from the Bridge Inn to the Castle, which fails to corroborate this important "fact." A few minutes later, a call comes from the Castle to the Bridge Inn to report that an error has been made and that K was, in fact, called by the Castle to be a land surveyor.

It is crucial for understanding the story that we separate the planned confusion from our own confusion that results from not understanding what we are reading. A typical reader simply concludes that his own confusion and Kafka's planned confusions are the same.

The Castle is very complex. The complexity is impossible to clarify here, obviously, but most of the complexity is not in actions and events, such as Amalia tearing up a piece of paper and throwing it at a messenger, but in the emotions and reactions produced in a family, in the entire village and even the officials of the Castle by seemingly trivial actions. Unraveling these complex emotions and relationships is the most challenging task presented to us by The Castle.

The last difficulty that I would like to point out, and perhaps the hardest one for many readers, is the problem of thinking that Kafka is not describing the world as it is but only a surrealistic, crazy world where nothing makes sense. But, in fact, Kafka is describing the world as it still exists today. He is describing the psychology of real people who are still alive and functioning in corporations, schools, churches, universities and governments in America and the rest of the world.

We must enter into the world of The Castle expecting to find ourselves and the people we've encountered in our own lives if we want to make sense of it, to appreciate it for the great work of art that it is and to appropriate it for our own needs which are immense.

The item called "The Castle (Paperback) by Franz Kafka (Author), David Fishelson (Editor), Aaron Leichter (Editor), Max Brod (Editor)" for $7.50 is NOT the novel The Castle by Franz Kafka. It is a play by Aaron Leichter and David Fishelson based on a dramatization of the novel by Max Brod. If you think you are buying the book by Kafka, you will find you are mistaken. I am not commenting on the play itself; I'm just letting you know that this is NOT the novel. It is misrepresented. Its actual title is "Franz Kafka's The Castle," which was obviously not written by Franz Kafka in this form.

Review of "The Castle" by Franz Kafka

This book made me into a Kafka admirer. He brings life to characters in otherwise drab situations and makes them seem very real. The reader feels the frustration, absurdity, the pettiness and the powerlessness in a personal way. You feel the haughtiness and aloofness of the Castle staff as if they were a part of your own community. You feel the pettiness and delusional gossip of the townspeople as if you were seeing it first hand. The story is riveting and the pace seems fast even when there is little action.

The story starts with the protagonist (identified only by his initial, K.) walking to what sounds like a routine surveying job. Soon he is frustrated by a very confusing series of obstacles. As the story develops the obstacles become more chaotic. K.'s original purpose in going to the castle is never fully elaborated and his motives seem lost or stolen. The forces acting upon K. are shrouded. It seems as if some invisible force has plotted to test K. to the limit of human endurance of tolerance of ambiguity.

Kafka combines the themes of:
social class commentary,
alienation from a heartless social system,
absence of any protective power,
salvation,
redemption,
fear of strangers,
fear of change,
search for the meaning of life,
inscrutability of authorities,
indifference of forces ruling human fate,
persistence in the face lost purpose,
abuse of power
and
acceptance of pointlessness goals.

As the plot progresses it takes on a surreal nightmare quality. Is the protagonist having a nightmare, going insane or confronting the reality of his situation?

There is no end to the frustration. We are never told if K. is having a nightmare or going insane. We never discover why K. is so determined to enter the castle that he would tolerate and even join in to the absurdity. His original purpose of doing a surveying job could never justify his struggle to gain admittance. We are left seeing K. as a perpetual outsider. Perhaps Kafka is telling us that there is no end or limit to frustration, alienation and absurdity. Those seeking an answer to the ageless enigma of existence will never find a simple resolution.

This is a disturbing work that challenges conventional notions of plot and character development while testing the readers conception of his/her purpose in life. The Castle will confront the reader in unexpected ways and raise emotional personal issues that would otherwise be repressed.

See:

The Metamorphosis

The Trial

Amerika

Collections:

The Diaries of Franz Kafka (Schocken Classics Series)

Collected Stories (Everyman's Library)

The Zürau Aphorisms of Franz Kafka

Blue Octavo Notebooks

Kafka's Selected Stories (Norton Critical Edition)

Give It Up: And Other Short Stories

Great German Short Stories (Dover Thrift Editions)

I highly recommend this book.

