Excursion into the mountains

by Franz Kafka

Genres: Classics

Unknown Binding

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 His major novels The Trial, The Castle, and Amerika were left unfinished and unpublished during his lifetime.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

[amal · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found similarities between these well crafted words and my own life and experience.

[↟° IRIS ⇞↟⇞ · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'll single out some of Kafka's sentences in the following reviews rather than typing about it. Although it won't explain the work itself I believe it will capture more of the quick Kafka spirit.

✦ "If no one comes, well then, that's nice - then no one will come. I've never done evil to anybody and no one's done it to me, but no one wishes to help. No one at all. Yet it's not entirely true. Except that no one is helping - otherwise 'no one at all' would be kind of nice."

[Deep · Rating 5 out of 5]

Living life with bunch of nobodies

[Samoili Evaggelia · Rating 5 out of 5]

This short story made me sad. It conveyed the feeling of always being pushed aside by society, yet just wanting to hold everyone close and live your life gaily.

[Jasmine Gutierrez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Would rather be alone than be with people who don’t care. I related to this a lot. Also I love Franz’s style in writing 💕

[Sara 🐈‍⬛ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short Impressive but sad song I guess

[Maynk02 · Rating 5 out of 5]

The evidence of how much humanity has progressed in reality after a century. Kafka's cogitation here seems like a voice from the past; rather, it's a call to the future.

Uncover some minutes of your time to read this succinct masterpiece.

[Jahid Hasan · Rating 3 out of 5]

দোটানার গল্প। একই বিষয়কে ঘিরে দুটি বিপরীত অবস্থান বিবেচনা করে লেখা।

[Negin Mousavi · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'd love to go on an excursion ... with a pack of nobodies.

[Bücherfrosch · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my alltime favorite piece of Kafka.

[Nagwa Nasr · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm nobody! Who are you?
- Emily Dickinson

[Radhika Gupta · Rating 4 out of 5]

It feels like me, irritated with people and wants to go to the mountains.

[Merrycat · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm never outdoors, found it hard to relate.

[Raphael · Rating 4 out of 5]

this one feels the most readily kafkaesque, though having read more of his work, though still very little, the meaning of that word is shifting away from its normative, accepted usage for me.

[CH0MSKY H0NK · Rating 3 out of 5]

Madness