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Investigations of a Dog & Other Creatures
Animals, strange beasts, bureaucrats, businessmen, and nightmares populate this collection of stories by Franz Kafka. These matchless short works, all unpublished during Kafka’s lifetime, range from the gleeful dialogue between a cat and a mouse in “Little Fable” to the absurd humor of “Investigations of a Dog,” from the elaborate waking nightmare of “Building the Great Wall of China” to the creeping unease of “The Burrow,” where a nameless creature’s labyrinthine hiding place turns into a trap of fear and paranoia.
239 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1982
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443 people want to read
About the author
Franz Kafka
3,334 books39k followersFranz 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 His major novels The Trial, The Castle, and Amerika were left unfinished and unpublished during his lifetime.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.
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 - 30 of 37 reviews
July 26, 2017
This book must be judged in two ways: how good are Kafka's stories? And how good is Hofmann's translation?
I have no idea what it's like in the rest of the world, but we Anglophones think of Kafka as the author of three, well, two novels, and a story about a man turning into a bug. The latter hints at weirdness, while the novels are stories of people trying to do something and it not happening. That's interesting enough, but really, it's not where the action is. Kafka's best writing, I would argue, is in his stories, and this book makes that pretty obvious. The pieces are presented in chronological order, and it's pretty fair to say they get better over time. The early work, up to the 'Hunger Gracchus' fragments, is mildly interesting, but we really get going with 'Building the Great Wall of China', which is dated, here at least, to March, 1917. That's followed by a bunch of fascinating fragments and micro-fictions--consider 'New Lamps' as a distillation of the novels in two glorious pages. Then 1920-1924 gives us some of the best fiction of the century, provided you prefer your fiction to be intellectually appealing, ironic, amusing, and suddenly crushing. Which I assume you do. The high-points of this collection are 'Investigations of a Dog' and 'The Burrow,' both of which are essentially thought experiments. Kafka has, by this point, solve the problem of how fiction can develop without being tied to plot (he doesn't seem to have been much good at plot): here is an idea. What other ideas does it spark? How can we interpret the original idea? What is that original idea like?
As for Hofmann's translations, they are far superior to the earlier translations, but this volume is much shorter than the recent (also very good) 'Konundrum', translated by Peter Wortsman.
Don't come to this book expecting (only) tales of bureaucratic horror. Kafka is far more interesting and entertaining than that.
I have no idea what it's like in the rest of the world, but we Anglophones think of Kafka as the author of three, well, two novels, and a story about a man turning into a bug. The latter hints at weirdness, while the novels are stories of people trying to do something and it not happening. That's interesting enough, but really, it's not where the action is. Kafka's best writing, I would argue, is in his stories, and this book makes that pretty obvious. The pieces are presented in chronological order, and it's pretty fair to say they get better over time. The early work, up to the 'Hunger Gracchus' fragments, is mildly interesting, but we really get going with 'Building the Great Wall of China', which is dated, here at least, to March, 1917. That's followed by a bunch of fascinating fragments and micro-fictions--consider 'New Lamps' as a distillation of the novels in two glorious pages. Then 1920-1924 gives us some of the best fiction of the century, provided you prefer your fiction to be intellectually appealing, ironic, amusing, and suddenly crushing. Which I assume you do. The high-points of this collection are 'Investigations of a Dog' and 'The Burrow,' both of which are essentially thought experiments. Kafka has, by this point, solve the problem of how fiction can develop without being tied to plot (he doesn't seem to have been much good at plot): here is an idea. What other ideas does it spark? How can we interpret the original idea? What is that original idea like?
As for Hofmann's translations, they are far superior to the earlier translations, but this volume is much shorter than the recent (also very good) 'Konundrum', translated by Peter Wortsman.
Don't come to this book expecting (only) tales of bureaucratic horror. Kafka is far more interesting and entertaining than that.
March 21, 2025
this short story collection was very illuminating. most of these are fragments of stories, but they have the distinguishable charm and brilliance of originating from the mind of Franz Kafka. (rtc)
August 5, 2020
My favorite story was the final one in this collection called "The Burrow" about a mole like creature or is it about the human condition?
