Franz Kafka: The Complete Stories by Franz Kafka Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Franz Kafka: The Complete Stories
Book Review: The best place to start with Kafka.
Summary: 5 Stars
The best place to start with Kafka is with his short stories, and here we have all of his stories, published and unpublished, complete and incomplete, in one volume. The longer ones include masterpieces such as The Metamorphosis, In the Penal Colony, and A Hunger Artist. Also included are 2 short introductory parables, Before the Law, and An Imperial Message, which perfectly set the tone for what is to follow.
Kafka's troubled life can obviously be used as a reference point for his literature, but the stories stand alone as disturbing, often humorous, unique, and concise yet complex examinations of the human condition. Much is made of conflicts with outside forces over which the individual has no control, but the primary struggle is with oneself and is spiritual in nature. Kafka is a master at using irony and many of his stories end with satiric plot twists and sarcastic character revelations. The 1st line in the postscript mentions Albert Camus remarking that the whole art of Kafka consists in compelling the reader to re-read him. It's an astute observation, and when put into practice, reveals the genius inherent in Kafka's work. It's ability to continually ask more profound questions of us, rather than give pat answers or provide facile solutions to the dark riddles and dilemmas we all face in life to varying degrees.
John Updike provides an illuminating intro and the Muir's translations are excellent.
Book Review: The meaning of life in one small volume.
Summary: 5 Stars
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 (allennickell@wesnet.com).Book Review: The seperate permant place
Summary: 5 Stars
It would be foolish to offer too much praise. These stories demonstrate the internal collapse of a great mind; a mind great enough to observe its own maker. Yet for the reader who has been through such a sensation Kafka is supreme. He offers easy to read stories with almost unmatched complexities. I guess in many ways he represents what is buetiful about our deaths; a buety I must admit my daily life does not always allow me to appreciate and corraspond with. Never the less I must praise him in the end.Book Review: The supreme art of the master
Summary: 5 Stars
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.
Book Review: Truth's Metamorphosis Into the Inexplicable
Summary: 5 Stars
Kafka is much more then the Metamorphosis and the Trial, and this collection demonstrates why. Kafka offered much while he delivered little, meaning that he opens up a universe of possibilities while confirming nothing. Nothing materializes, everything is fog. Stories that sound as if they're going to reveal the meaning of life end up only irritating you, and others, such as A Crossbreed, bore you until the final few sentences when you suddenly realize what you've been reading, and almost cry. Here is a line from Prometheus, which seems to elucidate a main theme of Kafka's writing: "As it came out of a substratum of truth it had in turn to end in the inexplicable."
Kafka yearns for beauty and writes for truth, but what ends up on the page is often uncertain, vague and close to demonic in its preoccupation with the grotesque. His writing came out of a desire for truth and it had in turn to end in the inexplicable. So, truth metamorphoses (if I may..) into the inexplicable.
Also take note: the book is divided into The Longer Stories and the Shorter Stories, and some of the best Kafka is in the final section, which is the Shorter Stories. Watch out for The Bucket Rider, A Crossbreed, Prometheus, Poseidon, The City Coat of Arms... too many to mention!