The Metamorphosis: And Other Stories (Schocken Kafka Library) [Deckle Edge] [Paperback]

Franz Kafka (Author)

Book Description

Series: Schocken Kafka Library | Publication Date: November 14, 1995

This collection brings together the stories that Kafka allowed to be published during his lifetime. To Max Brod, his literary executor, he wrote: “Of all my writings the only books that can stand are these.”

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Kafka’s survey of the insectile situation of young Jews in inner Bohemia can hardly be improved upon: ‘With their posterior legs they were still glued to their father’s Jewishness and with their wavering anterior legs they found no new ground.’ There is a sense in which Kafka’s Jewish question (‘What have I in common with Jews?’) has become everybody’s question, Jewish alienation the template for all our doubts. What is Muslimness? What is femaleness? What is Polishness? These days we all find our anterior legs flailing before us. We’re all insects, all Ungeziefer, now.”
—Zadie Smith
 
“Kafka engaged in no technical experiments whatsoever; without in any way changing the German language, he stripped it of its involved constructions until it became clear and simple, like everyday speech purified of slang and negligence. The common experience of Kafka’s readers is one of general and vague fascination, even in stories they fail to understand, a precise recollection of strange and seemingly absurd images and descriptions—until one day the hidden meaning reveals itself to them with the sudden evidence of a truth simple and incontestable.”
—Hannah Arendt 

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: German

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Schocken (November 14, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805210571
• ISBN-13: 978-0805210576
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.6 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #351,393 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Kafka's humor shines through in this new translation, August 28, 1997

By 

[e-mail] (Camb., MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Metamorphosis, In the Penal Colony, and Other Stories: The Great Short Works of Franz Kafka (Paperback)

Few translators can capture the sly humor of Kafka's "Metamorphosis" in the manner of Neugrol. Grimness becomes hilarious in the most modern fashion. Kafka has never been more accessible

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars When an Unlocked Door Remains Closed, April 27, 2007

By 

Sandy Carlson "SandyCarlson" (Connecticut, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Metamorphosis, In The Penal Colony, and Other Stories (Paperback)

The most poignant moment of Franz Kafka's 1915 novella The Metamorphosis occurs when the narrator remarks that nobody thought to open Gregor's bedroom door to see him, though the door was now unlocked. In time, Gregor no longer wishes to emerge from his room, to be seen. All connection with his family and his former self is lost.

Gregor the travelling salesman had gotten into the habit of keeping his door locked, even at home. He became private to the point of being paranoid. Gregor the absentee member of the Samsa household--albeit the breadwinner--is unknown to his sister Grete and to his parents. The loss doesn't quite register with them.

This is the story of the man who wakes up as a bug. He literally embodies his emotional and psychological perception of himself: that he is vermin. He has become his own self-loathing. As this reality settles into his mind, he hopes his family will in some way respond to his need, to feed the unnameable hunger that gnaws at him throughout this ordeal.

Instead, they turn away. He is the dirty secret, the problem child, the social stigma they could do without, thank you very much. The father beats him back into his room every time he emerges. His mother lacks the emotional fortitude to face the situation and faints instead. Grete, his sister, feeds him and cleans his room until he reaches out for her in his buggy way--by creeping toward her while she is playing the violin for lodgers.

Gregor's financial control of the family plays a role in the neurosis that afflicts each member. Not until he is free of their control can they realize their potential. That control cannot buy Gregor the food he requires--some form of emotional and spiritual nourishment in the form of genuine relationships--though he does somewhat sadistically enjoy being the center of their fleeting attention for a little while. The door had been locked for a little too long. Family connection lost its relevance. Here is the tragedy of modern life: we're all so busy getting and doing that we lose track of what it means simply to be.

The verb "to be," I learned as a young girl in English class, is not a very strong one. It's boring and should be replaced with verbs that sugget activity and emotion.

I've come to realize that being isn't so bad; it's being alone that can kill you. This is the kind of starvation that killed Gregor. The Metamorphosis (Bantam Classics)

11 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great introduction to Kafka, February 25, 2001

By 

D. Roberts "Hadrian12" (Battle Creek, Michigan United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Metamorphosis: And Other Stories (Schocken Kafka Library) (Paperback)

This is a splendid initiation into the warped imagination of Franz Kafka. In one swoop the reader gets the infamous Freudian "Metamorphosis" as well as some of Kafka's other macabre short stories.

Perhaps the best of these is "In the Penal Colony." It reads like Michel Foucault's "Discipline And Punish" on acid. It is almost like a satire on what Hegel liked to refer to as the "slaughterhouse of history." The story is at once terrifying and grotesquely comical.

The rest of the stories are typical Kafka; perverse but fascinating. For those who have a morose fascination with ghastly world of this author's literary fantasy, this is an exceptional book to begin with.