Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience.

I've been a huge fan of Kafka's work since grad school. This collection of short stories has some truly great pieces. Two stories stand out from the bunch: "The Hunger Artist" and "The Penal Colony" - both stories have dark, twisted themes that are told with such impeccable descriptions and timing. Although a few of the stories were a tad boring, I'm so glad I read the collection because of these two standouts. I'd recommend this to anyone who loves Kafka's work or who enjoys short stories they can sink their teeth into. Such a tragedy that he died so young - I can only imagine what other genius stories he could have come up with if he had been given more time.

A great collection of Kafka short stories. It gave me a new perspective on this author's storytelling, and I was especially happy to be able to read "Homecoming" and "Give up!", because these two were not yet translated in Japanese although he is one of the most beloved writers and many Japanese writers including Haruki Murakami and Yoko Ogawa referred to him as the inspiration for their own works.

A great collection of Kafka's short stories. Expect all the usual oddities, obscurities and quirks as Kafka provides his unusual oversight onto seemingly mundane everyday situations. Good bite size stories to help make Kafka more digestible for a commute.

Thank you to Netgalley and Pushkin Press for the reading copy.

Collection did not put a foot wrong here. Lovely book with a number of stories so short that they would have been out of place anywhere else, but still have the trademark Kafkaesque punch with ingrains itself in the memory. A short story collection to revisit again and again.

With kind thanks to the Pushkin and Netgalley for the ARC.

I'm a huge Kafka fan but sometimes his novels are bit too long to be staying in his world and so his short stories are among his best. This collection contains Kafka at his best. His sense of humor shines as he takes you in and out of various worlds with his trademark structure. The collection does contain some more underwhelming stories but overall is an excellent introduction to Kafka which anyone who has ever called something Kafkaesque should read.

Kafka’s The Unhappiness of Being a Single Man includes a stellar introduction from translator Alexander Starritt. I have respect for intros from translators; after all they are the ones who slaved over the words, mulling over one choice over another, so if anyone ‘deserves’ to write an intro, it’s the translator IMO. Starritt’s intro is lively, fluid, and well … interesting:

In English, the word that usually follows ‘Kafkaesque’ is ‘nightmare’. Hardly the thing to make you think, ‘Hurray, a new translation. No Netflix for me tonight.’ And in truth, Kafka’s work is more respected than it is loved.

These first sentences hit a chord with me. I have lost count of the number of times The Metamorphosis popped up again and again in literature class after literature class. Yes the story (while I liked it) became a ‘No-Exit’-Not-Again nightmare in itself.

Unhappiness

Starritt argues that these short stories present an entirely different view of Kafka, and I agree. These stories are mercurial, some are absurdist, and the closest thing I could compare to is absurdist Russian fiction. These stories (and some are extremely short) are not at all what I expected from Kafka. Some stories are flash fiction–if we could imagine such a term applying to Kafka. Other stories are longer, and of course, as is with all collections, some stories are stronger than others.

The title story: The Unhappiness of Being a Single Man is a good idea of what to expect here. I read it on my kindle and it’s just over a page long. This is a single man who rues the things he’s missing:

It seems a terrible thing to stay single for good, to become an old man who, if he wants to spend the evening with other people, has to stand on his dignity and ask someone for an invitation

The last lines were unexpected and made me chuckle. Again–not at all what I expected from Kafka.

In The Married Couple, a sales rep takes his sample case to a man known as N. The sales rep and N used to work together, but now N, a much older man is bed-bound and possibly close to death. Yes, perhaps this sounds like the sort of thing we’d expect from Kafka, but the final delivery is not.

A First Heartache is a short tale of a trapeze artist who in the quest to perfect his art becomes increasingly isolated. The abnormal becomes normal and he clings to his life on the highwire. He:

had arranged his life in such a way that, initially out of a striving for perfection, then out of increasingly tyrannical habit, he stayed on his trapeze day and night for as long as an engagement lasted. His modest needs were catered to by a rota of attendants who were posted below and hauled everything up and down in specially made containers.

The trapeze artist is “in constant training, of keeping his art at its peak.” This becomes a way of life, this increasing isolation, and the only thing that disrupts this routine are the unavoidable transfers from venue to venue, which badly disrupted his peace of mind.”

Another top pick has to be In the Penal Colony, a story of a researcher who travels to a penal colony only to be invited to attend the execution of a soldier “who’d been sentenced to death for disobeying and insulting a superior officer.” The story centres on the machine that will do the deed. It’s a diabolical contraption designed by the former (deceased) commandant. The machine is sadistically designed to inflict maximum pain and suffering over a twelve hour period before the final coup de grâce.

