Complete Stories

This is a fairly complete publication which includes nearly all of Kafka. "The Metamorphosis" is by far his best short story, the others pale in comparison. Also my copy has a very bent front cover, which I think was an oversight of the condition shown on the site.

It is a shame that a lot of Kafka's works remain unfinished, but even his unfinished works are amazing unto themselves. There is not a single story published by Kafka that I did not enjoy. He is my favorite author and I cannot recommend him enough.

Kafka's fiction occupies a strange, unique place in the canon. It is so deep as to invite a world of interpretation, yet so mysterious as to defy any attempts at interpreting it. I think it's brilliant just for its imagery -- who can forget the monstrous execution device of "In the Penal Colony," or the description of the boy's festering wound in "A Country Doctor," or the bouncing balls that torment the protagonist of "Blumfeld, an Elderly Bachelor," or the dead, river-bound title character of "The Hunter Gracchus" who is lost in limbo between this world and the next, or the animalistic recluse of a man obsessed with defending his home from intruders, both real and imaginary, in "The Burrow"? Kafka's use of symbolism, especially his use of animals as symbols representing various types of human experience, is unparalleled; it's easy to see the enormous influence he had on writers as diverse as Jorge Luis Borges, Thomas Mann, and Flannery O'Connor.But I don't feel Kafka's goal was to shock his readers or influence future generations of writers. He was just a 9-to-5 insurance guy with unique outlooks on life and the world and who developed an original, if occasionally grim and morbid, language for expressing them. If a writer's fiction is supposed to reflect his personality, then in Kafka's case we get a distinct picture of a man who struggled every day of his life with his efforts to write, his alienation from his family ("The Metamorphosis"), his difficult relationship with his father ("The Judgment"), his religious feelings, his Jewish identity ("Josephine the Singer," of particular poignancy coming from someone whose sisters were later to die in the concentration camps), his victim status ("The Vulture"), the absurdity of being an artist trying to communicate with an apathetic or misunderstanding public ("A Hunger Artist"), man's search for the divine and order in the universe ("Investigations of a Dog"). From a technical standpoint, it must be stated that Kafka was not a perfect writer; many of the stories are structurally flawed and seem inexplicably truncated or unnecessarily lengthened. Ascribing the shortcomings to expressionistic recklessness, however, I'd rather focus on the dark beauty of the images, even though I don't expect to understand them any better than I could know the man himself.

"The Complete Stories" has everything the beginning Kafka reader neads to get started. Of course this is required reading for the Kafka enthusiast.A well thought-out forward by John Updike prepares you for your journey into the amazing and complex mind of Kafka. The book is divided into two sections, one for the longer stories and one for the shorter stories (most of which only take up a page or two).The stories themselves are great. "The Metamorphisis" is included, in which Gregor Samsa awakens to find himself in the form of a rather large insect! "The Penal Colony", "The Judgment" and "A Country Doctor" are also included.There's certainly hasn't been an author since Kafka able to play upon the fears and emotions of the human mind, those thoughts playing in out head, when we realize that maybe some of this could happen to us.If you enjoy "The Complete Stories", be sure to pick up "Amerika", "The Castle" and "The Trial". These are Kafka's three novels and will complete your collection. All very much worth it!

Kafka has to be the one of the most influential writers of the century, not just for his ability to capture the alienation and unreality of much of modern life but because his vision, which is simultaneously totally bizarre and strangely moving, freed writers to try more and more daring ways of expressing themselves. After all, if one can write a moving story about a man who wakes one morning to discover that he has been turned into a huge cockroach, what can't the writer do?The impression left by these stories is all the more interesting when one realizes that Kafka wasn't a starving, drug or drink demented artist, but a minor clerk in a German insurance firm. A dull and orderly life. Of course, if you've ever worked for an insurance company Kafka's sense of unreality and alienation might seem natural.These are unique and wonderful concoctions. Anyone who wonders what 'Kafkaesque' really means should take a peek into his world. These stories are the best place to start. Then on to The Trial for the full, gruely experience. Wonderfully horrible.

Kafka was perhaps the greatest writer ever to live and this volume shows it. Every story, even every sketch of an idea that Kafka wrote down comes filled with brilliant emotions and deep meaning conveyed through simple and serious language. Shakespeare has none of the lyrical abilities of Kafka, and Homer could only dream of equaling Kafka's mastery of plot. Kafka out-psychoanalyzed Freud, and wrote circles around Joyce. His stories seem modern even by today's standards, the things that haven't come true yet in his works I believe will eventually, while I don't believe him to be a prophet he certainly had a great understanding of humankind and knew where it was headed. "A Country Doctor" is in my opinion the greatest short story ever written, a dark dream sequence with all kinds of slimy worms writhing beneath the surreal surface plot, sticking out through the rotted boards that Kafka puts down to allow us to see what we're standing over. "The Judgement," a purely perfect work of psychology, Kafka dipping deeper and hitting more nerves than in any of his other stories, giving us a picture of what it's like to be a genius controlled by a domineering, and a nonunderstanding father. And of course there are the smaller works from "Meditations," little snippets of images that flash through the mind, a kind of literary whispering in the ear while sitting in the dark. "The Burrow," another favorite, perhaps the most claustrophobic work of fiction ever conceived, the darkness of the tunnel affecting your mind for days. Read this book, in it the greatest treasure a writer ever gave us shines, a golden nugget, hidden deep within a dark pool that seems unswimable. Take the swim, and I garantee that you will find the nugget. Ignoring Kafka is like denying yourself the best there is.

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!