Франц Кафка - The Complete Stories (forword by John Updike)

Diaries, September 23, 1912, following the complete draft of "The Judgment": "This story, 'The Judgment,' I wrote at one sitting during the night of the 22nd-23rd, from ten o'clock at night to six o'clock in the morning. I was hardly able to pull my legs from under the desk, they had got so stiff from sitting. The fearful strain and joy, how the story developed before me, as if I were advancing over water. Several times during this night I heaved my own weight on my back. How everything can be said, how for everything, for the strangest fancies, there waits a great fire in which they perish and rise up again. . . Only in this way can writing be done, only with such coherence, with such a complete opening out of the body and the soul."

Diaries, February n, 1913: "While I read the proofs of 'The Judgment,'. . . the story came out of me like a real birth, covered with filth and slime, and only I have the hand that can reach to the body itself and the strength of desire to do so." There follow notes toward an interpretation of the story.

Max Brod, Franz Kafka, p. 141: "At [Oskar] Baum's he read 'The Verdict' to us and had tears in his eyes. 'The indubitability [Zweifellosigkeit] of the story is confirmed.' Those are strong words of self-conviction [ Ü berzeugt-sein von sich selbst], rare enough in the case of Franz."

The Metamorphosis

"Die Verwandlung," written in the second half of November and the first days of December 1912, was first published in the monthly Die Weissen Blatter, October 1915; reprinted in the series Der jüngste Tag, vols. XXII-XXIII (Leipzig: Kurt Wolff Verlag, 1915). Erz ä hlungen (Schocken B1 and C5), pp. 67-142. Penal Colony (Schocken 03), pp. 67-132.

Diaries, January 19, 1914: "Great antipathy to 'Metamorphosis.' Unreadable ending. Imperfect almost to its very marrow." Gustav Janouch suggested that Samsa, the hero of the story, sounds like a cryptogram for Kafka. "Kafka interrupted me. 'It is not a cryptogram. Samsa is not merely Kafka and nothing else [Samsa ist nicht restlos Kafka]. The Metamorphosis is not a confession, although it is — in a certain sense — an indiscretion'." (Conversations with Kafka, p. 35).

In the Penal Colony

"In der Strafkolonie," written October 1914, was first published by Kurt Wolff Verlag as a Drugulin Press edition, Leipzig, 1919. Erz ä hlungen (Schocken B1 and C5), pp. 179-213. Penal Colony (Schocken D3), pp. 191-227.

Kafka to Janouch on this story: "Personal proofs of my human weakness are printed. . . because my friends, with Max Brod at their head, have conceived the idea of making literature out of them, and because I have not the strength to destroy this evidence of solitude." (Conversations with Kafka, p. 32).

The Village Schoolmaster [The Giant Mole]

The unfinished "Der Dorfschullehrer" or "Der Riesenmaulwurf" (Kafka used both titles), written in December 1914 and the beginning of 1915, appeared first in Beim Bau der Chinesischen Mauer (Berlin, 1931), pp. 131-53. Great Wall of China (Schocken D1), pp. 98-113.

Diaries, December 19, 1914: "Yesterday wrote 'The Village Schoolmaster' almost without knowing it, but was afraid to go on writing later than a quarter to two; the fear was well founded, I slept hardly at all, merely suffered through perhaps three short dreams. . . Then went home and calmly wrote for three hours." "The one gravely incomplete story in the book [Great Wall of China] (E. Muir, Introductory Note to the first English edition, p. xvii).

Blumfeld, an Elderly Bachelor

The incomplete "Blumfeld, ein alterer Junggeselle," written probably in the beginning of 1915, first appeared in Beschreibung eines Kampfes (Schocken Bv), pp. 142-71. Description of a Struggle (Schocken D8), pp. 97-145.

Diaries, February 9, 1915: "Just now read the beginning. It is ugly and gives me a headache. In spite of all its truth it is wicked, pedantic, mechanical, a fish barely breathing on a sandbank." This entry, mentioning the "dog story," is understood to refer to "Blumfeld."

