Some of these are effective stories. Some seem to be just turning up the volume on socially awkward situations until they seem to take on some sort of metaphysical significance, but I'm not really buying that. The more baffling stories pretty much erase themselves from my memory a few minutes after I finish them. ( )

There's something remarkable about holding the entire output that an author published during his lifetime in one normal length book. Of course much of Franz Kafka's reputation rests on the three novels that were published after his death and against his explicit instructions.

There's also something depressing about this particular volume, and I'm not talking about the stories, many of which are really quite comic. What is depressing is that the stories are arranged chronologically and for the most part they keep getting better and better. Until Kafka's relatively short life ended.

Particularly striking is The Stoker, Metamorphosis, In the Penal Colony, some of the stories in the collection A Country Doctor, and then the stories in the collection A Hunger Artist, particularly the title story, First Sorrow, and Josefine, the Singer, or The Mouse People. Other than Metamorphosis they were all new to me and the precise attention to odd details that have an internal logic but do not correspond to any world we actually know, the strange predicaments of the characters, the precise psychological characterization of alternative viewpoints, all added up to something that really is quite amazing. ( )

I have a great deal of admiration for The Trial, but I had never read Kafka's other work. The Metamorphosis lives up to the hype and is a 5 star option for sure. It is poignant, funny, heartbreaking, honest and creepy all at the same time. Its literary genius leads me to give the collection 4 stars, but I will say the rest of what is here really weighs things down. Much of the content is fragments, which I found irritating. For me reading a disembodied paragraph is not like looking at a fragment from a sculpture, or looking at studies for a painting in that it tells me almost nothing about the whole work. The completed stories where fine, but none came close to the stunning work in The Trial and The Metamorphosis. So I guess what I am saying is skip the collection and just get The Metamorphosis on its own. ( )

This is a fantastic book, with a translation that is wonderful and revelatory. Like everyone, I read Kafka in high school and college, but this new translation makes it seem new again. Highly recommended even if you know Kafka. ( )

There's something remarkable about holding the entire output that an author published during his lifetime in one normal length book. Of course much of Franz Kafka's reputation rests on the three novels that were published after his death and against his explicit instructions.

There's also something depressing about this particular volume, and I'm not talking about the stories, many of which are really quite comic. What is depressing is that the stories are arranged chronologically and for the most part they keep getting better and better. Until Kafka's relatively short life ended.

Particularly striking is The Stoker, Metamorphosis, In the Penal Colony, some of the stories in the collection A Country Doctor, and then the stories in the collection A Hunger Artist, particularly the title story, First Sorrow, and Josefine, the Singer, or The Mouse People. Other than Metamorphosis they were all new to me and the precise attention to odd details that have an internal logic but do not correspond to any world we actually know, the strange predicaments of the characters, the precise psychological characterization of alternative viewpoints, all added up to something that really is quite amazing. ( )