The Complete Stories

Rating:
Summary: Kafka: an author who captures the epic tale of tragedy
Review: Kafka's short stories are amazing. Few authors really harness tragedy like he does. Take "The Penal Colony" for instance. Kafka invents an ultimate devise of capital punishment, making it vile and disgusting, but coaxing the reader to almost rationalize the purpose of it's existence. As you finish the story though, you realize that it's not about an inhumane killing devise, but instead one man's obsession with it, and it's historical purposes. In a sense the story is a bad-mouthed eulogy of that man.

One of Kafka's biggest achievements is his ability to have the reader sympathize with the "bad guy". Few authors can really get a reader emotionally involved with the book.

So take home this book and sit in an under-lighted room as you read it, but be prepared. Soon you will find yourself lost within the words of Franz Kafka.

Rating:
Summary: Kafka: an author who captures the epic tale of tragedy
Review: Kafka's short stories are amazing. Few authors really harness tragedy like he does. Take "The Penal Colony" for instance. Kafka invents an ultimate devise of capital punishment, making it vile and disgusting, but coaxing the reader to almost rationalize the purpose of it's existence. As you finish the story though, you realize that it's not about an inhumane killing devise, but instead one man's obsession with it, and it's historical purposes. In a sense the story is a bad-mouthed eulogy of that man.

One of Kafka's biggest achievements is his ability to have the reader sympathize with the "bad guy". Few authors can really get a reader emotionally involved with the book.

So take home this book and sit in an under-lighted room as you read it, but be prepared. Soon you will find yourself lost within the words of Franz Kafka.

Rating:
Summary: The meaning of life in one small volume.
Review: Kafka's stories prove that he is a literary genius. His stories are easy to read and extremely deep. The light reader who just skims the page will not do that well with this book. But, if you are a person who loves to think about what you read, this book is for you. Kafka deserves much fame and intention because of his stories. Every story has an inner-message that can only be found by contemplation. The inner meaning usually has to do with life, respect, and love. Follow my advice, buy it, read it, love it, and E-mail me to tell me about it ([e-mail]).

Rating:
Summary: a great book.
Review: Kafka, because of his difficult style, can make some assume him to be a bit overrated (which he is by english teachers who prefer him over an author like Herman Hesse, who says what Kafka does a bit more simply and beautifully.) But the truth is, Kafka does have his moments of brilliance, and despite the bad english translations of most of his works, there is still a lot one can learn from them. In the meantime, if you're not ready to dive into the difficulty, pick up a book such as Toilet: The Novel, which was written by an American, and thus does not suffer from the complexities and flaws of translation, and the book itself is a tribute to the literary works of Kafka, which makes it a great introduction to an even greater writer, or for a title a bit less literary pick up one of those introductory guides to Kafka. But then, these short stories too, are also a good introduction, just make sure you read them before you jump into Kafka's book 'The Castle'. Having said that, I hope I was of some help to you.
Fare thee well.

Rating:
Summary: What are my lungs for, anyways?
Review: Kafka. What a guy. Of the 27 reviews so far, only 1 (brothersjudddotcom) has dared to give less than 5 stars. He did a good job with his review, but I feel I need to add some as well to help balance all the stars Kafka is recieving here, and giving the review browser a diferent angle always helps.

As can probably be expected, the short stories are a mixed bag. There are about a half dozen good ones, and there are a few absolutely terrible ones. "The Burrow" was particularly painful.

That said; I did not come into the reading with much biographical knowledge about Kafka other than that in the introduction. Quickly, however, it became apparent that the poor guy is not comfortable with life. Death, suicide, starvation, a feeling of powerlessness; these things run common among the stories. Kafka does not even feel human! His characters inhabit dogs, cockroaches, mice, apes, and some large burrowing-type creature. The "modern" world alienates man, so-to-speak; it is unnatural. bah. Modern times are the best times to be alive! Man only counts his sorrows, doesn't he? Kafka sure counted alot of them...

