Konundrum

This is the third and best translation of Kafka's short stories I have read. In addition, there are some early stories, fragments and epigrams that are unavailable in other editions. Recommended.

Thank you Net Galley. I have read a fair number of Kafka's works and was pleased to have the opportunity to read him on my e-reader, in a new translation. I enjoyed this very much and will be returning to it again.

This is a wonderful collection of Kafka's short works as well as entries from his diaries and excerpts from some of his letters. Included is a version of his famous work, The Metamorphosis.

The interspersing of non-fiction entries was illuminating and interesting. If you love Kafka, as I do, or even just recognize him as one of the major voices of the 20th century, this volume is a must-have.

My thanks to NetGalley and Archipelago Books for the opportunity to read this great work.

Can't wait to study Kafka with my students this spring! This really got me into the mood for reading/teaching Kafka.

It is a long time since I have read any Kafka, and I had forgotten just how beautiful his writing is – and also how surreal. Imagine Dali as an author.
This collection runs from passages only a few lines long – such as The Trees – to full length novellas – such as “Transformed” (more commonly known as “Metamorphosis”), with every length in between. All look at the world in a unique Kafkaesque (yes – he started it!) way (e.g. “Poseidon” where the god of the sea is portrayed as a reluctant accountant) – and some are just plain weird (e.g. “The Bridge” where the narrator is a bridge!). As Kafka himself says: “What an incredible world I have in my head!”
In some of the earlier pieces he muses what it means to be a writer, and the compulsion to write to stave off insanity: “I do not mean to suggest that my life is better when I don’t write. Quite the contrary, it’s much worse and altogether unlivable and must surely end in madness” … “a writer who does not write is, admittedly, an aberrant being who courts madness”, and “since the existence of a writer is directly dependent on his desk, the writer who wishes to avoid madness must never absent himself from his desk, he must dig in with his teeth”. Psychologists would have a field-day with Kafka’s prose.
He turns his attention to philosophy, parables (“What all these parables really mean to say is just that the incomprehensible is incomprehensible, and that much we already knew”), to performance (“The Hunger Artist”, “First Sorrow”) and to music (“Josephine, Our Meistersinger, or the Music of Mice”).
Just because a piece is narrated in the first person, does not mean the narrator is a human – or even a living entity. Only Kafka would tell a story from the point of view of a bridge. In “A Report to an Academy” the narrator is an ape, who decides that “since for Hagenbeck & Co. apes belong pressed hard against a crate – well then, I decided to stop being an ape” and to mimic human behaviour. “As soon as I was passed on to my first animal tamer in Hamburg, I immediately fathomed my two options: zoo or cabaret. I did not hesitate. I resolved to apply all my strength of will to get into a variety show”. In “Transformed” it is a human who (involuntarily) becomes an animal: “Waking one morning from restless dreams, Gregor Samsa found himself transformed in his bed into a monstrous bug”.
In each of the stories, the macabre and unnatural are treated as understandable and normal, as though no further explanation is required. The bug of “Transformed” “despite his present sad and repulsive shape, … was still a family member, not to be treated as a hostile presence, but rather, based on the laws of familial responsibility, repugnance notwithstanding, to at the very least be tolerated”. The horrors of “The Penal Colony” are made so much more visceral by the matter-of-fact narration. The story appears to presage the evils of the Nazi death machine, though Kafka fortunately died before that came to pass.
His characters are extreme, and his descriptions as he sets a scene are incredibly vivid. The translation is superb and it seems as though Kafka himself has written in English.
This is a book you can dip into, read a couple of stories at a time. But be warned – it is addictive. It is also not conducive to a good night’s sleep – too many weird and wonderful fancies start to rattle around in your brain.
Konundrum is a real literary treat and will hopefully bring the exquisite prose of Kafka the acclaim in the English speaking world that it fully deserves.

I received a free electronic copy of this collection from Netgalley and Archipelago Press in exchange for an honest review. Thank you, for sharing this work with me.

I have always enjoyed the flow of language that is unique to Kafka. As with some of his longer works, these excerpts and short stories flow through your mind like a neighborhood creek, little ripples here and there and a first sense of destination. I loved Josephine, Our Meistersinger, or the Music of Mice, though I have no idea where that was flowing. My favorite was Investigations of a Dog. and Selected Aphorisms. All were beautifully written and translated to maintain that Kafka flow. Thank you, Peter Wortsman, for that.

A new selection and translation of Kafka’s work, including some of his most well-known pieces, such as Metamorphosis, as well as some of his lesser-known writings. Definitely one for Kafka fans, but also useful for anyone new to him, as the range of writing on offer here is so varied – although always Kafkaesque, of course. An introductory essay, or at the very least, an introduction of some sort would have been very welcome, though the afterword is illuminating.