June 28, 2017
"Kafka is the greatest German writer of our time. Such poets as Rilke or such novelists as Thomas Mann are dwarfs or plaster saints in comparison to him," says Nabokov on the back of this book.
Well! I wouldn't exactly say that, myself.
Most of the pieces in this volume are fragments, a few pages long or less. Some end mid-sentence, or mid-punctuation (Max Brod's band-aids stripped away). Only "Investigations of a Dog" and "The Burrow" are long stories.
"On the Matter of Our Laws" begins tantalizingly: "Our laws are unfortunately not widely known: they are the secret of the small group of nobles who govern us." It peters out after two pages.
In "The Troop Levy," a small, frail, nobleman comes to a town to read the list of names of those being conscripted for military service. He carries a whip, but is so weak he can only whip two-handed. A girl has shown up, because "there are many women who are unable to resist the lure of such a levy in some other place..."
"Visiting the Dead" was clearly one of Kafka's dreams. I can tell because I record many of my own dreams and it reads precisely (in both syntax and plot) like such a record, including the stranger who quickly becomes romantically attached to the narrator, and the sudden, small, odd shifts. (Just because something is surreal doesn't automatically make it dreamlike.)
"The Vulture" could be one of Kafka's dreams, or not. It's perfectly tight, compressed, surreal, and concludes exactly where it should, at one page. A vulture begins to hack at the narrator's feet. A man comes along and offers to get his gun from home and come back and shoot the vulture. Can the narrator wait half an hour? The narrator agrees, but the vulture has understood everything, and thrusts his beak deep into the narrator's mouth. He feels himself drowning in his own blood.
January 18, 2021
Cachorros, gatos, cordeiro,
toupeira , bestas, burocratas, bolas saltitantes, homens de negócios, pesadelos e muito mais, povoam esta coleção de histórias de Franz Kafka que não foram publicadas por ele em vida.
Muitos textos são apenas fragmentos, outros são contos bem longos como "A toca" e "Investigações de um Cão" . Vou falar um pouco de alguns que eu mais gostei, porque são mais de 40.
Em "Investigações de um cão" temos um cão solitário dado a filosofar e indagar a respeito de tudo à sua volta. " De onde vem a comida dos cães"?
No conto " A toca", que muitos dizem ter sido o último escrito por ele, uma toupeira medrosa faz um esconderijo debaixo da terra para se proteger das ameaças do mundo exterior. Só que para ela, seu esconderijo nunca está seguro o suficiente, e ela então começa a enlouquecer, ficar paranóica e ansiosa com medo de sofrer um ataque. E tudo isso piora ainda mais quando ele começa a ouvir sons estranhos. Enfim
um animal prisioneiro do próprio e "injustificado" terror.
No conto " A grande muralha da China" nos é relatado, em primeira pessoa, a construção dessa obra de engenharia por um dos seus construtores. O narrador nos conta, que tem circulado entre os trabalhadores um livro chamado " a torre de Babel", onde se diz que a torre de Babel foi destruída por Deus e não por causa da confusão de línguas. O narrador não concorda com isso. Para ele a torre não deu certo porque à época não se tinha a tecnologia e a engenharia disponível atualmente. E essa mesma engenharia e tecnologia será usada para se construir a grande muralha da China, garantindo o seu sucesso. Mas será que vai dar tudo certo??
O conto é muito mais que isso, envolve todo um enigma e metáforas que são discutidos até hoje.
Enfim é Franz kafka....o gênio.
toupeira , bestas, burocratas, bolas saltitantes, homens de negócios, pesadelos e muito mais, povoam esta coleção de histórias de Franz Kafka que não foram publicadas por ele em vida.
Muitos textos são apenas fragmentos, outros são contos bem longos como "A toca" e "Investigações de um Cão" . Vou falar um pouco de alguns que eu mais gostei, porque são mais de 40.
Em "Investigações de um cão" temos um cão solitário dado a filosofar e indagar a respeito de tudo à sua volta. " De onde vem a comida dos cães"?
