World Famous Comics: The Metamorphosis and Other Stories (Dover Thrift Editions)
The Metamorphosis and Other Stories (Dover Thrift Editions)
By: Franz Kafka Publisher: Dover Publications Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Label: Dover Publications Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 96 Publication Date: April 12, 1996
Product Description: Superb collection by modern master explores the complexity, anxiety and futility of modern life. Excellent new English translations of the title story (considered by many critics Kafka’s most perfect work), plus "The Judgment," "In the Penal Colony," "A Country Doctor" and "A Report to an Academy." Note.
Good Deal Some of the other editions are about the same price but only has the Metamorphosis, while this includes a lot more!
Kafka's Best 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
Metamorphosis and Other Stories "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...
Almost Three Stars 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.
Good reading 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.
Anything Goes Trivia
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