Binding: Hardcover
EAN: 9783150594261
ISBN: 315059426X
Label: Reclam, Ditzingen
Manufacturer: Reclam, Ditzingen
Number Of Pages: 366
Publication Date: 1995-09-01
Publisher: Reclam, Ditzingen
Studio: Reclam, Ditzingen

"Had one to name the author who comes nearest to bearing the same kind of relations to our age as Dante, Shakespeare, and Goethe bore to theirs, Kafka is the first one would think of."-- W. H. Auden

Packaged with French flaps, acid-free paper, and rough front.

Customer Rating:
Summary: The Cockroach Becomes Modern Man
Comment: Having never read any Kafka even in my late twenties, a professor of mine pointed out that he'd done a translation if I would be interested, and I was; I wasn't aware how much I was going to enjoy these stories, and the edition they're in is great for a number of reasons, but not without its flaws. Obviously I'm no Kafka scholar but, even having read no other versions, I can tell where the translation is weak.

First of all, the stories are all great. If you haven't read a Kafka collection, do yourself a favor. They're weird, funny, disturbing, horrified--but I was excited most by the presentation. The front and back covers are in a comic-book style that lends itself to Kafka's dark humor--the front cover shows a scene from the Metamorphosis and the back shows several scenes from a number of the smaller stories. These lend the stories a certain amount of delight that I think would have been otherwise absent because, as Hoffman's introduction points out, many people unfortunately assume that Kafka is an entirely serious writer.

Hoffman's translation is sometimes very good, and I always liked his sense of humor. Choosing to use words like "burbled" always adds to the character of a dark story. But sometimes I felt like the word choices were a little too precious. Most of the time Hoffman's word choices are very dry and direct, which he points out is important in Kafka. Sometimes, however, he goes off the deep end with words that maybe he couldn't resist that admittedly fit the tone but are so obscure most readers wouldn't recognize them. Why he chooses to refer to Gregor Samsa as a "cockroach" instead of just "beetle" really eludes me. Also, there seems to be an issue with comma splicing and semicolon use.

If you have read Kafka before, I don't know if buying this version will be worth it to you; but if you haven't, you should pick this up.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Good Deal
Comment: Some of the other editions are about the same price but only has the Metamorphosis, while this includes a lot more!

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Kafka's Best
Comment: 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

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Metamorphosis and Other Stories
Comment: "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...

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Almost Three Stars
Comment: 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.

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