While the officer explains the machine’s processes of torture “with great zeal,” the condemned man, who has no idea of the fate that awaits him is at first disinterested (the officer and the researcher speak in French) but then he becomes increasingly curious as the machine’s mechanisms are explained:

The condemned man looked as submissive as a dog, as if they could have let him wander around the slopes on his own, and would only have needed to whistle for him when they wanted to start the execution.

The officer’s matter-of-fact approach to explaining the machine is, of course, bizarre and yet entirely believable. This method of execution has become an institution in the penal colony, but now it has fallen out of favour. The condemned soldier has not been given a trial and is unaware that he has even been sentenced to death. According to the officer, “it would be pointless to tell him.” Torture and death as spectacle: what is there about these things that appeal to people? The matter-of-fact bureaucratic manner in which the sadistic death is explained moves the execution away from the idea of suffering and into efficiency. Couldn’t help but think of the Nazis.

This collection rolls in at just under 200 pages. I think the stories are best read one at a time, rather than in chunks.

Review copy

Translated by Alexander Starritt

I've never read Kafka before but have thoroughly enjoyed things described as Kafkaesque, this seemed like the perfect opportunity to try but I have to be honest and say that I'm totally underwhelmed.
It was very clunky to read, although that may well be the translation and the stories didn't seem to have a point. I wanted bizarre and strange but got what felt obtuse and inaccessible. Almost as if the deeper meaning has been willfully obstructed.
I'm not going to let it put me off though, I shall try again.

A great short story collection from the always reliable Kafka! I didn’t gain much from the few very short stories, but the longer ones were as fantastical and riveting as most of his more famous work. I would recommend this to all Kafka—and all short story—fans.

A mixed bag of stories. i liked some, found some just odd, and was bored with others. Perhaps suitable for fans of Kafka but i would not recommend this book for most readers

'The longer you hesitate outside the door, the more of a stranger you become.'

I don’t know that I would agree these are the best, most essential stories by Kafka but I wasn’t disappointed. This line in Homecoming jumped out at me, it’s such a short ‘nothing’ but poignant with something, “The longer you hesitate outside the door, the more of a stranger you become.” A young man returns home, unwelcome, “I’ve come back”, to his father’s farm, a house with bricks that lie cold against each other as if ‘occupied with it’s own affairs’. It gave me the feeling of being a living ghost, unwanted, a stranger now all the same, and aren’t we all ghosts in a sense when we first return to our old haunts, homes? To family who wants to see nothing but the back of us?

A Report for an Academy is about assimilating as a means of survival and escape from captivity. There are several different suggestions of what the story is about and what Kafka’s inspiration was, it’s worth looking up. Kafka is always saying far more than what is at surface a story about an ape mimicking the human world, conforming to rise above the caged existence, captivity. In a sense he is thumbing his nose at humanity, isn’t he?

The Silence of the Sirens is Kafka’s version of Ulysses. Here Odysseus finds the Sirens silence is as dangerous as their singing. A weapon far more deadly, so much for wax stuffed ears. The saddest story for me in the collection is The Verdict, it begins with businessman Georg composing a letter to his friend who left for Russia and is now stagnating, should he tell his friend of his engagement? His mother is dead, he’s moved in with his father, putting all his hard work in the family business, one wonders ‘did mother keep the peace once?’ Is this meant to be a silly piece, or a disturbing tale between a young son unable to escape his father’s shadow and a weak old man unable to accept his time has passed, jealous of his son’s future, youth? It’s so bizarre, why does George’s father question if his Russian friend isn’t an invention of his own mind, a lie? Why is he so disappointed by his son? Why does Georg obey his father’s verdict as if he is helpless against the tyranny of the old man, as if a child cowering under thunderous anger? Georg’s father emasculates him as only a cruel parent can. Autobiographical. It is well-known Kafka’s father was abusive, that Kafka wrote a letter to his father, that was actually a published book that changes the way you read The Verdict. You want to understand Kafka a bit more, read Letter To His Father by Franz published in 1952. Now I’ve gone and made myself sad! Kafka’s writing always fascinates me because of the many interpretations, so much left to the imagination, all the things left unsaid that the reader is meant to figure out. Is it real or horror or fantasy? It is never what it seems and exactly what it seems.