No conto " A toca", que muitos dizem ter sido o último escrito por ele, uma toupeira medrosa faz um esconderijo debaixo da terra para se proteger das ameaças do mundo exterior. Só que para ela, seu esconderijo nunca está seguro o suficiente, e ela então começa a enlouquecer, ficar paranóica e ansiosa com medo de sofrer um ataque. E tudo isso piora ainda mais quando ele começa a ouvir sons estranhos. Enfim
um animal prisioneiro do próprio e "injustificado" terror.
No conto " A grande muralha da China" nos é relatado, em primeira pessoa, a construção dessa obra de engenharia por um dos seus construtores. O narrador nos conta, que tem circulado entre os trabalhadores um livro chamado " a torre de Babel", onde se diz que a torre de Babel foi destruída por Deus e não por causa da confusão de línguas. O narrador não concorda com isso. Para ele a torre não deu certo porque à época não se tinha a tecnologia e a engenharia disponível atualmente. E essa mesma engenharia e tecnologia será usada para se construir a grande muralha da China, garantindo o seu sucesso. Mas será que vai dar tudo certo??
O conto é muito mais que isso, envolve todo um enigma e metáforas que são discutidos até hoje.
Enfim é Franz kafka....o gênio.
July 11, 2017
This is a baffling book of what can only be called second and third rate Kafka writing. I've been a fan and follower of his fiction ever since I read his wacky novel, Amerika, in college. The famous stories hold up and The Castle was also absurd and absurdly funny too. But try as I might, I couldn't find a single piece here to like, never mind love. The real question is: should everything a writer writes be published. This says no. For those of you interested in German fiction of the 20th Century and dogs, there is always Thomas Mann's wonderful and always overlooked little novella titled "A Man and His Dog." It's the simplest format possible: a man takes his dog out for a walk and details where they go,what they see, what the dog does, what the man thinks. Mann has a bad rap lately especially compared to Kafka but here is yet another case where that reputation is misplaced.
April 8, 2024
Don't get me wrong. I love Kafka. I do think he is one of the greatest 21st century writers.
But people who are not familiar with Kafka definitely shouldn't start with this book.
Collection of half-finished materials that Kafka left behind when he died. Of course, The Castle and the Trial turned out to be masterpieces, but not everything he wrote automatically becomes a masterpiece just because he wrote them.
I think this collection is good for finding out how Kafka begins his writing process.
But people who are not familiar with Kafka definitely shouldn't start with this book.
Collection of half-finished materials that Kafka left behind when he died. Of course, The Castle and the Trial turned out to be masterpieces, but not everything he wrote automatically becomes a masterpiece just because he wrote them.
I think this collection is good for finding out how Kafka begins his writing process.
October 9, 2022
I thought reading some of his short stories would be a good introduction to Kafka’s work, but now I’m not so sure :^/
February 24, 2023
I was a good 50 pages into this collection, musing thoughtfully over what could be intended with such elliptical and unresolved storytelling, before I remembered Kafka never finished anything. I have two literature degrees btw.
And boy are these fragments unfinished but there are memorable premises and images here—like I won’t be able to forget The Burrow next time I’m compelled to cancel plans in order to stay in the comforting isolation of my home, or look at an academic monograph without silently renaming it A Mole Larger Than Any Yet Seen. That’s Kafka: can’t plot for shit but those metaphors stay with you.
And boy are these fragments unfinished but there are memorable premises and images here—like I won’t be able to forget The Burrow next time I’m compelled to cancel plans in order to stay in the comforting isolation of my home, or look at an academic monograph without silently renaming it A Mole Larger Than Any Yet Seen. That’s Kafka: can’t plot for shit but those metaphors stay with you.
August 1, 2017
A Labor and Industry's Workman's Comp Claim from a Dues-Paying Member of Sleepwalker's Union
Masterfully translated hypnotic comic-nightmares from the Prague Prince of Paranoia. Recommended for readers who have enjoyed the tremors of armchair unease that inform the psychic seismic patterns in works as internationally diverse as J.M. Coetzee's Waiting for the Barbarians (South Africa), and the short stories of Roberto Bolano (Chile) and Etgar Keret (Israel).