The Warden of the Tomb

"Der Gruftwächter," a piece in drama form, written in the winter of 1916-17, was first published in Beschreibung eines Kampfes (Schocken Bv), pp. 288-305. Description of a Struggle (Schocken D8), pp. 147-78.

"Talking about a play he had written — probably 'The Warden of the Tomb' — when we very much wanted to hear it, he said: 'The only thing about the play that is not dilletantish, is that I shall not read it to you" (Max Brod, Franz Kafka, p. 74, quoting Oskar Baum's "Memories of Franz Kafka," 1929).

A Country Doctor

"Ein Landarzt," written not before the winter of 1916-17, was first published in the almanac Die neue Dichtung (Leipzig: Kurt Wolff Verlag, 1918). Included in the collection of stories Ein Landarzt. Kleine Erz ä hlungen (Munich and Leipzig: Kurt Wolff Verlag, 1919). Erz ä hlungen (Schocken B1 and C5), pp. 146-53. Penal Colony (Schocken D3), pp. 136-43.

Kafka dedicated the collection to his father. "Not as if I could appease the father; the roots of this hostility are irradicable. . ." (to Max Brod, end of March 1918; Briefe, p. 237). Max Brod, Franz Kafka, p. 31: "Franz often recounted the reply with which his father received the book — he certainly meant no harm by it — his father said nothing but, 'Put it on my bedside table.' "

The Hunter Gracchus

"Der Jäger Gracchus," written in the first half of 1917, was first published in Beim Bau der Chinesischen Mauer (pp. 43-50), and reprinted in Beschreibung eines Kampfes (Schocken Bv), pp. 102-7, which contains also a "Fragment zum 'Jäger Gracchus' " (pp. 331-35). Great Wall of China (Schocken D1), pp. 115-20. The "Fragment": in Description of a Struggle (Schocken D8), pp. 234-41. See also the reference to the Hunter Gracchus motif in Diaries, April 6, 1917.

The Great Wall of China

"Beim Bau der Chinesischen Mauer," written in the spring of 1917, was first published in the volume bearing that title (pp. 9-28) and reprinted in Beschreibung eines Kampfes (Schocken Bv), pp. 67-82. Great Wall of China (Schocken D1), pp. 83-97. The story "though apparently a fragment, is so perfect in itself that it may be read as a finished work" (E. Muir, Introductory Note to the first English edition, p. xvii). The "Fragment" ("The News of the Building of the Wall"): in Description of a Struggle (Schocken D8), pp. 226 ff.

A Report to an Academy

"Ein Bericht für eine Akademie," written in mid-1917, was first published in the monthly Der Jude, edited by Martin Buber, vol. II (November 1917), pp. 559-65. Included in Ein Landarzt, 1919. Erz ä hlungen (Schocken B1 and C5), pp. 184-96. Penal Colony (Schocken D3), pp. 173-84. The "Fragment": in Description of a Struggle (Schocken D8), pp. 219-25.

The Refusal

"Die Abweisung," written in the fall of 1920, was first published in Beschreibung eines Kampfes (Schocken Bv), pp. 83-89. Description of a Struggle (Schocken D8), pp. 179-91.

A Hunger Artist

"Ein Hungerkunstler," written in the spring of 1922, was first issued in Die Neue Rundschau, edited by Rudolf Kayser, published by S. Fischer Verlag, October 1922. Included in the collection Ein Hungerk ü nstler. Vier Geschichten, published by Verlag Die Schmiede, Berlin, 1924 (Die Romane des XX. Jahrhunderts). The volume comprises, besides the title story, "First Sorrow," "A Little Woman," and "Josephine the Singer, or the Mouse Folk." Kafka read the proofs of the first signature; the book appeared after his death (Briefe, p. 519, note 9). Erz ä hlungen (Schocken B1 and C5), pp. 255-68. Penal Colony (Schocken D3), pp. 243-56.