Showing posts with label Franz Kafka. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Franz Kafka. Show all posts

Sunday, May 31, 2020

The Trial – Franz Kafka, 1925 ★★★

Welcome to my Nightmare

It is a tad perverse recommending a book you don’t enjoy reading, yet The Trial makes a worthy exception. The crazier life gets, the more relevant it becomes.

But if you happen to think surrealism is something best enjoyed in the abstract, think again. The Trial is both abstract and surreal, but in such a way to render it less dreamlike than frustrating. Even its chapter order is up in the air.

Saturday, October 21, 2017

Franz Kafka: The Complete Stories – Edited by Nahum N. Glatzre, 1971 ★★

Kafka: Thinking Outside the Bug

The term “Kafkaesque” is part of our language. What does it mean? This comprehensive collection of Franz Kafka’s short fiction begs more questions than it answers.

One common definition is “darkly surreal.” In “The Metamorphosis,” Kafka’s best-known story and one included in this book, a guy wakes up one morning to discover he is a giant bug. Dark and surreal, right?