Paperback available now

Kindle Edition publication: March 5, 2019

Pushkin Press

There are 22 stories in a collection that spans under 200 pages so most of the stories are just a few pages. For an author most well-known for his novels, the most famous being The Metamorphosis, the translator's preface proposes that the short stories are probably not as famed because novels sell better but that Kafka's best writing was in the form of his short stories. Not having read any of his novels before, I can't say I can make the comparison myself but I was thoroughly impressed by some of the writing included here. Below are the notes I wrote on the first 5 stories in the collection:
A Message from the Emperor begins with a great opening line aimed toward the reader, immediately inviting the reader to become the main character of the story. "The emperor -they say- has sent you, you alone, his lowly subject, you tiny shadow thrown far off into the furthest corner by the imperial sun, you, of all people, the Emperor has sent a message from his deathbed." I think that is so intriguing, a great opening that immediately makes me want to recoil from being the plebeian lowly at whom such scorn is being directed, but also curious about what the message could contain. Am I secretly the empress I have always considered myself to be? However, the story, if it is indeed that, ends as enigmatically as it begins because within a few short paragraph, it is over, leaving in its wake, more questions than I had before he began, the messenger, carrying that tale trapped in time and space. This is writing to be admired, descriptions that alternate between time and space, meandering through luxurious ease and frantic pace and every change evoked a different emotion and brought a different kind of energy.
A Short Fable was an even smaller offering in that the whole story occurs in 89 words. Yes, I counted them, however I think the author's skill is in how much he included in those 89 words so not a character was wasted as he described a cat-and-mouse game, the prey's questions of self discovery and with other things, forgetting for too long what his real problem is.
The Unhappiness of Being a Single Man was another example of flash-fiction; this time the author used just 176 words to explore the reality of bachelorhood, immediately stereotyping his hypothetical character as not just unmarried but alone, lonely, friendless, childless, eternally poor and eking out a cold existence in a rented room. It contrasts with the idea of the bachelor playboy, single by choice, a roster of model companions at his beck and call. Instead, Kafka focuses on the lack of complexity and compares it to a thick fog from which said single character will eventually emerge to recognize himself with regret and these sparse but pregnant words, immediately challenge the reader, whatever their position in the relationship spectrum, to reassess before it is too late to change.
Poseidon posits an alternate view of the man behind the myth. What do we know about the sea god? Can we imagine him isolated by his power? Is that visual enough to conjure sympathy or do we prefer to reinforce the idiom we already believe that, "It is (and supposed to be) lonely at the top"?
The Verdict is one of the longest stories and in it, Kafka posits three characters, one a young single businessman named Georg who has been unsuccessful enough in his work to have moved back home to live with his father after his mother's death; his nameless friend, also a struggling entrepreneur, who has returned to his native Russia and found the landscape sufficiently changed and the culture so different that although he should be at home, he is isolated; and finally Georg's widowed father. Indeed, all the characters are identical, although Georg thinks himself superior, his situation better, and the inclusion of Georg's musings as he reflects on his friend and his father, reveal that his criticisms would be better aimed at himself. Kafka's sardonic attitude gleams in this story, and the conglomeration of roles in a single identity gives the reader the opportunity to perhaps recognize the author's hypothesis that Georg, and all his alternate personalities, may just be the reader himself.
Overall, the stories spanned a wide range of themes and issues, mocking, advising, rendering hope and fatality so it was quite an emotional-jerker. It took me less than two hours to read the entire book but it is one that I think I would like to revisit. I enjoyed the title which seems to draw conclusions about the life of the singleton, and then the rest of the text which offers many, more complex versions of reality, lonesomeness, solitude, and the threats that companionship poses.
I read a free electronic copy of this book courtesy of Netgalley and the publishers, Pushkin Press, but this did not influence my opinions. This is a book I genuinely enjoyed would like to own for my shelves. I feel confident recommending it to fans of other comlex short story collections like:

Wonderful translation; I've read several, and this is one of the best. Recommended, even if you already have one of the older translations.

I am sorry. I think Kafka is racist: just read 'The Jackal and the Arab', unless I'm mistaken it is supposed to be a story of timeless struggle between the vultures and their 'human brethren', or unending warfare or the nature of Arab's to be bloodthirsty and surrounded by vultures or the cycle of life. Whatever it was supposed to mean, to me, it appeared to be very racist.

Other than this, the short stories are how short stories usually go.

There are to date 87 titles in the quirkily designed Pushkin Collection Series, of which The Unhappiness of Being a Single Man (along with The Art of the City: Rome, Florence, Venice by Georg Simmel) is the most recent addition – due for publication in 2019.