Kafka's "Amerika" was the first of his novels that I read following a survey of his short stories. It's a witty and charming book, even if the America Kafka presents is completely unlike any America I've ever heard of. Still, I didn't find it that engaging. I felt as if Karl, the main character, was something of a pinball, bouncing from one place and situation to another as a consequence of the seeminly random decisions of those around him. He spends an awful lot of time thinking and thinking and thinking, but in the end all his thoughts don't amount to much and he's kicked to the next event.

Also, please remember this is an unfinished novel! Unlike many of Kafka's unfinished stories, it doesn't cut off at any particular final point, it just sort of stops, and now I'm frustrated! ;-)

There is an excellent review of this book on 'The Amazon site' by AJ Feinsinger that captures the story of this work, and much of its strangeness.
I am only adding a few impressions of my own.
First I concur with the observation that this is a book written by a person who has never been in America. I remember reading it years ago, and how it seemed to me the very opposite of everything America stands for.
America in my mind then, was brightness and optimism , a new hope and a new dream. It was moving Westward, and pioneering. It was clear and simple and beautiful
Kafka's 'Amerika' is complicated and mind- ridden. It is filled with paradoxes and absurdities, with strange cruel meetings .The atmosphere of nightmare and difficulty that pervades Kafka's work was felt by me then as in absolute contradiction to the American spirit.
Of the novels , 'The Castle ' 'The Trial' and this one I find this one the least satisfying, the most incoherent. It is very much a super- incomplete work. 'Incompleteness' is of course part of Kafka's legacy and gift .But here it seems often as if there simply has not been enough time given to the text.
I am in any case a reader of Kafka's diaries, parables, stories, shorter works more than I am of his novels which I find somehow tiresome.
This is to my mind the least satisfactory of all of Kafka's work.
And yet as Kafka reveals to us our own contradictions, paradoxes and fears in a way no one else can- this work too has its meaning and instruction.

By the author's own admission, "Amerika" is a much more optimistic piece than Kafka's other works. Since Kafka was never able to finish this work, the reader is unable to read the final "happy ending" that the plot is leading toward fulfilling. Even without the afterword which alleges the eventual ending, the lack of angst and thinning sense of confusion point toward resolution.

After fathering a child in his teenage years, Karl Rossman is shipped to America to begin his life free of stigma. But getting off of the ship that brings him to America becomes a challenge that leads him to a wealthy family member in America. However, Karl's life of luxury is short-lived. After offending his uncle, he is cast out on his own. Falling in allegiance with a pair of out of work tramps, Karl hopes to start anew. Delamarche and Robinson continually take advantage of Karl's resources until work finds Karl. These two men cost Karl his job of stature and try to force him into the servitude of the obese singer that employs Robinson and Delamarche. We never learn how Karl escaped this predicament, but find Karl in the last chapter finding an apparently great opportunity in Oklahoma.

Since this is an unfinished work, there are some gaps in the story as pointed out in my review. Many have dismissed this work of Kafka as it does not fit the typical mold of his work. While the gaps in the story make it difficult for me to give this book five stars, I would recommend this book to fans of Kafka.

Franz Kafka's 'Amerika' started off, to me, with a great premise, but in the end I found the tale less than entertaining.

Karl Rossman, a teenage boy shipped off to America by his parents following an 'indiscretion' with a servant girl, finds himself in the company of an American uncle, who quickly shuns him for accepting the hospitality of one of the uncle's friends.

Rossman then 'disappears' into the poor working class landscape of America, where he encounters many less than scrupulous characters.

Much of this novel is devoted to the this 'disappearance', though the action, to me, never quite moved along...and made the story quite stale to me...

While I have not read any other works by Franz Kafka, I hope that other novels were better paced and executed. His prose is enjoyable, just not very 'lively' in this offering.