There was some humor, but not nearly enough to overcome the pessimism. My goodness, why bother getting up in the morning? The rotting apple in the posterior = the sin of homosexuality is an interesting idea; but I think it is more significant that Gregor Samsa actually starves to death. The running theme of admiration for starvation is disturbing. Combined with the "Hunger Artist," dying because he "couldn't find the food he liked" and "Investigations of a Dog," where a dog (Kafka) does not accept religious sustenance or practical, scientific sustenance; rather choosing to starve to death (another dog *forces* him to eat something); Starving oneself becomes a noble rejection of life and all its horrible complicated troubles. Freedom, horrible, horrible freedom is bemoaned in a similar way to how Dostoyevsky's Grand Inquisitor puts it. Freedom, however, defines modern thought.

Kafkaism. Kafkaesque. Here are a few for you:

"What help, then, do my colleagues find? What kind of attempts do they make to manage to go on living in spite of everything?"

"I can only see decline everywhere"

"the highest effort among us is voluntary fasting" "I was tortured by the fancy that I would never be able to eat again."

"It seemed to me I was seperated from all my fellows, not by a quite short stretch, by by an infinite distance"

"I felt so weak and unhappy that I buried my face in the ground, I could not bear the strain of seeing around me the things of the earth."

"My heart hurt, for now it seemed impossible to escape from my suffering."

"...It cannot be made good, not ever." (the haunting conclusion to The Country Doctor, a masterpiece... but still laden with an unreasonable pessimism. We are utterly powerless, at the mercy of a violent world. So?)

And my personal favorite:
"What are our lungs supposed to do?" I shouted. Shouted: "If they breath fast they suffocate themselves from inner poisons; if they breath slowly they suffocate from unbreathable air, from outraged things. But if they try to search for their own rythm they perish from the mere search."

The most curious thing is that in the introduction it says that Kafka sometimes read his work aloud to his friends, and had to pause often to laugh uproariously. I laughed possibly twice while reading this, the humor has not aged well. I think the only reason you'd read this is so you can say "I've read Kafka" and puff out your chest. If you absolutely must read something in this, read the Country Doctor. It almost has a rythm.

Rating:
Summary: Sure he's Great, but Over-rated maybe?!
Review: One wonders if this author's reputation might be a bit overblown,though these stories sure are interesting. They should appeal to everyone except romantics who like happy endings. Kafka's is not the type in a Harlequin Romance. Still, is he really THAT great? Anyone who has had a mixup with the law, a gov't agency, who feels persecuted but can't figure how and where, and who likes earthbound sci-fi and old "Twilight Zone" shows will love this. No doubt Kafka has a sense of humor too, even if it seems a little too masochistic at times. The writing is darn good, probably better in the German. METAMORPHOSES seems a little too far out for me. But IN THE PENAL COLONY,and THE JUDGEMENT ARE ABSOLUTE MUST READS. You can pick other faves, and know you're reading the words of a genius, tormented father/victim and all. Also noteworthy is his death at 45 of TB...Anyway, I just got videos of the recent TRAIL and KAFKA so thought I'd share my thoughts..If you got this far, I thank you for reading this !!! (I wonder who is watching me type this, and who will read this!!!???)

Rating:
Summary: Another review in praise may be unneccesary but...
Review: There is nothing else that inspires me to write like these stories. In particular, the ultra-short ones, "A Message From the Emperor" and "Before the Law" made me realize the way in which a writer can create. I read them and imagine a blank page before him. Within the page, or two, he created something which has been burnt into the minds of those who have read it. Oddly enough, these stories have led me to consider extremely long works (such as Anna Karenina or Crime and Punishment) as, quite possibly, not worth the time. I only think that way every other day though.

Besides the fabulous ultra-shorts, the just-plain-regularly-short length stories are brilliant. (please don't use that term incorrectly. I'm trying to introduce it worldwide. Just kidding.) "Josephine the Singer" is my favorite short story and my favorite work of Kafka's. I believe it was his final work as well. It is absolutely bizarre, but powerful.

