Franz Kafka Message Board 7/9/2007 3:03:46 PM
Talk about the novels, new and used books that
Kafka has written!
Author Kafka's Book
Reviews
Amerika
Karl Rossman, Kafka's young and unassuming character, is in a frightening situation. Having made a young servant girl pregnant, his ashamed and unfortunate parents have sent him to begin a new life in America.
It is in Kafka's acclaimed short story "The Stoker", that the first chapter of "Amerika" also begins, as "The Stoker" was originally published on its own. Karl is about to leave the ship in New York when he encounters a member of the crew, who is... The Castle
K. is summoned as a land surveyor. His assignation leads him far from his native town and his family to an inhospitable, snow-covered locale. His desire to reach the castle and receive further instructions on his job seems a reasonable one, but from his first encounter with the residents of the village governed by the castle, he realises that things will not be as simple as he expected.
All contact he tries to make with the castle is futile, forcing... The Great Wall of China
This story succeeds where Kafka's 'Metamorphosis' fails. (In the more famous Metamorphosis a man, a miserable salesman, who lives the life of a work-beetle, overnight turns into a giant beetle and then lives out the rest of his miserable existence in that form: literally a mere beetle in life's great hierarchy of being. Unfortunately, within that story Kafka provides no reason whatsoever for this entomological grotesquerie, and life, not actually being t... The Metamorphosis
Gregor Samsa, the breadwinner of his family, has worked five years as a travelling salesman in order to pay off his parent's debts and allow his family to enjoy life. However, he wakes up one day transformed inexplicitly into a giant insect, and gets increasingly alienated from his family.
Met with horror, repulsion, and grudging love from his family for this strange turn of events, this short story shows the slow degeneration of these feelings into a...
Kafka booklist
The Trial
Joseph K is arrested in his lodging house by two officials for a crime which is never explained. Frau Grubach, Joseph K's landlady, in an attempt to help him, ends up hurting his sensibilities when she mentions the illicit carryings-on of Frau Grubach, another lodger for whom K. has some attachment. When he later meets Frau Grubach, in a clumsy effort not to, he actually manages to kiss her. After being told to report to court, and finding the location...