Without ever having visited America, the German-speaking Czech author, Franz Kafka, wrote a novel based on research which included an autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, travel brochures, and the stories of Europeans who had traveled to America and returned to Europe. The result was the novel, Amerika, his unique and often very unrealistic interpretation of life in America. Amerika follows an almost sixteen-year-old boy through a series of experiences and adventures. Due to misbehavior at home, Karl Rossmann is sent by his parents to New York to live with his uncle in America . Kafka's skewed view of America is immediately demonstrated as Karl is greeted by the statue of liberty holding a raised sword. Karl meets many people and discovers a life quite different than any he has ever known in Europe. Karl meets his uncle and finds himself in the midst of people who are well-off in society. Later, on his own, he discovers a different side of American life. From houses the size of castles, to unfair treatment by his employer, to an out-of-control political rally, Karl is constantly surprised by America as he experiences many bizarre occurrences. Because Kafka did not finish Amerika, the reader is left disappointed in not knowing what happens to Karl, but also hopeful for Karl's future. This book is an interesting portrayal of America from the point of view of an early twentieth-century European who had never visited America. This makes the book intriguing.

Some of the other editions are about the same price but only has the Metamorphosis, while this includes a lot more!

"Metamorphosis" might be the most famous, but the one really caught me was "In the Penal Settlement". I felt the same feeling as in "The Foreigner" by Albert Camus. The heat, the existentialism, the calmness and the meaning(less) of life in a whole different dimension.
At the same time "The Burrow" and "Investigation of a dog" were incomprehensible to me...

I love these Barnes & Nobles Classics editions and have read several others--and have a full shelf more to read!

Having never read Kafka before, I really appreciated the Introduction and other extras to help me understand more about his life. I would give "The Metamorphosis" and "In the Penal Colony" three stars but I just couldn't get into the other stories.
I understood "Josephine the Singer, or The Mouse People" about as much as I understand the Chris Kattan asexual "Mango" sketches from SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE. I thought pages 156 to 157 were great but I just didn't get the rest of it.

What I did find interesting was reading about Kafka's life in the "World of Kafka" and the Introduction--reading that he belonged to a German-speaking Jewish family in Prague--and then reading "In the Penal Colony," originally published in 1919. I could not stop imagining Nazi uniforms during the story. As the officer dispassionately describes the grotesque efficiency of the torture machine, I could not help but think of the calm but chilling tone of actual Nazi concentration camp officers. That most of Kafka's surviving family would be wiped out in Nazi death camps during World War II years after his death is a frightening footnote to his stories.

This is a definitive collection of the short work of Franz Kafka, encompassing all of the greatest moods of his writing. The following stories are included.

The Judgment is a tale of what is and what is not. A young man reveals, through a letter, that he's engaged. He reveals this to an estranged friend in St. Petersburg, but then things start to unravel as he's undone by his father's probing and accusations. His father questions him extensively and demoralizes him, while revealing his own frailty.

The Metamorphosis. What can I say about this classic that hasn't been said by many more insightful and austere than myself? What I love about the story is that the action has occurred before the tale begins and the whole story is the aftermath, the coping, the results. It's quite a bit of masterful technique to pull that off.

In the Penal Colony is a devilish story of torture, execution and the morality of punishment. A machine is used for capital punishment and it's greatest advocate is a salesman for its continued use. Wicked.

A Country Doctor deals with Kafka's own issues of faith as told through a story about a doctor's ability or inability to treat patients. It's very much a theological tale, questioning faith and the foundations of morality. Kafka was an unbeliever but in this story he gives a fair analysis of the possibility of a greater power.

A Report to an Academy is the most fun of all the Kafka stories. At least to me. It's the story of an outsider trying to fit in - the ape rejecting his ape past, his heredity, his roots. It's the Jew rejecting his Jewish heritage. It's the European abandoning Europe for the promises of America. It's a grand journey told through an ape that takes on humanism in order to advance beyond his station, yet revealing that this is a false promise because one's true nature can't be avoided, can't be buried.

This volume ought to be, and probably is, required reading for all educated people.

- CV Rick

The metamorphosis is perhaps Kafka's most famous story. It is about a man who suddenly wakes up as horrible creature (whose appearence is left to the imagination of the reader). His whole life changes and his room becomes his world. His family begins to forget him as he becomes an embarassment for them. The end comes as unexpected as the metarphosis itself.
I found the other stories not as interesting as the described above, and some of them have a very strange end, if we can call it so.

