Franz Kafka: The Complete Stories
by Franz Kafka

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Book Reviews of Franz Kafka: The Complete Stories

Book Review: tales of an unwell man
Summary: 3 Stars

First things first; reading these stories and comparing what's actually on the page to the central position that Kafka holds among critics in 20th Century literature, I couldn't help thinking of Chauncey Gardiner. He, of course, is the simple minded hero of Jerzy Kozinski's great book Being There. Having spent his whole life within the grounds of a mansion gardening and watching TV, he enters the world completely unprepared to interact with his fellow man. But the people he meets inflate his non sequitirs into faux profundities and he is soon advising the President of the United States. He is a blank slate upon which other people scribble and then interpret their own ideas as genius. In much the same way, Kafka wrote a series of completely autobiographical tales, and an unpleasant autobiography it is: grown men living at home with their parents; working menial jobs in huge bureaucracies; terrified of marriage; bullied by overbearing fathers; plagued by illness, nightmares and feelings of alienation from all around them except for one loving sister. This was Kafka's own life and these are the common threads that run throughout his work. But add them all together and what you get is a situation, not a set of ideas. Kafka endlessly rewrites the situation that he found himself in; noticeably absent are any thoughts about the origin, meaning or alternatives to this situation, other than killing off the character who finds himself stuck therein.

Second, I guess the discussion of Kafka as a "gay" writer is fairly recent, but I'm not sure how else he can be read. The very lack of socio-political meanings in his work, the degree to which it is situation based, rather than driven by ideas, leaves you with only the elements of the situation to interpret and the point inexorably towards a conclusion that his heroes are isolated by their homosexuality. Just take Metamorphosis; here are the elements of the plot. A grown single man who still lives with his family wakes up one morning to find that he has become a bug. This leads to his being isolated from his shamefaced family. His father drives him out of a room by throwing apples at him. One lodges in his backside and rots there; the resulting infection kills him. Well c'mon; this just isn't even subtle. A family ashamed of their single son. He's a dung beetle for cripes sakes. The apple (sin) infects his posterior. I mean surely we've all got the picture by now. Why go on?

All of which leaves us with an interesting question, does the fact that his stories may not have meant to him what they have come to mean to different schools of critics in some way diminish his stature as a literary figure? Or does the fact that his intensely personal story can be read in a universal manner to apply to (1) the Jewish experience, (2) the epoch of totalitarian regimes and (3) the dehumanizing age of bureaucracy in which we all live, actually demonstrate just how great a writer he was?

I'm inclined towards the first view. I think that the situation that he reiterates in his work is so specific to him and has so little to say about the world most of us live in that it is hard to justify his lofty position in the literary pantheon. As I read, I found myself thinking, "this author is a troubled boy" more often than "this is a troubling society he describes". In a perverse way, it seems likely that the best thing that ever happened to Kafka was the rise of totalitarian regimes in general and, specifically, their banning of his works. It is noteworthy that he died before the long dark night of Nazism and Communism descended on Europe. It is only retrospectively that his work came to be read as a gloss on these regimes. And had they simply ignored him, it's hard to believe that he would have come to be so closely associated with their machinations. Return him to the time and place that he wrote and take his work at face value and I think you're left, not with a writer whose work defines and illuminates the 20th Century (a la Orwell, with whom he is often unjustly paired), but with merely the mildly intriguing tales of an unwell man.

GRADE: C+

Summary of Franz Kafka: The Complete Stories

The Complete Stories brings together all of Kafka?s stories, from the classic tales such as ?The Metamorphosis,? ?In the Penal Colony,? and ?A Hunger Artist? to shorter pieces and fragments that Max Brod, Kafka?s literary executor, released after Kafka?s death. With the exception of his three novels, the whole of Kafka?s narrative work is included in this volume. 

Classics Books

• Subjects > Literature & Fiction > Classics
• Short Stories
• World Literature > German
• Literary