Franz Kafka: The Complete Stories [Deckle Edge] [Paperback]

Franz Kafka (Author), Nahum N. Glatzer (Editor), John Updike (Foreword)

Book Description

Release date: November 14, 1995

The Complete Stories brings together all of Kafka’s stories, from the classic tales such as “The Metamorphosis,” “In the Penal Colony,” and “A Hunger Artist” to shorter pieces and fragments that Max Brod, Kafka’s literary executor, released after Kafka’s death. With the exception of his three novels, the whole of Kafka’s narrative work is included in this volume. 

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

How many writers get their own adjective? The work of this terminally alienated master narrator of the subconscious demanded a new descriptor; I guess they gave up and just settled on "Kafkaesque." But if you ever wonder what the original Kafkaesque work was, take a look here. The book contains all of Kafka's short and longer stories -- everything but his three novels. Most of these stories weren't even published during the author's lifetime. The widely-anthologized The Metamorphosis is here, wherein Gregor Samsa awakes from uneasy dreams to find himself insectoidally transformed, as are equally lovely pieces like A Hunger Artist, A Country Doctor and A Little Woman.

Review

“[Kafka] spoke for millions in their new unease; a century after his birth, he seems the last holy writer, and the supreme fabulist of modern man’s cosmic predicament.”
—from the Foreword by John Updike
 
“The distinction Kafka, or his heroes, draw between this world and the world does not imply that there are two different worlds, only that our habitual conceptions of reality are not the true conception.”
—W. H. Auden
 
“An important book, valuable in itself and absolutely fascinating. The stories are dreamlike, allegorical, symbolic, parabolic, grotesque, ritualistic, nasty, lucent, extremely personal, ghoulishly detached, exquisitely comic, numinous, and prophetic.”
—The New York Times

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 488 pages
• Publisher: Schocken Books Inc.; Reprint edition (November 14, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805210555
• ISBN-13: 978-0805210552
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 1 x 8.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (57 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,746 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #52 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Anthologies & Literary Collections > Short Stories

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

41 of 41 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Table Of Contents! August 27, 2011

By Elizabeth Fuller

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Hello All,

I recently purchased this book in faith, though I was also frustrated by the lack of information in the book description. So, I will provide here for you the table of contents so that whoever purchases this book from now on can know exactly what they are getting:
(By the way, the book is beautifully new & well designed, with the edges of the pages torn, not cut.)
When it says the complete stories, it means it. The foreword assures that the book contains "all of the fiction that Kafka committed to publication during his lifetime." That meas his novels, which he did NOT intend to be published but left note in his will to be destroyed, are NOT included: The Trial, America, The Castle. I have put his more famous stories in caps....

Table Of Contents:

THE LONGER STORIES: Before The Law, An Imperial Message
Description Of A Struggle, Wedding Preparations In The Country, The Judgment, THE METAMORPHOSIS, In The Penal Colony, The Village Schoolmaster, Blumfeld An Elderly Bachelor, The Warden Of The Tomb, A Country Doctor, The Hunter Gracchus, The Hunter Gracchus A Fragment, THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA, The News Of The Building Of The Wall A Fragment, A Report To An Academy, A Report To An Academy Two Fragments, The Refusal, A Hunger Artist, INVESTIGATIONS OF A DOG, A Little Woman, THE BURROW, Josephine The Singer Or The Mouse Folk

THE SHORTER STORIES: Children On A Country Road, The Trees, Clothes, Excursion Into The Mountains, Rejection, The Street Window, The Tradesman, Absent-minded Window-gazing, The Way Home, Passers-by, On The Tram, Reflections For Gentlemen-Jockeys, The Wish To Be A Red Indian, Unhappiness, Bachelor's Ill Luck, Unmasking A Confidence Trickster, The Sudden Walk, Resolutions, A Dream, Up In The Gallery, A Fratricide, The Next Village, A Visit To A Mine, Jackals And Arabs, The Bridge, The Bucket Rider, The New Advocate, An Old Manuscript, The Knock At The Manor Gate, Eleven Sons, My Neighbor, A Crossbreed A Sport, The Cares Of A Family Man, A Common Confusion, The truth About Sancho Panza, The Silence Of The Sirens, Prometheus, The City Coat Of Arms, Poseidon, Fellowship, At Night, The Problem Of Our Laws, The Conscription Of Troops, The Test, The Vulture, The Helmsman, The Top, A Little Fable, Home-Coming, First Sorrow, The Departure, Advocates, The Married Couple, Give It Up, On Parables

Hope this was helpful! I definitely recommend purchasing this book, but not if you were looking for his novels. You should purchase this book, AND his novels. :) Read more ›

92 of 108 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Great intro to Kafka April 3, 2000

By Charles Pinney

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

"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!

57 of 67 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Nothing like this before or since December 16, 1999

By Doug Vaughn HALL OF FAME

Format:Paperback

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.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A provoking volume February 22, 2001

By Richard Harrold VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

Until you read Kafka, many of us think we know Kafka based perhaps on anecdotal items we pick up in the media or from others. The mere fact there's the term "Kafkaesque" perhaps causes us to think we know what it means. But it is only when one reads Kafka do you begin to gain some insight into one of the most mysterious and yet hallowed writers of the 20th century.

This volume is really the place to begin. For in it are three of his more widely known novellas: In the Penal Colony, The Judgement, and Metamorphosis. But it is with the other stories that the reader that peruses rather than skims will undoubtedly begin to ask questions. What is Kafka trying to say in such a circuitous manner? What conflict tears at him to write these unusual tales? Because I think most readers will begin to wonder the same, realizing that Kafka felt passionate about something, but chose a metaphoric manner to present his idea so ingenious and subtle that I fear it is lost upon most readers. Clearly, Kafka struggled with something deeply personal. He was engaged twice to the same woman, and called off the engagement twice. And he prefered to live an uneventful, unnoticeable and undemanding life. He ridiculed the bureaucry, yet chose it as his vocation. To me, that is a key element to understanding his stories. And these more obscure tales do more to reveal what is meant by "Kafkaesque" than the grandiose volumes of The Castle, or Amerika. It is clear why so many of his prose strikes one as unfinished (besides the fact most of it was unfinished), because Kafka's own metamorphosis was incomplete. Had he not died from tuberculosis, perhaps he would have solved the conundrum of his personal life. Instead, we are left with these beautiful and mysterious tales that whisper something to us.