The Metamorphosis And Other Stories (Penguin Great Books of the 20th Century) - Softcover

Kafka, Franz

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140283366 ISBN 13: 9780140283365

Publisher: Penguin, 2000

Synopsis

"Had one to name the author who comes nearest to bearing the same kind of relations to our age as Dante, Shakespeare, and Goethe bore to theirs, Kafka is the first one would think of." W. H. Auden

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About this title

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

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"

About the Author:

Franz Kafka (1883-1924) was born of Jewish parents in Prague. Several of his story collections were published in his lifetime and his novels, The Trial, The Castle, and Amerika, were published posthumously by his editor Max Brod.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0140283366
• ISBN 13: 9780140283365
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224