Masterfully translated hypnotic comic-nightmares from the Prague Prince of Paranoia. Recommended for readers who have enjoyed the tremors of armchair unease that inform the psychic seismic patterns in works as internationally diverse as J.M. Coetzee's Waiting for the Barbarians (South Africa), and the short stories of Roberto Bolano (Chile) and Etgar Keret (Israel).
July 18, 2025
A little Kafka goes a long way. I would not recommend trying to plow through these stories at once as I mistakenly did. It's heady stuff. But as this was my first foray into the world of Kafka, it was perfect. Timeless. Illuminating.
I've heard the term "Kafkaesque" of course, and understood it to represent all that is frustrating about corporate gobbledygook and bureaucracy, box checking winning out over logic and face-saving over doing the right thing.
What I didn't expect was a sustained feeling of hope despite the seeming hopelessness and little tidbits of advice about not trying to make sense of it all or just going along with the insanity. Don't try too hard, don't fight it...
I should have read Kafka, LOTS of Kafka, in my twenties.
I've heard the term "Kafkaesque" of course, and understood it to represent all that is frustrating about corporate gobbledygook and bureaucracy, box checking winning out over logic and face-saving over doing the right thing.
What I didn't expect was a sustained feeling of hope despite the seeming hopelessness and little tidbits of advice about not trying to make sense of it all or just going along with the insanity. Don't try too hard, don't fight it...
I should have read Kafka, LOTS of Kafka, in my twenties.
December 28, 2025
Very good short story, had to reread some parts though
October 31, 2018
This is not the best Kafka you can read, but it may be the best translation of Kafka you can read, and seeing Kafka struggle sometimes - this is largely a collection of works in progress - seeing him rendering paler the themes which he would perfect elsewhere, and nodding as he drops promising works entirely as they begin to unravel - is instructive and fascinating and heartening. The true gem is the story that closes out the book - The Burrow - a Lovecraftian, EdgarAllenian and entirely Kafkaesque horror story of neuroticism that could anchor any horror anthology.
July 9, 2022
I. Love. Kafka. This man never disappoints. According to the foreword, this a collection of Kafka's writings that represent his flurries of nightly activity that he would often judge as inadequate when seen in the light of day. Almost none of these stories are completed, some are incredibly short, and some end mid-sentence. Regardless, even Kafka's scraps contain a lot of wisdom and wit and are still fun to read.
One of the reasons I think I enjoy Kafka so much is because, while there is ostensibly a plot to his stories, they're really just a super thinly veiled metaphor. In English class, there were always kids who argued that most of the time the curtains were just blue, but with Kafka's work even those kids would be hard pressed to deny some kind of ulterior meaning. Take the story Blumfeld in this collection. A bachelor comes home from work to discover two bouncing balls in his apartment that seem to have a mind of their own. They follow him around, making incessant but quiet noise, and try their best to stay at his back, never getting in front of him. He tries to catch them and they evade him. He tries to silence them by putting a rug under them and over time they scooch the rug out of the way. Sound like a metaphor to you? Of course, but the best part is that it's not clear what it is. My thought as I was reading was depression (bachelor, alone, didn't make them appear, can't make them go away), but later in the story, after managing to trap the balls in his wardrobe, Blumfeld tries to pawn them off on some neighbor kids. He gives them the key to his wardrobe (their mother is the cleaning lady so they can get into his house) and goes off to work. We never learn what happens.
