Product Details
Author : Franz Kafka
Binding : Paperback
EAN : 9780486290300
Edition : 1
Number of Pages : 96
Product Group : Book
Publication Date : 1996-04-12
Publisher : Dover Publications
ASIN : 0486290301
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Customer Reviews
Brilliant madness (2008-04-18)  The psychological becomes reality. Kafka's ability to create a world that is mad, but still has the intensity of truth is unequaled. Brilliant brilliant brilliant!
Bizarre and still fresh even today (2007-04-14) The first thing that surprised me about Franz Kafka's story THE METAMORPHOSIS is that is reads like it was written today. No, by that I don't mean that it's some cutting edge literature like Palahniuk's "Fight Club" or some wild insane romp such as "Katzenjammer" by J.T. McCrae, but rather that it is as fresh in its conception as those pieces and as much other new literature I've come across. No wonder it didn't take the world by storm when it first came out and that everyone was confused, not getting the giant metaphor the story really is. I do have to admit that I read it twice, just to make sure I got all the layers. Amazing, really, this story is written to be read on so many levels and it's up to you to decide what you want it to be about. Kafka was a genius and I'll be looking for anything else he's written.
More than just "The Metamorphosis" (2004-04-30)  As someone who had only read "The Metamorphosis," I found this collection of Kafka's works to be very refreshing. Since I had not enjoyed reading "The Metamorphosis" in high school I was skeptical about reading other works by Kafka. I was pleasantly surprised when I read "In the Penal Colony", "A Country Doctor", and "A Report to an Academy." These works were assigned as part of a college class I had, and I found that they were not only very personally thought provoking, but they inspired a lot of insightful in-class discussion. I would recommend this collection to anyone who has not yet read any of Kafka's works, or who have only read The Metamorphosis.
Portrait of Despair (2003-12-05) Kafka is one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. He masterfulyl portrays the absolute meaninglessness of life in an existence devoid of any spiritual meaning. He accomplishes this in a way that completely captivates the reader, and impresses them with the sheer futility of it all. You may not have fun reading Kafka, but you will be stretched, and it will make you think. The Trial is also another brilliant example of Kafka's literary skill
Irreconcilable discrepancies (2003-10-30) As the content of the book seems not published: this collection contains the stories "A Message from the Emperor," "The Metamorphosis," "The Judgment," "The Stoker: a Fragment," "In the Penal Colony," "A Country Doctor," "An Old Leaf," "A Hunger Artist," "Josephine the Singer, or the Mouse People," in this sequence. I found the book opening with "A Message from the Emperor" very befitting, as it seemed to me that this story, in fact just a single page, nicely condensed the tone of the entire collection. In my opinion the stories explore the common theme of irreconcilable discrepancies (among human beings). "A Message from the Emperor" in particular depicts a person, a "contemptible subject" of the Emperor, waiting for a message from the Emperor that will never arrive. He knows for certain that the message won't arrive; yet he still waits. In the well-known Metamorphosis, the discrepancies take on a physical form -- the protagonist, Gregor Samsa, finds himself turned into a bug one morning. While Samsa attempts his best to convey what he thinks to his family, the members of family, understandably, are incapable of even conceiving that this bug, Samsa, may have any intellect. Communication between these two parties is broken beyond repair; the present discrepancies are irreconcilable. Likewise in "In the Penal Colony," and in "A Hunger Artist." In the former a foreigner is made to judge whether it is right to ban a particular execution machine of the past. The last remaining advocate of the machine, an army officer, tries his best to highlight the merits of it. He goes through great pain explaining how each and every piece of the machine works with great affection. No, the foreigner wont be deterred. The foreigner is as foreign as one could be from the idea of cruel execution. The hunger artist's vocation is to fast. He fasts in public and receives compensation from the spectators. He takes great pride in what he does; he only stops fasting because the convention prohibits him from going on. But his is a dying occupation. People gradually lose interest. How is it possible to convey to those ignorant people what noble a deed it is to fast? Remember the time you felt deep despair for not being able to get through to someone you care for (when no matter what you say just won't mean the same thing to you as to the other person)? Albeit in varying contexts, it is this devastation that Kafka so masterfully depicts in these stories.
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