Short Stories

Franz Kafka (translated by JA Underwood)

I thoroughly enjoyed the famous short stories by Kafka. In particular I liked 'The Metamorphosis' and 'In the Penal Colony'. Kafka manages to set up bizarre and quite fringhtening situations and then uses them to discuss the minutae of life. In 'The Metamorphosis' he starts off this story with the line "Gregory Samsa woke from uneasy dreams one morning to find himself changed into a giant bug". Yet despite the giant bug in their house, the main worry that the Samsa family deal with that first morning is the fact that Gregory will be late for work. This book is a definite recommendation with the reservation that, like a lot of collections, it starts with some boring stuff from early on in Kafka's writing career.
Gavin 20/9/98

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