That's another thing I like about Kafka. He owes you nothing. That same story follows Blumfeld to work where we learn about his two lazy assistants (along with some imagery of sweeping that reoccurs and whose meaning I have yet to grasp), but then we get nothing else. The story just ends with him and his shitty assistants at work. Another story, An Everyday Confusion is almost comically evasive. It's the story of two men, A and B, trying to make a business deal. On undertaking a journey to meet B that previously lasted 10 minutes, A finds himself taking 10 hours on this current trek (inexplicable time distortion is another theme in Kafka). B got mad waiting so long for A that B set off in the direction of A's home -- leading the two men to miss each other hilariously. When A realizes that B is at A's house, A runs home this time making the journey in 10 minutes. As A is climbing the stairs to his room where B is waiting for him, A tears a tendon in his leg and collapses in pain. B, apparently tired of waiting, storms past A and leaves -- end of story. Isn't that just crazy? What kind of story is that? I have no idea. (A similar feeling of WTF happens in The Vulture where a man lets himself be pecked by a vulture, a second man comes across and says 'why are you just standing there?', the vulture hears him and then murders the first man).
Both An Everyday Confusion and The Vulture almost certainly are parables -- short tales with some underlying moral (perhaps unironically, there's even a story condemning parables called On Parables. But among these shorter stories, this collection includes some longer ones too -- the title story and one called The Burrow. Investigations of a Dog tells the story of an old dog who has spent his life in search of answers to his questions; it's an allegory for scientific inquiry. The nature of most dogs is such that they acknowledge there are things they don't know about the world, but for the sake of contentment, they simply stay silent. The dog telling the story bucks these norms, spending his life conducting pseudo-experiments about the world only, in true Kafka fashion, to suffer for it. The Burrow provides such a complete representation of paranoia that it's painful to read at times. To make that story even worse, it ends terribly in the middle of a sentence. Kafka is a freak, he's insightful, and he doesn't owe you a damn thing. Reading him is so surreal and I would really recommend it to anyone.
One of the reasons I think I enjoy Kafka so much is because, while there is ostensibly a plot to his stories, they're really just a super thinly veiled metaphor. In English class, there were always kids who argued that most of the time the curtains were just blue, but with Kafka's work even those kids would be hard pressed to deny some kind of ulterior meaning. Take the story Blumfeld in this collection. A bachelor comes home from work to discover two bouncing balls in his apartment that seem to have a mind of their own. They follow him around, making incessant but quiet noise, and try their best to stay at his back, never getting in front of him. He tries to catch them and they evade him. He tries to silence them by putting a rug under them and over time they scooch the rug out of the way. Sound like a metaphor to you? Of course, but the best part is that it's not clear what it is. My thought as I was reading was depression (bachelor, alone, didn't make them appear, can't make them go away), but later in the story, after managing to trap the balls in his wardrobe, Blumfeld tries to pawn them off on some neighbor kids. He gives them the key to his wardrobe (their mother is the cleaning lady so they can get into his house) and goes off to work. We never learn what happens.
That's another thing I like about Kafka. He owes you nothing. That same story follows Blumfeld to work where we learn about his two lazy assistants (along with some imagery of sweeping that reoccurs and whose meaning I have yet to grasp), but then we get nothing else. The story just ends with him and his shitty assistants at work. Another story, An Everyday Confusion is almost comically evasive. It's the story of two men, A and B, trying to make a business deal. On undertaking a journey to meet B that previously lasted 10 minutes, A finds himself taking 10 hours on this current trek (inexplicable time distortion is another theme in Kafka). B got mad waiting so long for A that B set off in the direction of A's home -- leading the two men to miss each other hilariously. When A realizes that B is at A's house, A runs home this time making the journey in 10 minutes. As A is climbing the stairs to his room where B is waiting for him, A tears a tendon in his leg and collapses in pain. B, apparently tired of waiting, storms past A and leaves -- end of story. Isn't that just crazy? What kind of story is that? I have no idea. (A similar feeling of WTF happens in The Vulture where a man lets himself be pecked by a vulture, a second man comes across and says 'why are you just standing there?', the vulture hears him and then murders the first man).
