Metamorphosis & Some Other Stories. (Heathen Edition)
Franz Kafka (1883-1924) was a prolific German-speaking Bohemian author based in Prague, now widely regarded as one of the principal literary figures of the 20th century. His stories, infused with acute realism and the absurdly fantastic, often feature isolated protagonists facing bizarre, surrealistic predicaments and bewildering, impenetrable socio-bureaucratic powers. In 1915, he published one of his best-known works, Metamorphosis, which tells the story of salesman Gregor Samsa, who wakes one morning to find himself inexplicably transformed into a giant insect and struggles to adjust to his new condition. Also collected in this edition are ten more Kafka short stories and parables, including In the Penal Colony, A Hunger Artist, and A Report for an Academy.
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"One of the few great and perfect works of the poetic imagination written . . . there is nothing which The Metamorphosis could be surpassed by." -Elias Canetti
"Kafka articulates the anguish of being human." -Ernst Pawel
"Without sci-fi trappings of any kind, The Metamorphosis forces us to think in terms of analogy, of reflexive interpretation, though it is revealing that none of the characters in the story, including Gregor, ever does think that way." -David Cronenberg
"The world of Kafka's writing is so bizarre, so alienated, so grotesque that a both humorous and anguished incongruity arises from the juxtaposition of subject and style, absurdity and realism." -Joachim Neugroschel
"The Metamorphosis conveys Kafka's essential vision: to be a writer is to be condemned to irreparable estrangement." -Stanley Corngold
"You will mark Kafka's style. Its clarity, its precise and formal intonation in such striking contrast to the nightmare matter of his tale. No poetical metaphors ornament his stark black-and-white story. The limpidity of his style stresses the dark richness of his fantasy. Contrast and unity, style and matter, manner and plot are most perfectly integrated." -Vladimir Nabokov
"Here was a story that defied logic completely and with complete conviction, and it meant something. I wanted to read the story over and over. I have read it countless times since. I'm fascinated by Gregor's loneliness, by his disintegration. And I know I'm reading one of the finest statements ever made on alienation and cruelty, on how we will kill those whom we will not love and will not try to save." -Anne Rice
