卡夫卡全集 全九卷

by Franz Kafka, 叶廷芳 (Editor)

这套《卡夫卡全集》选自德国菲舍尔出版社1994年校勘本《卡夫卡全集》，包括作者创作的生前发表和未发表的全部长篇、中篇和短篇小说。这个校勘本忠实地根据卡夫卡的手稿，既保留了原作无规则的标点符号和异乎寻常的书写方式，又突出了原作完成和未完成的两个部分，同时也纠正了其他一些版本的错误，原原本本地再现了作者手搞的风貌。

4924 pages, Hardcover

Published May 1, 2001

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 His major novels The Trial, The Castle, and Amerika were left unfinished and unpublished during his lifetime.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

[Lin Piao]

卷一小结：《卡夫卡全集（第1卷）》收录的短篇和中篇小说，如同一面棱镜，折射出人性深处的悖谬、疏离与恐惧。同时，他的笔锋里也有着一而贯之的冷峻讽刺与幽默。他的文字既是对威权体制的无声抵抗，也是对现代人生存困境的精准解剖。
在这些故事中，悖谬之处俯仰皆是：《公路上的孩子们》里渴望自由却心存倦怠、口说归家却奔向城市的孩子；《山间远足》里向往自然却无法歌唱的都市人；《杂货商》里凝视窗外却始终无法迈出一步的店员。卡夫卡笔下的人物，无一不在枷锁之中挣扎，却又似乎甘愿被束缚。这种荒诞感，恰恰映照出我们自身的困境——既渴望逃离，又恐惧逃离后的自由。
然而，卡夫卡并非一味阴郁。他的想象力诡谲而幽默，《一条狗的研究》和《地洞》便是绝佳例证。夜深人静时，他任由思绪驰骋，将文学视为最忠实的倾听者。这些故事松散、跳跃，甚至略显絮叨，却也因此保留了最原始的卡夫卡式思维——未经雕琢，却直击本质。可文学既是他的慰藉，也是他的枷锁。《集体》和《兀鹰》中的意象，仿佛暗示着他与写作的纠缠：无法割舍，却又深受其扰。
重读《变形记》，格里高尔的遭遇令人心颤。一个兢兢业业的“社畜”，某天醒来竟成了甲虫，而他的消失仅换来家人短暂的哀伤。很快，家人就会迁居，生活得以继续。但讽刺的是，家人所憧憬的未来，不过是另一种形式的机械生存——他们终将成为新的“甲虫”。《陀螺》中的意象同样令人窒息：人们如陀螺般在鞭打下旋转，一旦停下，便意味着被淘汰。卡夫卡以冷眼旁观的方式，揭穿了现代社会的残酷真相——我们都在重复的劳作中，逐渐异化为非人。
众多篇章中，《中国长城建造时》最令我惊叹。长城分段建造，就仿佛对国家制度的分段剖析。长城如果连接起来，其壮观和庞大，是普通臣民所想象不到的。就如同帝国的庞大与皇帝的威严，在普通臣民眼中遥不可及，但若加以解构，便会发现其脆弱本质。皇帝同样会犯错，同样受限于肉体凡胎。于是，统治者以模糊的信息、滞后的时政、半真半假的“半教育”来维持权力的神秘感。一切变得“不可言说”，而“不可言说”恰恰是控制的最佳手段。卡夫卡穿透时光的洞察力，在此展现得淋漓尽致。
阅读卡夫卡，犹如踏入一座精神的迷宫。有时，你在镜中撞见自己的影子；有时，你以为找到出口，却不过是另一个入口；有时，你深入人性的幽暗，直面荒谬与挣扎。要穿越这座迷宫，需如卡夫卡一般，保持好奇与清醒，才能在荒诞中照见真实。