Sebald published his first, well, novel, in 1990. He invented a new genre of literature, a kind of combination of travel writing and literary plus historical essay, with a minimal addition of 'plot'.
The travels are in time and in space. The space in Vertigo is Northern Italy with extensions into Austria and Bavaria. The book at first glance seems to be consisting of four stories, but that is a misconception. Sebald's travels happen in the 80s of the 20th century, and injected into the travel narrative are two texts about the lives of Stendhal and Kafka, both focusing on Norther Italy, first during the Napoleonic wars, then during the pre-WW1 period. Other literary names playing a part are Herbeck (a walk in Vienna), Grillparzer (travel diary to Venice), Casanova (escape from Venice prison), Werfel (visiting Kafka in hospital), Ehrenstein (Vienna excursion with Kafka).
The book deals with the themes that Sebald would later develop further in his other books, i.e. memory, resp. the process of remembering, and exile. The narrative does have elements of a story: the narrator feels stalked by two young men when he is in Italy in 1980. When he comes again 7 years later, he learns about a case of two serial killers, educated young men from 'good families', who had committed a series of brutal murders 'in the name of' mad King Ludwig. The narrator has his passport lost by an Italian hotel, he gets mugged in Milano when he goes to the Consulate for a replacement. He travels to his home town in Bavaria, which he has not seen since a long time, and revisits places and memories from childhood.
An anecdote on exile: during Kafka's visit to Lake Garda in 1913, the stolen Mona Lisa is reported to be found in the place of an Italian thief, who had tried to liberate her from her unvoluntary exile in Paris. (Sebald reads this in newspaper archives when he researches Kafka's trip.) Which links Sebald to my other recent addiction, Patrick O'Brian, who tells us in his Picasso biography, that Pablo P. had been a suspect for the theft of the painting, when he was in exile in Paris.

This account of wanderings on both sides of the Alps perfectly captures that mixture of familiarity and strangeness, fascination mingled with isolation, and the sense of rubbing shoulders with a checkered history, that is the experience of a solitary traveler who takes his time. Sebald's narrator is a lot more sensitive than most, prone to nervous fears and intense but unconsummated attractions. By interspersing his own narrative with accounts of Stendahl (referred to only by his real name, Marie Henri Beyle), Casanova, and Kafka (Dr. K.) in the same parts, Sebald adds layers of resonance to his own experience, while questioning the nature of memory itself. The layers of thought, the ungoverned spirallings of the mind, which mirror and surpass the narrator's impulsive wanderings, are the true subject of this book.

I have to admit, though, that VERTIGO disappointed me after reading the same author's AUSTERLITZ. The memories that lie at the heart of the rose for this particular narrator are those of a child in a Bavarian village just after the German defeat in 1945. While they are vivid, they do not have the power of the Holocaust memories of the earlier book, nor is this one man's experience so easily seen as a symbol of the malaise afflicting an entire culture. I was convinced by the suggestion of a couple of other reviewers on this site that Sebald's German nationality itself is felt as something akin to an endemic disorder -- but this does not come over with anything like the inescapable strength that it does in the later and greater novel.

I was wondering around the bookstore when I saw the cover. I open the book up and paged through it. Illustrations, drawings and maps and photos, on every page! Text written directly to the images! I purchased the book. I can't imagine a better decision.

Vertigo unfolds like a dream, unreal and hyper-real at the same time. A string of unrelated stories, a chapter each. Different characters, different centuries, yet underneath it all a use of language as music no less gifted than Mozart's. Moods, spells, memories, rapture -- all suspended from reality to take on their own existence. A masterwork, wonderously accessible, a book you will read more than once.

I did not enjoy VERTIGO by W.G. Sebald. The book was well reviewed in The New Yorker five years ago, which is why I bought it, but I had trouble getting through it, I know I completely missed its point, and I guess I won't be reading other novels by Sebald.

This is Sebald's first novel, though two others of his were translated into English first and appeared in America to positive reception: The Emigrants and The Rings of Saturn. The book reads as "experimental" prose, interweaving the author's own memories with fictionalized accounts of the nostalgic and journey experiences of Kafka, Stendhal and Casanova in four parts.

