The Penal Colony: Stories and Short Pieces

This collection was edited by Kafka's great friend, the man who saved his writings from the flames, Max Brod. It contains the work which Kafka published in his lifetime, including 'Meditation' 'The Judgment' The Metamorphosis' ' The Country Doctor' ' In the Penal Colony' and three pieces of travel- writing. Had Brod obeyed his friend's instruction and burned his work, then this present collection would be what we have of Kafka. We would not have the Journals, the Letters to his Father, Milena, and others, the novels, The Castle, the Trial, most of Amerika. Nonetheless even from what there is in this volume alone we can see that we are dealing with one of world Literature's great originals. The uncanny and mysterious character of Kafka's writing, those strange riffs of reasoning which take us to places in imagination we have never been before pervade this volume. Two illustrations. First, the Bucket Rider a small story , a parable of the human soul in search of heat, and help meeting the cruelty of winter cold and the merciless human heart. The other, ' Metamorphosis' in which Kafkean self- contempt seems to find its most perfect embodiment, and in which we observe Gregor Samsa struggling to communicate with his family and the world to remain alive, only to be rejected in the end by those he loves and cares about. Camus said that Kafka is a writer that must be reread and reread if he is to be addressed properly. The element of parable in his writing is a major element in urging us to this rereading. In the famous 'Before the Law' and in the 'Imperial Messenger' we have two examples in which there is that improbable Kafkean combination of a special fate and chosenness combined with a cosmic impossibility and failure. I would have preferred to see introductions to each seperate piece here including details of the first publication of the work, and if possible of Kafka's considerations regarding each work. That is I would have preferred more extensive editorial work here. But this lapse cannot detract from the remarkable power of these stories. Rereading them after quite a few years away from them I am again struck by how wholly different Kafka seems from any other writer. I don't think that even Borges could teach him how to better write his Parable.