It is a compilation of Franz Kafka’s lesser-known stories, the frontispiece showing him with a dog, circa 1905, and the blurb describing it as containing all the “wit and the grit; the horror and the humour; the longing and the laughing” of his “genius”.

Kafka (1883–1924) was, of course, a major figure of early 20th century literature; a German-speaking Bohemian Jew whose fiction commingled elements of realism and fantasy to create a unique world that reflected conventional, middle-class life, but intermixed with something contemptibly dark and grotesque.

The stories aren’t in chronological order and apparently “only the best” have been selected for inclusion. They are of mixed length, with tales like ‘A Short Fable’ being barely more than a paragraph, while those such as ‘In the Penal Colony’ and ‘Give Up!’ are closer to forty pages.

In the Translator’s Preface, Alexander Starritt remarks that “Kafka’s work is respected far more than it is loved”, which, in my opinion, is a truth no more apparent than in this collection. Whilst he is of the opinion these stories are “the best thing Kafka ever wrote” and they form the “core” of all his works, I found myself somewhat underwhelmed, greatly preferring his more familiar works such as the famous novella, The Metamorphosis. This lack of connection with Kafka’s short fiction is undoubtedly a deficiency on my part, and I’m aware my viewpoint isn’t widely shared, but regrettably I found myself losing concentration on several occasions, especially when reading the longer narratives.

I can nevertheless own to appreciating his sardonic humour and the sheer ingenious depth of this collection. It is brimming with typically Kafkaesque neurosis and symbolism and, in the words of Starritt, is: “quick, funny, strange and sad.”

This is a great collection of Kafta's works that introduces the reader to the author's short stories. Most readers probably only know of The Metamorphosis or The Trial, but Kafka has a lot to offer in stories of various lengths, some of which are only a paragraph in length, such as The Truth About Sancho Panza. Fans of magical Realism and stories with a surreal edge will love these.

Well, that was an unusual experience.I suppose I have to say that it was Kafkaesque. These are strange little stories that make you ponder - what are they about? what are they trying to say? who are they speaking to?

Somewhat off the wall, disturbing, and with a sense of menace, these stories are nevertheless entertaining and sometimes funny. I've not read any other versions so can't compare but I felt the translations to be in keeping with the content.

It's a good few years since I read any Kafka and these were a welcome reintroduction.

My exposure to renowned writer Kafka has been mainly though his most famous work "Metamorphosis." Translator Alexander Starritt, in the preface, makes a strong case for Kafka's short stories showcasing his unique surrealistic style to optimum light vs his novels. Published through Pushkin Press, Starritt says he hasn't arranged them by chronological or thematic order, they are an artistic splay of Kafka's breadth of imagination.

The stories that I found the most striking were 'The Verdict and 'In the Penal Colony.' Some were somewhat mystifying to me, such as 'The New Lawyer.' The really short ones, no more than a few lines or a paragraph, were too brief for me to really sink my teeth into. Some were whimsical (like Poseidon being bogged down by paperwork) , some were reflective and poetic (like 'The Bridge'), some were fantastical, sometimes they possessed all these qualities together. Kafka displays a deft hand in delving into human emotion; those dark hidden bits, those tender vulnerable spots set in a familiar but somewhat offbeat setting. Before you know it, the situation has uncontrollably devolved into surreal horrific territory.

This short story collection is good exposure to a writer who excelled at his craft, highly recommended.

Thanks to Pushkin Press for the ARC via Netgalley in exchange for an unbiased review.

If there's any reason why you ought to read this book, let it be that each story will cling onto you like a shadow, constantly whispering into your ear 'did you get that?'
A great collection, well translated and fans and new readers of Kafka will love this. Thanks Netgalley for the eARC.

These are the stories that are quintessentially Kafka; by turns absurd, horrifying, melancholy and humorous. His writing is, of course, deft and crisp as always and his observation of human nature and caprice just as insightful and prescient but whether every story is of equal merit or deserving of the label “essential” I am less convinced. Some are mere fragments, barely more than a thought. The ones that are most effective and most powerful are also the best known, The Penal Colony, The Hunger Artist, A Report for the Academy. Although each piece is beautifully translated and, of course, the little volume is gorgeously produced by Pushkin Press I'm not altogether sure how valuable another collection of Kafka can be, especially with so much so brief and all, I think, to be found in English already. For Kafka completists and those who can't resist the lovely cover.