Meditation

by Franz Kafka, Shaun Maley (translator)

Kafka's "Meditation" (Betrachtung in German, sometimes translated as "Observation"), a collection of 18 short vignettes, serves as an evocative gateway into the psychological realms that would later dominate his more famous works. Here in Kafka's first published collection, we encounter the nascent forms of themes and techniques that would later define his literary legacy. These eighteen short prose pieces, composed between 1904 and 1912, represent more than mere literary sketches—they constitute a carefully orchestrated exploration of consciousness and perception that prefigures modernist preoccupations with fragmentary experience and psychological depth.

This edition contains the following

Children on the Country Road
Exposure of a Swindler
The Sudden Walk
Resolutions
The Trip into the Mountains
The Misfortune of the Bachelor
The Merchant
Distracted Looking
The Way Home
The Passers-By
The Passenger
Clothes
The Rejection
Food For Thought for Gentlemen Riders
The Alley Window
Desire to Become an Indian
The Trees
Unhappiness

This modern translation from the original German is a fresh, accessible and beautifully rendered text that brings to life Kafka's great literary work. This edition contains extra amplifying material including an illuminating afterword, a timeline of Kafka's life and works alongside of the historical events which shaped his art, and a short biography, to place this work in its socio-historical context.

63 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 20, 2025

About the author

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.

Reviews

[Kashan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most of his short stories, if not all, are about alienation and modern life. There’s a reflection of his personal life in his writings, especially his internal turmoil and sense of lost direction due to family and societal norms and expectations. Even though it’s a short book, the content needs more focus and understanding.

[Niharika Palakodety]

The more you read Kafka, the more you understand and can follow his writing an thought process. Considering this as my second Kafka story, I found that as I kept reading I could pick up on his allegories better and understand the contradictions he makes.

Meditation (or Contemplation) by Kafka is a series of small narratives ranging from 1-2 sentences to multiple pages on various observations in life. Overall, I found the narratives to be good food for meditation (yes, I did actually use that word intentionally). Each story offers just enough to ponder on without running to the next, and of course it feels like there are multiple messages to each story. Sitting with each story gives a moment to think not only about the narrators and the characters involved, but also a moment for you, as the reader, to reflect on what your thoughts or actions would have been in that situation.

What is most fascinating about Kafka's writing is his ability to make the mundaneness of life interesting enough to ponder/reflect on extensively. There are two stories I connected with most: "Rejection" and "Wish to be a Red Indian."

"Rejection" is about a man who has a hypothetical conversation with an attractive woman after she ignores his romantic advances towards her. In this hypothetical conversation, she puts him down by commenting on his lack of status, looks, and fame. He rejects her by commenting on the lack of men pursuing her and her unspoken desire for sexual attention by the way she dresses (which is pretty sexist of him to say by the way). By the end, both characters are reminded of their mediocrity and move on. This story to me was a reminder that we are all mediocre and insignificant in the grand scheme of life.

"Wish to be a Red Indian" was a very confusing story (if you can even call it that) to read; it's one sentence. Kafka doesn't speak of indigenous people in an ill manner by any means, but rather he compares them to a spiritual perfection. My initial interpretation of the story was that the narrator felt he needed no motivation ("... until one sheds their spurs, for there needed no spurs, and threw away the reins, for there needed no reins...") to keep pushing forward because the path before him did not have any obstacles or barriers to cross ("... hardly saw that the land before one was smoothly shorn heath..."). I didn't feel confident in my understanding, so I read some articles online on what other people thought. Wikipedia had written that scholars find this narrative "incomprehensible," which I didn't understand why. Further digging lead to me a thought piece by Papaeleele on WordPress, who wrote Kafka aims to "show the truth and paradox of language... it can say everything, but not really. To know written language is to have limitations. Words only exist because of our need to capture meaning, but once we have meaning, the words need not be remembered." It was a rather confusing, though profound, analysis of the story. I'm honestly still not sure what Kafka is aiming to convey.

Other narratives I enjoyed in the collection include "The Trees," "The Street Window," and "On the Tram." If I revisit this collection later in life, I hope I'm wiser enough to thread through with more critical and personal analysis.

[Alex Quinonez · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a very short collection of things written by Kafka. I say things because they didn't seem like short stories, some of them only a paragraph or two long. At 77 pages this was a very small and quick read. Some of the stories resonated with me like "A Bachelor's Misfortune" and its interesting to see that people of many years ago had some of the same troubles and thoughts as I a modern person does.

This was my first Kafka book, and I'd like to read more in the future. It was evident that his writing was beautiful and elegant and I think a fully fleshed out story written by him would be great. I give it a 3/5 because most of the meditations were not really all that exciting to me personally. I don't think my rating should reflect badly on the writer however.

[Alex Keller]

This was sort of a drag at times, and Kafka’s prose aren’t always clear to me. It can be difficult to discern what’s unclear due to abstraction, vs poorly written prose. Either way, for the most part, the writing is good. This collection was interesting because it was a series of tiny vignettes, not short stories. A lot of them were almost descriptions of a picture (conversation with a supplicant could have fit in this collection). My favorite one was definitely “Unhappiness”. It was intriguing, well written and clearly a metaphor (in a good way). This was not a page turner though.

[Raphael · Rating 4 out of 5]

i thought it was pretty good. of course do varying quality. all very socially and internally focused. i need to read more of his writing. i can’t tell how scrutable they are. is there worth in pondering all of them more? maybe they’re more to be understood just by reading, emotionally, sensationally, then processed later.

[S · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quirky

[Jonathan Shatos · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the type of short story collection that I expect I will grow to like more once I read additional works from Kafka. My favorite parts were when I really felt a small moment or description clearly, almost like a momentary mind-meld between the author and I. But most of this read as minor observances, and a few unsettling scenes I'm not positive was intentional?

[Trevor Penna · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don’t think this was ever meant to be held in high regard. Interesting read for Kafka fans but not essential.