From what I can tell, the book is a consideration of memory, its elusiveness and its meaning, but it wasn't a consideration I found compelling. I have a respect for the author, who is German and lives in England (he is a professor of modern German literature at the University of Manchester), and the work he does, but I was not moved by it. I did find the best section, the most readable, to be the final one, in which Sebald returns to the German village that was his childhood home and makes a thoughtful comparison of the village he finds today with his memories of the community where he lived as a child. It was a longer section, and so held my interest more.

He has a lyrical and intriguing writerly voice (he writes that Casanova "likened a lucid mind to a glass, which does not break of its own accord. Yet how easily it is shattered."), but the entire did not make enough of a whole to engage me. Perhaps his other novels are more engaging...

Having never read a book by W.G. Sebald before, I bought this novel on a trip to London and began reading it on the long flight back to the States. The airline seated me next to a friendly, intelligent and beautiful woman, so I don't think I read more than eight pages or so during the flight. When I finished the book a few days later, I was stunned to discover that the route the narrator walks across central London near the end is EXACTLY the route I walked through that same area just a few hours before buying this book.
I mention this coincidence not solely because of narcissism, but because such coindences, such unexpected correspondences, such synchronicities, are the raw materials from which Sebald's books are made.
"Vertigo" is the first and most difficult of Sebald's four novels, and it may also be the most profound. The first example of his trademark form, the travel narrative as psychological and philosophical exploration, the book moves from London to Venice to the German alps and covers a range of subjects from the paintings of Pisanello to the loves of Stendhal, working in meditations on the treachery of memory, the fragility of identity, the struggle to find meaning in history (both personal and national)... Sebald's works are so intellectually rich that summary descriptions of them can only sound banal. Read the book and see for yourself.

The most poignant moment of Franz Kafka's 1915 novella The Metamorphosis occurs when the narrator remarks that nobody thought to open Gregor's bedroom door to see him, though the door was now unlocked. In time, Gregor no longer wishes to emerge from his room, to be seen. All connection with his family and his former self is lost.

Gregor the travelling salesman had gotten into the habit of keeping his door locked, even at home. He became private to the point of being paranoid. Gregor the absentee member of the Samsa household--albeit the breadwinner--is unknown to his sister Grete and to his parents. The loss doesn't quite register with them.

This is the story of the man who wakes up as a bug. He literally embodies his emotional and psychological perception of himself: that he is vermin. He has become his own self-loathing. As this reality settles into his mind, he hopes his family will in some way respond to his need, to feed the unnameable hunger that gnaws at him throughout this ordeal.

Instead, they turn away. He is the dirty secret, the problem child, the social stigma they could do without, thank you very much. The father beats him back into his room every time he emerges. His mother lacks the emotional fortitude to face the situation and faints instead. Grete, his sister, feeds him and cleans his room until he reaches out for her in his buggy way--by creeping toward her while she is playing the violin for lodgers.

Gregor's financial control of the family plays a role in the neurosis that afflicts each member. Not until he is free of their control can they realize their potential. That control cannot buy Gregor the food he requires--some form of emotional and spiritual nourishment in the form of genuine relationships--though he does somewhat sadistically enjoy being the center of their fleeting attention for a little while. The door had been locked for a little too long. Family connection lost its relevance. Here is the tragedy of modern life: we're all so busy getting and doing that we lose track of what it means simply to be.

The verb "to be," I learned as a young girl in English class, is not a very strong one. It's boring and should be replaced with verbs that sugget activity and emotion.

I've come to realize that being isn't so bad; it's being alone that can kill you. This is the kind of starvation that killed Gregor. The Metamorphosis (Bantam Classics)

This collection of short stories was my first introduction to Kafka and I highly recommend picking this up for anyone thinking about reading his works. The short stories range in length from many pages to single paragraphs. Most of the stories shorter than 2 pages seemed pointless to me but the lengthier entries were excellent in their content and writing style.

Kafka's writing style is unique and really needs to be read to be understood. The word Kafkaesque now means something to me. I look forward to reading some of his novels to see if they match the power of and imagery of The Metamorphosis.

