The Complete Stories《Good, but.....》

A good collection of Kafka's short stories -- at least the collection is fairly complete. Is it going to be a good reading experience? That depends. As of the stories there are good ones and bad ones. It all depends on your personal taste. Some of the stories are just incomplete drafts and some of them can be quite difficult to swallow. From my experience the published works during Kafka's life time seem to be easier reads and they are somewhat more enjoyable. But then that's just my personal opinion.

I guess the best approach for a Kafka beginner is to pick out some of the more interesting stories from this book and try to get some good reading experience out of them. That way you get to know his style in a more positive manner. Afterwards one can move on to the longer novels which are more famous and probably more powerful. That's what I am planning to do.

My personal picks for the short stories:

Before the Law

The Judgement

The metamorphosis (Sure who would miss this one?)

In the Penal Colony

The Village Schoolmaster

A Report to an Academy

A Hunger Artist