Both An Everyday Confusion and The Vulture almost certainly are parables -- short tales with some underlying moral (perhaps unironically, there's even a story condemning parables called On Parables. But among these shorter stories, this collection includes some longer ones too -- the title story and one called The Burrow. Investigations of a Dog tells the story of an old dog who has spent his life in search of answers to his questions; it's an allegory for scientific inquiry. The nature of most dogs is such that they acknowledge there are things they don't know about the world, but for the sake of contentment, they simply stay silent. The dog telling the story bucks these norms, spending his life conducting pseudo-experiments about the world only, in true Kafka fashion, to suffer for it. The Burrow provides such a complete representation of paranoia that it's painful to read at times. To make that story even worse, it ends terribly in the middle of a sentence. Kafka is a freak, he's insightful, and he doesn't owe you a damn thing. Reading him is so surreal and I would really recommend it to anyone.
January 16, 2026
Investigations of a Dog and Other Creatures is een indrukwekkende bundel korte verhalen en parabels van Franz Kafka, geschreven tussen 1911 en 1924. In deze teksten onderzoekt Kafka steeds opnieuw de positie van het individu in een wereld die onbegrijpelijk, ondoorzichtig en vaak vijandig is. Mensen, dieren en zelfs objecten proberen betekenis te vinden in hun bestaan, maar lopen telkens vast in angst, onzekerheid en machtssystemen die ze niet begrijpen.
Een van de opvallendste kenmerken van deze bundel is het gebruik van dieren als denkende hoofdpersonen. In verhalen als Investigations of a Dog en The Burrow volgen we dieren die rationeel proberen te begrijpen waar hun voedsel vandaan komt of hoe ze zich perfect kunnen beveiligen. Hun zoektocht naar kennis en controle leidt echter niet tot rust, maar juist tot isolement en paranoia. Kafka laat hiermee zien dat overdreven rationaliteit en controlezucht de mens niet bevrijden, maar gevangen zetten in zijn eigen denken.
Ook bureaucratie en macht spelen een grote rol. In teksten als Building the Great Wall of China, On the Matter of Our Laws en The Troop Levy gehoorzamen mensen regels en systemen die niemand volledig begrijpt. De autoriteit is vaag, onbereikbaar en soms zelfs afwezig, maar haar invloed is overal voelbaar. Dit schept een sfeer van machteloosheid die kenmerkend is voor Kafka’s wereldbeeld.
Kafka beschrijft absurde situaties alsof ze volkomen normaal zijn. Juist daardoor voelen de verhalen beklemmend en herkenbaar. De meeste teksten eindigen zonder oplossing of duidelijke conclusie. Net als in het echte leven blijven de personages achter met vragen in plaats van antwoorden.
Deze bundel is de tijdloosheid. Hoewel de verhalen meer dan een eeuw oud zijn, voelen de thema’s actueel: prestatiedruk, controle, bureaucratie, eenzaamheid en identiteitsverlies zijn ook vandaag herkenbaar. Kafka biedt geen oplossingen, maar dwingt de lezer om na te denken over de grenzen van kennis, taal en macht.
Het boek is geen lichte lectuur, maar wel een diepzinnige en confronterende bundel. Kafka laat zien hoe moeilijk het is om betekenis en zekerheid te vinden in een complexe wereld. Voor lezers die bereid zijn langzaam en aandachtig te lezen, biedt dit boek een rijke en blijvende leeservaring.
Een uitdagend, filosofisch en indringend meesterwerk dat nog altijd niets aan kracht heeft verloren.
Een van de opvallendste kenmerken van deze bundel is het gebruik van dieren als denkende hoofdpersonen. In verhalen als Investigations of a Dog en The Burrow volgen we dieren die rationeel proberen te begrijpen waar hun voedsel vandaan komt of hoe ze zich perfect kunnen beveiligen. Hun zoektocht naar kennis en controle leidt echter niet tot rust, maar juist tot isolement en paranoia. Kafka laat hiermee zien dat overdreven rationaliteit en controlezucht de mens niet bevrijden, maar gevangen zetten in zijn eigen denken.
Ook bureaucratie en macht spelen een grote rol. In teksten als Building the Great Wall of China, On the Matter of Our Laws en The Troop Levy gehoorzamen mensen regels en systemen die niemand volledig begrijpt. De autoriteit is vaag, onbereikbaar en soms zelfs afwezig, maar haar invloed is overal voelbaar. Dit schept een sfeer van machteloosheid die kenmerkend is voor Kafka’s wereldbeeld.