Rating:
Summary: The Ultimate DECONSTRUCTIONIST writer!
Review: There is something radically Kafkaesque about a bourgeois-to-the-max writer who has squandered prodigious technical talent (John Updike) essaying the role of commentator/editor of a compendium of the works of Franz Kafka. I advise a serious reader to ignore Updike (RABBIT RUN; COUPLES; ROGER'S VERSION) and try these Deconstructionist parables on his own. Along with the well-known Kafka classics (The disturbing sermon, BEFORE THE LAW; Hellraiser-spawned IN THE PENAL COLONY and the uniquely post-modernist THE METAMORPHOSIS), I suggest INVESTIGATIONS OF A DOG. The latter is a wildly funny satire on the burgeoning Western-world view that revels in insolence and elevates its own solipcism to THE LOGOS as basis of science and ethics. Our Heideggerians echo Protagorus' "Man is the measure of all things..." Kafka's Perro-Dog, proposes "DOGS ARE THE MEASURE OF ALL THINGS", and commences to expatiate on Dog metaphysics, ethics and science (and Agronomy: How to find "dog food" by pissing on the ground). Why not? A REPORT TO AN ACADEMY is a marvelous, erudite declamation...by a dipsomaniacal Gorilla...as in Tarzan's buddies...concerning Pavlovian teaching techniques he (RED PETER, Kafka's King Kong clone) has successfully used to get food, attention and beer (especially beer!). HUMANS SEE...HUMANS DO! Yes, our man Franz was capbable of withering sarcasm/humor and was probably no more neurotic than the average teen pumped-up on Ritalyn or adult pumped-down on Depakote (well, maybe a tad). THE BURROW and THE HUNGER ARTIST are two excursions into alienation (Kafka's theme favorite). THE GREAT WALL of CHINA (essaying a tone of H.P. Lovecraft terror) explores dread before The UNKNOWN...rather than respectful awe before THE MYSTERIUM TREMENDUM (God). THE HUNTER GRACCHUS is a mystical paeon to HOPE (not Kafka's strong suit, but there) about a Person-as-Buttefly seeking redemptive transformation (not damning metamorphosis) and SALVATION.

If a reader would like a good prep to Kafka, forget Updike and read Kierkegaard...as Kafka himself did. Kafka is strange stuff. But in times like ours, his fables and parables are like a cracked mirror reflecting and illuminating our DECONSTRUCTED AGE that exalts shattered anti-Dreams and self-inflicted brokeness. May K and Gregor Samsa a-MUSE you...

Rating:
Summary: The supreme art of the master
Review: These are stories that are parables, and whose meaning comes as Camus rightly said only when they are read and unread. They are among the great works of literature.
To describe a Kafka story is to describe something uncanny. It is to describe a transformation into an enigmatic world, where the precise material details of reality suggest other realities one vaguely senses and cannot really understand. It is the dwelling in a strange realm of anxiety and fear beyond the ordinary that can miraculously turn to a different direction entirely.
I cannot really say what Kafka's stories are.
I only know that whoever reads them will be in the presence of the uniquest of the unique in literature. For Kafka writing was prayer and these stories are invitations to prayer , not necessarily with him.

Rating:
Summary: interesting to say the least
Review: this book was almost everything a book could possibly be. Kafka manages to make you think more with less then a page of text then some author do with a whole book. he frustrates you with his unfinished works, his incomprehensible ones, or his simplistic, straight-foreward ones (that you know must be much deeper, but can't seem to figure out how). it is brilliant and unintelligent, it is thought-provoking, and completely void of all logic, and it is all these things at once. If this is your first trip into the world of kafka then don't be dicouraged, some of it is bizarre to say the least, and can be very frustrating, but when you find that one story that manages to change the way you think and view the world, then you will begin to see his genius. But then again that's just my opinion and it's pretty irrevilent, but read the book anyway, YOU'LL LIKE IT