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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. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

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 --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

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Customer Reviews

28 Reviews

5 star:		(26)
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3 star:		(2)
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Average Customer Review

4.9 out of 5 stars (28 customer reviews)

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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars interesting to say the least, July 23 2004

By

makaveli771 "lesane_crooks_7" (Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Complete Stories (Paperback)

this book was almost everything a book could possibly be. Kafka manages to make you think more with less then a page of text then some author do with a whole book. he frustrates you with his unfinished works, his incomprehensible ones, or his simplistic, straight-foreward ones (that you know must be much deeper, but can't seem to figure out how). it is brilliant and unintelligent, it is thought-provoking, and completely void of all logic, and it is all these things at once. If this is your first trip into the world of kafka then don't be dicouraged, some of it is bizarre to say the least, and can be very frustrating, but when you find that one story that manages to change the way you think and view the world, then you will begin to see his genius. But then again that's just my opinion and it's pretty irrevilent, but read the book anyway, YOU'LL LIKE IT

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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars description of a struggle; or, conformity to formlessness, Mar 26 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: The Complete Stories (Paperback)

i've only read one of these buggers, which in my version is the first, DESCRIPTION OF A STRUGGLE. in it, a man walking down the street with an 'acquaintance' of his is drawn into a surreal dreamworld, where his acquaintance turns into a donkey, the storyteller commands the landscape to change, and a fat man is carried into a river and swept away. no doubt all of this has to do very directly with the unconscious mind, but i don't know tuppence about that. what i do know is it's absolutely brilliantly written, and putting the book down is like waking up from a beautiful nightmare. i strongly suggest that anyone with a few screws loose who isn't afraid to lose a few more pick up this book; it may even inspire you to write your own stuff, as it did for me.

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5.0 out of 5 stars one of the world's greatest, Jun 1 2003

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adead_poet@hotmail.com "adead_poet@hotmail.com" (Beaumont, tx USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Complete Stories (Paperback)

It's hard to fit a review of any of Kafka's work in such a short space, but especially a review of his short fiction (or rather parables, which is more what they are). He was a master of the short story, the likes of which we have seldom seen before or since. This volume contains most of his short stories, those that aren't included here are included elsewhere, where they are more fitting (such as "The Stoker" as the first chapter of Amerika). Kafka's short story "The Metamorphosis" is possibly the best short story ever written. It is certainly the most well known. But I'd like to draw your attention to a few other stories by him--examples of what makes Kafka great: "Before the Law", "In the Penal Colony", "A Country Doctor", "A Report to an Academy", "A Hunger Artist", "The Burrow", "Josephine the Singer, or the Mouse Folk", and "Jackals and Arabs." Read this book.

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Most recent customer reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazone reference is wrong
Amazone refers to this book as "... brings together all of Kafka's stories--those published during his lifetime and those released after his death. Read more

Published on Jun 28 2005 by Mike Angello

3.0 out of 5 stars What are my lungs for, anyways?
Kafka. What a guy. Of the 27 reviews so far, only 1 (brothersjudddotcom) has dared to give less than 5 stars. Read more

Published on July 3 2004 by Gavin Farrell

5.0 out of 5 stars Kafka's Best Works
_The Complete Stories_ by Kafka rank at the top of my list of the best short-story collections ever. Read more

Published on Feb 27 2003 by Ross James Browne

5.0 out of 5 stars Good paper quality
I order this one for my roommate, so I did
not read it in fact. What I can said is that
the book is printed in high quality paper. It
looks beautiful!

Published on Jan 9 2003

5.0 out of 5 stars Kafka likes to hide.
Approaching a complex writer is rarely easy. Perhaps the most influential author of the 20th century is no exception. Read more

Published on Oct 15 2002 by Anders

5.0 out of 5 stars Another review in praise may be unneccesary but...
There is nothing else that inspires me to write like these stories. In particular, the ultra-short ones, "A Message From the Emperor" and "Before the Law"... Read more

Published on Sep 28 2002 by lucas_donahue

5.0 out of 5 stars Hooray for K.
Kafka's fiction occupies a strange, unique place in the canon. It is so deep as to invite a world of interpretation, yet so mysterious as to defy any attempts at interpreting it... Read more

Published on Mar 29 2002 by A.J.

5.0 out of 5 stars Some gems
This is a mixed bag. Some of the pieces are fragments. Some are of questionable value. Some are gems. Read more

Published on Feb 1 2002 by Zane Parks

5.0 out of 5 stars Sure he's Great, but Over-rated maybe?!
One wonders if this author's reputation might be a bit overblown,though these stories sure are interesting. Read more

Published on Jan 23 2002 by S. Henkels

5.0 out of 5 stars The Cares of a Family Man.

Somewhere at the back of this book, tucked in among fragments and sketches like a charred bower in a bombed-out city, is Kafka's eeriest, most condensed masterpiece, five... Read more

Published on Nov 5 2001 by AllOverWith