Kafka beschrijft absurde situaties alsof ze volkomen normaal zijn. Juist daardoor voelen de verhalen beklemmend en herkenbaar. De meeste teksten eindigen zonder oplossing of duidelijke conclusie. Net als in het echte leven blijven de personages achter met vragen in plaats van antwoorden.
Deze bundel is de tijdloosheid. Hoewel de verhalen meer dan een eeuw oud zijn, voelen de thema’s actueel: prestatiedruk, controle, bureaucratie, eenzaamheid en identiteitsverlies zijn ook vandaag herkenbaar. Kafka biedt geen oplossingen, maar dwingt de lezer om na te denken over de grenzen van kennis, taal en macht.
Het boek is geen lichte lectuur, maar wel een diepzinnige en confronterende bundel. Kafka laat zien hoe moeilijk het is om betekenis en zekerheid te vinden in een complexe wereld. Voor lezers die bereid zijn langzaam en aandachtig te lezen, biedt dit boek een rijke en blijvende leeservaring.
Een uitdagend, filosofisch en indringend meesterwerk dat nog altijd niets aan kracht heeft verloren.
June 29, 2021
Yes, Kafka is amazing. As another reader wrote in his review, we Anglophones have to trust that the person who translates is really really sympatico in every way with the original author. I think Michael Hofmann probably is that.
There are longish, shortish, very short stories in this collection. And a long one, 39pp, is the one that really spoke to me as a person who is familiar with digging holes, moles, chipmunks, holes in general (ever since I was about five, and Daddy read Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and all the other Lewis Carroll writings (my parents were huge fans of Carroll's work. Daddy even used "O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!” from Carroll's Jabberwocky poem in a telegram sent (February 1941) to friends and family to announce "...to us a girl was born this day" ... that was me.
ANYWAY, to get back to Kafka. The long story, "THE BURROW", last in this collection, is awesome. Every sensory relation I have to holes and hiding and having my own spaces (for different purposes) is in this story. LOVE IT.
~ Linda Campbell Franklin
There are longish, shortish, very short stories in this collection. And a long one, 39pp, is the one that really spoke to me as a person who is familiar with digging holes, moles, chipmunks, holes in general (ever since I was about five, and Daddy read Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and all the other Lewis Carroll writings (my parents were huge fans of Carroll's work. Daddy even used "O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!” from Carroll's Jabberwocky poem in a telegram sent (February 1941) to friends and family to announce "...to us a girl was born this day" ... that was me.
ANYWAY, to get back to Kafka. The long story, "THE BURROW", last in this collection, is awesome. Every sensory relation I have to holes and hiding and having my own spaces (for different purposes) is in this story. LOVE IT.
~ Linda Campbell Franklin
June 1, 2018
Really extraordinary. Hofmann's translation is really captivating, able to hold my attention and also retain an alien distance I always find is characteristic of Kafka. Tentatively I think Kafka is at his best at his fragments, at the smaller and more allegorical texts. What are Kafka stories if not the neglected, those stories shooed away or hidden or about to be destroyed. The two larger stories in this book are just mind-blowing, "Investigations of a Dog" and "The Burrow" are winding texts that track the lives of their furry narrators and wander with them through their own neurosis. Many of the other pieces are usually only a couple of pages, but they still leave you wanting more, and haunt you for the rest of the day, and perhaps longer...
January 27, 2026
Another one of Kafka’s short stories for the books (and it won’t be the last).
I won’t deny I felt like I wanted to quit at times, reading Kafka isn’t for the faint-hearted and this story is one of many examples.
We read from the perspective of a dog that questions life. Where does food come from? Is food earned? Do we summon it? If so, how?
He comes across several very interesting characters, dissecting them along the way (hence the title).
The story didn’t feel finished, but I suppose that was the way Kafka wanted readers to interpret it. It was unfinished because there is no great revelation. We will never see the full picture of things and we will never understand anything completely.
I won’t deny I felt like I wanted to quit at times, reading Kafka isn’t for the faint-hearted and this story is one of many examples.