Bottom Line: Kafka is hip again and this is a good sampling of his short stories.

Kafka is one of the unique geniuses of world - literature.
His stories are parables that have an uncanny quality about them, and so defy our simple understanding.
As Camus pointed out Kafka's stories demand rereading and reinterpreting again and again, without one ever having conviction that one has truly grasped the true meaning.
The beauty of this uncanniness, the strange power of these stories is the genius of Kafka.

I am german. I have never read the english translation of "The Metamorphosis" and so I don't know how it is and how it sounds in english. I can only say that it is a really deep, intensive and wonderful story in german language. "Die Verwandlung" has really changed my way of thinking! It is a book like a mirror, you can lay your own feelings in it. Some think it is too dark, i think it is "life and life only".

Frankly, I have only read the Metamorphosis and the Penal Colony. I will admit that both were a bit unusual, but I fell in love with the Penal Colony. It's laconic, but extremely well-written (kudos to the translator). Given it's length, I'd suggest it to anyone looking for a shortcut to one of literature's masterpieces. As for the Metamorphosis, I cannot say the same. God only knows (as Kafka cannot tell us) what he meant with the transformation of Gregor into a vermin. I found that story simply bizarre, devoid of any blatant parallel.

It's a very good book and what I liked the best was that the story started right off the first sentence. I couldn't stop reading the book. Of course it wouldn't happen to any of us, but it was still interesting to see how people reacted to him when he changed. I didn't not expect the ending to be what it was. I felt sorry for Gregor. It has a very good moral to the story.

This version of Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis is an adaptation by Peter Kuper. What I found unique about this book was that it is written in comic book form. Kuper created Metamorphosis in this way so that it could keep the reader's interest. This book kept my interest because it had detailed pictures, interesting characters, and the text was written in different forms. The pictures are very interesting because the characters emotions are shown in detail and the text boxes were different shapes and designs for each character. On some pages the text in a zig-zag design and on others it is in a spiral. Plus, the storyline was wonderful...awesome.

The Metamorphosis is about a man named Gregor, who was always focused on work so that he could support his family, pay off their debts, and send his sister to music school.
Until one morning Gregor wakes up and finds that he is a huge dung beetle. Gregor thinks it is just a bad dream. He does not get freaked out but is worried about being late for work. He puts all his energy into trying to get out of bed so that he can to get to work on time. Gregor's family was worried about him because he did not come out of his room on time to catch the train for work. His family knows it is not his usual behavior to sleep in and when they checkup on him; they realize that they could not understand him because he sounded like an animal.

The problem with Gregor becoming a bug was that no one could understand him, he could not go to work to support the family, and for once he was forced to depend on his family for his care. Before Gregor turned into a bug he feed his family, gave them money, and they never thanked him for his hard work, but went about their daily routine. Gregor's family use to stay home all day, no one worked, his mother was sick, and his sister was too young to work. In the end Gregor's family gets tired of supporting him, taking care of him and start to feel that he is a burden because he is not doing anything. This is funny because before when Gregor worked; they did not do anything. Now that Gregor is a bug his father is forced to work again, they rent out rooms for money, the mother is now cooking and cleaning, and his sister works. I would recommend this book because it is very dramatic, ironic, and hopeful. Even though Gregor died; his family went through a metamorphosis and became more independent.

this graphic novel version of kafka's metamorphosis does every bit of justice to the original novella. the artwork is heavy on the black ink, giving it the perfect amount of darkness, yet gregor's antagonists are portrayed comically -- their facial expressions fit their shallow characters perfectly.

i dont know much about kafka's original intent with metamorphosis (as another reviewer pointed out, it is supposed to be a "comedy") but the theme of alienation, existentialist despair, and injustice are consistent with his other works, most notably the trial. gregor samsa, like josef k, is turned into a "vermin": for no obvious reason, he is condemned to be the victim of hostility and rejection. both protagonists have done nothing to deserve their fate. this existentialist theme reoccurs in camus' the stranger, sartre's the flies, and hamson's hunger, just to name a few.

the "absurd" should not be miscontrued as "comic."

