The Cambridge companion to kafka

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Franz Kafka's writing has had a wide-reaching influence on European literature, culture and thought. The Cambridge Companion to Kafka, offers a comprehensive account of his life and work, providing a rounded contemporary appraisal of Central Europe's most distinctive Modernist. Contributions cover all the key texts, and discuss Kafka's writing in a variety of critical contexts such as feminism, deconstruction, psycho-analysis, Marxism, Jewish studies. Other chapters discuss his impact on popular culture and film. The essays are well supported by supplementary material including a chronology of the period and detailed guides to further reading, and will be of interest to students of German, European and Comparative Literature, Jewish Studies.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• Chronology
• Notes on Contributors
• Introduction: Kafka's Europe Julian Preece
• 1 Kafka's writing and our reading David Constantine
• 2 A psychoanalytic reading of The Man Who Disappeared
• 3 The exploration of the modern city in The Trial
• 4 The Castle
• 5 Kafka's short fiction
• 6 Kafka's later stories and aphorisms
• 7 The letters and diaries
• 8 The case for a political reading
• 9 Kafka and Jewish folklore
• 10 Kafka and gender Dagmar
• 11 Myths and realities in Kafka biography
• 12 Editions, translations, adaptations
• 13 Kafka adapted to film
• 14 Kafka and popular culture
• Index

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

This collection of essays holds true to the promise of its title: it is a trustworthy and helpful companion for those, be they scholar or afficionado, who seek up-to-date and well-considered observations on the writings of one of the 20th century's greatest but most enigmatic writers. With the possible exception of one essay (by, surprisingly, a noted literary critic) all of the contributions are first-rate: they are written clearly and persuasively with authority and sophistication, and though they represent a broad spectrum of critical approaches--psychoanalytic, poststructural, feminist, neo-Marxist, biographical, or Judaic--are refreshingly undogmatic. The volume is also fairly comprehensive in its collective treatment of Kafka's three novels, his short fiction, aphorisms, letters, and diaries, and his reception in popular culture and film. If the essays in this collection have a common thematic concern, it is the shared appreciation for Kafka's seamless interweaving of a multiplicity of discourses to produce profoundly open-ended narratives that subtly subvert or call into question the premises on which these discourses are based. In addition to the standard endnotes, each contribution contains a useful compendium of further reading. E. Williams California State University--San Bernardino