THE PENAL COLONY (320 pp.)Franz KafkaSchocken ($3).
THE DIARIES OF FRANZ KAFKA, 1914-1923 (343 pp.)Schocken ($3.75).
"As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect."
With this sentence, Franz Kafka begins The Metamorphosis, a novelette filled with the Czech author's own terrified and terrifying sense of life. Gregor Samsa, a timid, unsuccessful salesman slaving for his family feels rejected and unwanted. At the end, he hears his sister say of his insect-self, "We must try to get rid of it." The Metamorphosis appears, with 43 other Kafka stories and "short pieces," in The...
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