The Metamorphosis, In The Penal Colony, and Other Stories [Paperback]

Franz Kafka (Author), Joachim Neugroschel (Editor, Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 22, 2000

Translated by PEN translation award-winner Joachim Neugroschel, The Metamorphosis, In the Penal Colony, and Other Stories has garnered critical acclaim and is widely recognized as the preeminent English-language anthology of Kafka's stories. These translations illuminate one of this century's most controversial writers and have made Kafka's work accessible to a whole new generation. This classic collection of forty-one great short works -- including such timeless pieces of modern fiction as "The Judgment" and "The Stoker" -- now includes two new stories, "First Sorrow" and "The Hunger Artist."

Editorial Reviews

Review

Harold Bloom author of Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human Joachim Neugroschel's version is an advance over previous translations of Kafka into English.

Joseph Coates Chicago Tribune In Neugroschel's version we see more of Kafka's meaning, his unexpected comedy....In this version, we have for the first time the sense of understanding Kafka's complexity and where it might lead us.

Ronald Hayman author of K: A Biography of Kafka and Proust Joachim Neugroschel has provided something that was badly needed -- an accurate translation of Kafka's stories into English. Kafka is difficult to translate, and the version we all know -- by Edwin and Willa Muir -- is full of mistakes. Neugroschel's translation is much closer to Kafka's German.

Václav Havel In Kafka, I have found a portion of my own experience of the world, of myself, and of my way of being in the world.

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: German --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Touchstone (May 22, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684800705
• ISBN-13: 978-0684800707
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 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: #38,235 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #28 in Books > Literature & Fiction > World Literature > German

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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.