I love "SPY vs SPY", and so do my kids. I bought this version of The Metamorphosis as I saw it advertised and thought it could be an entertaining illumination of Kafka's novel. I had read Kafka's Metamorphosis in the distant past in Spanish, translated from the German by Borges (I gave it away years ago and wish now I could retrieve a copy). At that time I realized it was very funny and thought it strange people currently consider it a nightmarish tale. A recent review of a biography of Kafka confirmed to me, two decades later, that in fact it WAS comedy and meant to be so by Kafka an his clique of writer buddies. I had started reading the English translation to my twin 8-yr-olds with the comic zest it deserves. I switched to this comicbook version halfway but found it impossible to overcome the gloomy, darkened tragic flavor of the obviously tragic comicbook version. I have tried now to encourage my boys to make a truly comic version of The Metamorphosis in comicbook form with bright colors, especially metallic for the salesman-turned-bug. Such a version would do justice to The Metamorphosis.

Bleak tale about isolation, told through the story about a boy who changes into an insect. This was mandatory stuff in highschool days, but that was ok in this case, because it's good.

Kafka is brilliant, as most anyone who reads this book will soon realize. He dealves into different ranges such as the Jewish mysticism (Kabbalah). Possibly a little far out there due to his style for some, but I doubt it. The English translation is required reading in my IB school, but the german version (recommended by my Austrian teacher) was even better. One can delve deeper into the metaphor through the feelings behind every word and phrase. Kafka, like many Jews and people of that era, was the victim of severe isolation. Die Verwandlung portrays this feeling perfectly. This is bar none one of the best pieces of literature I have ever picked up.

Now this is really a strange book. As I'm German this was on the "to read" list in school. But to be true I enjoyed this story of a boy who finds himself transformed to an Insect. You certainly think that this book was written by a lunatic. But that is also where the fascination lies. I'd say read and see for yourselves!

The photographs are excellent. And they give a picture of Kafka's world beyond what the imagination could conjure. The text is a reasonable introduction without going into great depths. This is a good companion volume especially for those for whom Kafka is a lifetime friend and spiritual guide.

This is an interesting picto-biography of Kafka replete with a lot of good, informative and well-printed photographs and solid information about Kafka's life and writing. There is also a wealth of background information on Prague as the "Eastern center" of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. There is no index, but the bibliography is thoughtful and well-rounded. The text is pretty pedestrian actually, and the excerpts from Kafka's letters and diaries seem a bit lacking. The layout is odd, too, and the book suffers greatly from a rash of bad hyphenation which impedes readability.

I have now read several of the books collected in the Overlook Illustrated Lives series. None of the additions to these books will hardly be mistaken for a definitive treatment of the particular subject, but through their lavish use of illustrations and photographs they provide a much more tactile introduction to an author than is normal. It is one thing to read of an author that he or she lived at such and such a place, was inspired in their writing by this location, or worked for a specified period of time in a certain building, and quite another to see a superbly reproduced period photograph of the site. I had read about Kafka before, but I realize now that I had always imagined his world as scruffier and dirtier and less elegant than it in fact was. This is significant, because Kafka writes very much about the world he inhabited, taking concrete experience as the basis for some of his tortured fantasies, so that having a more precise image of his world is an advantage indeed.

The text does not quite match the extraordinary beauty of the illustrations. Adler does not give a poor introduction to Kafka's life, but it is a spotty introduction. Some of the truly big questions in Kafka's life are left undiscussed, while others are dealt with quite satisfactorily. For instance, hints are given that Kafka's political beliefs were decidedly leftist, but no substance is given to them. Adler writes of his association with Zionist writers and of his sympathy with Zionist ideas, but to what degree did Kafka subscribe to them? Relatedly, Adler somewhat ignores Kafka's metaphysics for his psychology. One does not catch the bleakness of Kafka's sense of life by reading Adler. In contrast, compare this passage from Kafka's closest friend Max Brod: "'We are nihilistic thoughts, suicidal thoughts that come into God's head,' Kafka said. This reminded me at first of the Gnostic view of life: God as the evil demiurge, the world as his Fall. 'Oh no,' said Kafka, 'our world is only a bad mood of God, a bad day of his.' 'Then there is hope outside this manifestation of the world that we know.' He smiled. 'Oh, plenty of hope, an infinite amount of hope--but not for us." One gains a great sense of the way that Kafka thought and felt from that brief passage than in Adler's entire biographical essay. Nonetheless, while just lacking as an in depth study of Kafka, one will in conjunction with the wonderful photographs, which are tied closely to the text (compare this to the same series' biography of Proust, where the illustrations frequently have only a very loose connection to either Proust or the narrative) gain a increased appreciation for Kafka's world. I have read Max Brod's memoir/biography and much in Ronald Hayman's more recent biography, but neither gave me such a vivid impression of what Kafka's world was like.

