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变形记:卡夫卡中短篇小说集

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♦ 现代文学的开山惊世之作,生动而深刻地再现了资本主义社会中人与人之间的冷漠。♦ 改变《百年孤独》作者马尔克斯一生的文学启蒙书。♦ 人们至今从未超越卡夫卡描述的荒诞世界。弗朗茨卡夫卡 (1883-1924),奥地利小说家,生前鲜为人知,其作品未受到重视,身后文名鹊起,蜚声世界文坛。他的《城堡》、《失踪者》、《诉讼》等小说在全世界广为流传,对现代派文学产生了极大的影响;他被推崇为现代派文学的奠基人,被誉为“作家中之作家”;他的小说已成为许多作家必定研读的作品,被认为是“需要用心去阔读的作品”。《变形记(精)》囊括了卡夫卡所有的中短篇小说,其中《变形记》、《在流放地》、《在法的大门前》、《乡村教师》等都是脍炙人口的名篇。它们均采用象征、隐喻、夸张等手法,情节生动,语言简洁流畅;故事怪诞离奇,无确定的时间和地点,无前因后果,给人以梦幻、神秘、奇特的感觉。作品的主人公几乎都处于一种身不由己的境地,他们在离奇古怪的世界中部有自己的目标,但往往又以失败而告终。 《变形记(精)》中《一次战斗纪实》和《乡村婚礼筹备》分别有A、B 和A、B、 C稿,这是卡夫卡在不同时期对自己的作品的修正和完善,为使读者对卡夫卡有全面的了解,我们将它们全部收入其中,这在其他“卡夫卡小说集 ” 或“小说选”中译本里还是从未有过的,因此本书亦为目前我国最全的“ 卡夫卡中短篇小说集”。★ 卡夫卡是20世纪的最佳作家之一,且已成为传奇英雄和圣徒式的人物;正如奥登在1941年说的那样,就作家与其所处的时代的关系而论,卡夫卡完全可与但丁、莎士比亚和歌德相提并论。——乔伊斯·卡罗尔·欧茨(美国当代女作家、评论家)

544 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 1, 2012

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About the author

Franz Kafka

3,254 books38.9k followers
Franz Kafka was a German-speaking writer from Prague whose work became one of the foundations of modern literature, even though he published only a small part of his writing during his lifetime. Born into a middle-class Jewish family in Prague, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Kafka grew up amid German, Czech, and Jewish cultural influences that shaped his sense of displacement and linguistic precision. His difficult relationship with his authoritarian father left a lasting mark, fostering feelings of guilt, anxiety, and inadequacy that became central themes in his fiction and personal writings.
Kafka studied law at the German University in Prague, earning a doctorate in 1906. He chose law for practical reasons rather than personal inclination, a compromise that troubled him throughout his life. After university, he worked for several insurance institutions, most notably the Workers Accident Insurance Institute for the Kingdom of Bohemia. His duties included assessing industrial accidents and drafting legal reports, work he carried out competently and responsibly. Nevertheless, Kafka regarded his professional life as an obstacle to his true vocation, and most of his writing was done at night or during periods of illness and leave. Kafka began publishing short prose pieces in his early adulthood, later collected in volumes such as Contemplation and A Country Doctor. These works attracted little attention at the time but already displayed the hallmarks of his mature style, including precise language, emotional restraint, and the application of calm logic to deeply unsettling situations. His major novels The Trial, The Castle, and Amerika were left unfinished and unpublished during his lifetime. They depict protagonists trapped within opaque systems of authority, facing accusations, rules, or hierarchies that remain unexplained and unreachable. Themes of alienation, guilt, bureaucracy, law, and punishment run throughout Kafka’s work. His characters often respond to absurd or terrifying circumstances with obedience or resignation, reflecting his own conflicted relationship with authority and obligation. Kafka’s prose avoids overt symbolism, yet his narratives function as powerful metaphors through structure, repetition, and tone. Ordinary environments gradually become nightmarish without losing their internal coherence. Kafka’s personal life was marked by emotional conflict, chronic self-doubt, and recurring illness. He formed intense but troubled romantic relationships, including engagements that he repeatedly broke off, fearing that marriage would interfere with his writing. His extensive correspondence and diaries reveal a relentless self-critic, deeply concerned with morality, spirituality, and the demands of artistic integrity. In his later years, Kafka’s health deteriorated due to tuberculosis, forcing him to withdraw from work and spend long periods in sanatoriums. Despite his illness, he continued writing when possible. He died young, leaving behind a large body of unpublished manuscripts. Before his death, he instructed his close friend Max Brod to destroy all of his remaining work. Brod ignored this request and instead edited and published Kafka’s novels, stories, and diaries, ensuring his posthumous reputation.
The publication of Kafka’s work after his death established him as one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century. The term Kafkaesque entered common usage to describe situations marked by oppressive bureaucracy, absurd logic, and existential anxiety. His writing has been interpreted through existential, religious, psychological, and political perspectives, though Kafka himself resisted definitive meanings. His enduring power lies in his ability to articulate modern anxiety with clarity and restraint.

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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
69 reviews
August 22, 2020
3.5 stars from me.
My first time reading anything like this. Each short story spends a lot of time describing the thoughts of the narrator. As we enter the mind of people and animals and experience their incessant thoughts, Kafka reveals and amplifies the most contradictory, irrational part of human nature. It can get kind of irritating though because the plot rarely advances but the people whose minds we enter constantly overthink.
第一次读寓言式的短篇小说,读感很新奇。从来没有读过一个作家絮絮叨叨地把人性中最矛盾、优柔寡断、没有逻辑的东西放大、呈现给读者。在抱怨作者不知所云的同时,不断地感同身受
Profile Image for Leisurecan.
168 reviews8 followers
December 25, 2021
如果有一天变成甲虫,还是自觉的离开保留美好的回忆。实在是个因为过于现实而显得残忍的故事。
Profile Image for Julise.
295 reviews4 followers
July 27, 2022
除了《变形记》,其他的文章读起来有些难,晦涩难懂。
Profile Image for Li Li.
31 reviews2 followers
October 16, 2022
really good story about how to live as an outsider and insider. The description of being a big bug is very vividly. And the story is unexpectedly interesting.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews

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