We read from the perspective of a dog that questions life. Where does food come from? Is food earned? Do we summon it? If so, how?
He comes across several very interesting characters, dissecting them along the way (hence the title).
The story didn’t feel finished, but I suppose that was the way Kafka wanted readers to interpret it. It was unfinished because there is no great revelation. We will never see the full picture of things and we will never understand anything completely.
April 18, 2019
The introduction to this collection of Kafka stories says that many of them were unpublished works discovered in his personal journals. It is difficult to tell with a writer like Kafka if this are unfinished rough drafts or completed abstracted works. Either way, the stories fall into the Kafka cannon of being surrealistic views of our mundane lives. Recommend read for those already familiar with Kafka's more popular works and want to discover some lesser known works along with possibly getting an inside view into Kafka's writing process.
October 11, 2021
‘Investigations of a Dog & Other Creatures’ is another collection of short stories by Franz Kafka. I had read another collection of his work that featured the story ‘The Metamorphosis’. This collection was a let down in my eyes. The stories, and some were more just statements did not connect with me. I struggled through most of this book, and unfortunately did not enjoy this collection. I was disappointed after enjoying the prior collection.
I would suggest readers interested in Kafka to give The Metamorphosis collection a try first.
I would suggest readers interested in Kafka to give The Metamorphosis collection a try first.
August 4, 2023
The animal symbolism and allusions to Greek mythology stand out in a number of these stories, many of which are unfinished. Their rough but still sharp quality shines unique insight into Kafka’s process and the themes he focused on. Highlights include “Investigations of a Dog” (highly original and perhaps my new favorite work of his), “The Burrow” (about a mole anxiously awaiting a predator that never arrives), “The Vulture,” “The Silence of the Sirens,” and “Poseidon” (which portrays Poseidon as an overworked bureaucrat who barely knows anything about the ocean).
April 19, 2024
this was ok. I really liked the silence of sirens that one was my favorite. I also enjoyed the investigation of a dog and the burrow because of their perspectives. Those two stories were just funny to you could tell kafka was in his comedic bag when he was writing those. Other than that a lot of the stories felt unfinished and were at some points vague. This could also be me just growing away from reading short stories and expecting these stories to be fully fledged out and have more of an arc but whatever!
July 14, 2017
The stories created a hazy, dreamlike world that envelopes the reader. Kafka' writing is incredibly vivid and imaginative. It keeps you on you on your heels. The term "geekdom" gets thrown around so much nowadays, it was nice to see the term "dogdom" in the book.
May 18, 2024
Too many of us have a very limited relationship with Kafka, never experiencing the humor he was capable of as well as the dark and grim and provocative.
This was a wonderful collection offering the spectrum of his abilities
This was a wonderful collection offering the spectrum of his abilities
June 5, 2024
Loved this other than the fact that all of these are unfinished works which means that there’s no more even tho I desperately need more.
Favorites: The Bridge, The Silence of the Sirens, Our City Coat of Arms, Little Fable, The Spinning Top, On Parables <3
Favorites: The Bridge, The Silence of the Sirens, Our City Coat of Arms, Little Fable, The Spinning Top, On Parables <3
June 20, 2025
A collection of his short stories filled with never ending parentheticals. Blumfeld, an Elderly Bachelor and The Vulture were most memorable. Some of the Others I couldn’t get into because he’s so wordy, I suppose that’s his thing?
January 9, 2026
more of a 2.5/3 than anything
lots of intellectualizing normal realizations that don’t necessarily need further intellectualizing in my opinion.
mainly boring with some interesting points, but nothing super noteworthy.
lots of intellectualizing normal realizations that don’t necessarily need further intellectualizing in my opinion.
mainly boring with some interesting points, but nothing super noteworthy.
February 21, 2020
One of the greatest shames in human history was Kafka never finishing a story. Absolute genius that should have never been found, but thank god it was.
April 28, 2020
Favorite of Kafka so far
October 27, 2021
Excellent story, makes you see the world from a whole new perspective. I'd dare to say the translation to English could have been better.
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