I can't overemphasize just how fine the photographs in this book are. One finds pictures of all the crucial places and people in Kafka's life, and some assist marvelously in reading specific works. For instance, there is a great photograph of the castle in Friedland in northern Bohemia, where Kafka lived briefly in his capacity as representative of the Workers' Accident Insurance. The factory is in the foreground of the photograph, but behind it, up on top of a tor that rises suddenly above the surrounding land, is the castle that has been cited as a possible source for the one in Kafka's final novel.

If one attends to the dates of the deaths of many of the individuals in the photographs in the book--especially Kafka's relatives and his romantic attachments--one appreciates the degree to which WW II destroyed Kafka's world. Had he lived, one wonders if he would have stayed and died with his family and lovers, or if he would have fled with Max Brod to Palestine or elsewhere. It also, however, serves as a macabre confirmation that the horrific events in his novels and stories are not so terribly removed from reality. "The Penal Colony" was transformed by actual events into prophetic fiction or realism instead of nightmarish fantasy.

Metamorphosis was my first introduction to Kafka and I found his dark humour unsettling yet addictive. Samsa plagued and burdened with poverty and family responsibility, is in the end betrayed by himself and his loved ones in a dramatic turn of events. As a "useful" and able man, he was respected and cared for by his parents and loved by his sister. But after the metamorphosis, his family at first tolerated him, his sister perhaps pitied him, but towards the end, it turned to hate and disgust. They realised Samsa had become a burden and embarassment to the family. A useless vermin stuck to the family walls. Metaphor taken to great heights. Physically and intellectually an insect, but emotionally and spiritually still a man.

Translations are generally taken for granted.

Only recently have I been re-reading books translated by different authors to compare the interpretation of the author's orignial intent, mood and word choice. Kafka has been a longtime favorite and I have been using the same translation with every pass. Then I came across the audio version of this book.

When some of my favorite passages would come up I would be surprised at the change of words; sometimes an improvement, other times a disappointment.

In the introduction, a note on the translation explains the disparity of the various translations starting with his most famous story, The Metamorphosis. For example, the typical narrations begins by calling the newly transformed creature an ugly insect. However, when looking at the original German, translator Joachim Neugroschel changes it to "monsterous vermin," a significant difference. I can't remember the German words, but they look like the direct translation would be monstrous vermin, and clearly not "insect."

The authors extended discussion of the translation on the audio book made me feel better about his grasp of both languages, poetry and the intent of the author. So I can almost for give differences like "a pack of nobodies" being changed to "a bunch of nobodies." I prefer "pack" for its comparisons to wolves over "bunch" for its comaprison to bananas.

The translation should not be considered an "updated version" because that would imply simplification or modernization of the text. It still reads like it comes from Kafka's age. This version is great for a first time Kafka reader, a dedicated fan who wants to compare the language interpretations, or for someone who wants to re-experience the genius of Kafka.

I would give this book 5 stars if it were a complete collection of stories. Some of the ones that still haunt me are missing.

This was my first exposure to Kafka, and was actually in audiobook form, with a masterful narration by George Guidall. It was a very well-rounded collection, including The Metamorphosis, The Stoker, A Country Doctor, and Visit to a Penal Colony.

I won't pretend that I understood all of the political/religious symbolism, but was captivated by the dark humor and weird, despairing ambience of these character studies. There isn't a lot of conventional dramatic movement, but the power of these surreal images and bizarre viewpoints sneaks up on you. Kakfa has a narrative voice that is utterly unique. I found that it gained power upon re-reading(hearing), and promptly loaded up cassette one as soon as I reached the end.