The Metamorphosis & Other Short Stories by Franz Kafka

Favorite words from Kafka:

• Insouciant - showing a casual lack of concern; indifferent

• Bellicose - demonstrating aggression and willingness to fight

• Inveterate - having a particular habit, activity, or interest that is long-established and unlikely to change

Words of Wisdom

• “Once it is built, a bridge cannot stop being a bridge”

“If you turn into a bug, watch out for apples”

After reading “The Trial” a few months ago, I decided to give Kafka another go. Clearly he is a talented writer, and although I enjoyed his short stories and thought “The Metamorphosis” was interesting, Kafka still isn’t a top-10 for me in terms of authors I enjoy reading. I never seem to get lost in his stories. Instead, I feel like I’m analyzing them or continuously working to get through his long sentences and philosophical debates he seems to be having with himself. Were most of the stories enjoyable in their own unique way? Yes. Is this something I’d bring with me on a road trip? No. 

Kafka is, in many ways, unique in terms of his style. If you read a piece of writing without knowing the writer, there’s a strong chance you’d be able to guess it came from the German writer. Something I like about his short stories are that they are all very distinctly different in terms of character and setting. In one story, the first-person narrator is a Chinese laborer while in others, he is a monkey-turned-man writing a letter to an academy or a depressed Poseidon. 

I like how he dives right into the story rather than trying to fit a tightly woven beginning, middle, and end into a few thousand words. On the extreme though, one of his stories finishes with “My father said something along these lines:” and that’s it. Maybe it’s just me and I missed the point, but often he concludes a story with the same abruptness in which he starts. 

Some of my favorite “other stories”:

• The Passenger

• Mutual Rejection

• An Old Manuscript

• The Concerns of a Father

• Eleven Sons

• A Report For An Academy