What do you think?
Rate this book
The Kugelmass Episode
A fictional short story
12 pages, Paperback
First published August 12, 1977
About the author
Woody Allen
292 books3,153 followersNoted American actor, screenwriter, and filmmaker Woody Allen, originally Allen Stewart Konigsberg explored the neuroses of the urban middle class in comedies of manners, such as
Annie Hall
(1977) and
Deconstructing Harry
(1997).
This director, jazz musician, and playwright thrice won Academy Award. His large body of work mixes satire, wit and humor in the most respected and prolific cerebral style in the modern era. Allen directs also in the majority of his movies. For inspiration, Allen draws heavily on literature, philosophy, psychology, Judaism, European cinema, and city of New York, where he lives.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woody_A...
This director, jazz musician, and playwright thrice won Academy Award. His large body of work mixes satire, wit and humor in the most respected and prolific cerebral style in the modern era. Allen directs also in the majority of his movies. For inspiration, Allen draws heavily on literature, philosophy, psychology, Judaism, European cinema, and city of New York, where he lives.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woody_A...
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews
February 27, 2025
Like The Purple Rose of Cairo, but with Madame Bovary and books instead of movies. A modern classic of the short story genre!
April 8, 2023
read this for class i did not understand anything and i do not recommend 🫡
December 20, 2022
"You want a tea?"
"No, I want romance. I want music. I want love and beauty."
"No, I want romance. I want music. I want love and beauty."
April 17, 2023
واسه اینکه استادم گفته بود خوندمش و زیاد ازش خوشم نیومد. یکمی عجیب غریب بود.
August 13, 2024
Metaleptisch? Nein. Transfiktional? Ja. Unterhaltsam? Eh.
December 8, 2016
This was acutally a really interesting story. The first thing I have ever read by him. Interesting consept.
January 21, 2020
Again, another class read. 1 star because W*ody All*n is a piece of s*it <3
October 17, 2015
Woody Allen is a hopeless romantic who most of the time makes romance the god of life. But this story was different in that he ends the story with a bit of disenchantment and "reality." I loved the creativity and humor; the irony was thick, especially involving Madame Bovary. This is one of those stories that I read and go "oh you can write like that?" Wow.
September 9, 2017
((desperate enough to add a 12-pages long short story to my read list))
Studied this in class and while I do totally understand the way this story is built and what brings its uniqueness, I still didn't enjoy it. I deeply dislike the writing style and I feel there's more that could have been done with it.
Studied this in class and while I do totally understand the way this story is built and what brings its uniqueness, I still didn't enjoy it. I deeply dislike the writing style and I feel there's more that could have been done with it.
December 8, 2022
6/10
This was originally an essay in the New Yorker Magazine. It's a really creative story, told like only Woody Allen can.
Kugelmass wants to have an affair but not have it be real. Lo and behold, he finds a way to have an affair with literary characters. I won't spoil it but if you like Woody Allen, you'll appreciate this piece.
This was originally an essay in the New Yorker Magazine. It's a really creative story, told like only Woody Allen can.
Kugelmass wants to have an affair but not have it be real. Lo and behold, he finds a way to have an affair with literary characters. I won't spoil it but if you like Woody Allen, you'll appreciate this piece.
February 8, 2020
Parece que el tipo está un poco obsesionado con eso de que la realidad se atraviese con la ficción, o al revés. Como las películas: "La rosa púrpura del Cairo" o ,de cierta forma, "Medianoche en Paris".
November 9, 2021
I had to read this for a class, and well I´m very surprised, I loved the concept and I wish I could see more of it. Also saw the supposed movie adaptation that is very very different, but I enjoyed it anyway.
February 25, 2022
Funny. I love metafiction and this was one of the first examples I read. You can see the beginnings of Purple Rose of Cairo in this. This Woody Allen guy has a great sense of humor; he is going places :-)
December 31, 2022
This was a humorous short story. The idea was interesting and the narration by Woody Allen was great. I chuckled.
Disclaimer: My enjoyment of the narrator is based on my listening speed. I only leave 5 stars for books I've listened to or will listen to multiple times.
Disclaimer: My enjoyment of the narrator is based on my listening speed. I only leave 5 stars for books I've listened to or will listen to multiple times.
January 16, 2015
Really quick but really good. You can find it on google. It's the basis for the excellent Purple Rose of Cairo.
February 19, 2019
Muy de Woody Allen
October 11, 2022
all the horny bitches on shift-tok, you better leave draco malfoy alone
September 19, 2025
This short story reads like a crafty wink at both literature and the people who think they can use it as an escape hatch. At first glance, it’s a comic short story about a middle-aged man in a midlife crisis, but underneath the jokes it is an arch, self-aware riff on desire, art, and the way fiction seduces us precisely because it’s not real.
Kugelmass, a tired, miserably married humanities professor, longs for an affair that will reawaken his sense of self. Instead of finding another real-life lover, he finds a magician with a bizarre contraption that can literally insert him into any book he chooses. What could be more deliciously metafictional than a man physically stepping into Flaubert’s *Madame Bovary* to romance its heroine? Allen takes that premise and plays it like jazz, riffing on the absurdity of literary escapism with punchlines that double as existential digs.
The story’s energy comes from its self-reflexive humour. Kugelmass’s adventures in fiction are absurd but also familiar to anyone who has ever fallen in love with a character or a world. Allen makes that longing literal and then shows its consequences. The machinery of the plot—the magician, the box, the sudden appearances and disappearances—feels deliberately rickety, like a parody of time-travel and fantasy tropes.
This isn’t sleek science fiction; it’s a vaudeville act about metafiction. Even the prose style mirrors this. The sentences are crisp, wisecracking, full of references that treat the literary canon like a shared joke. It’s as though Donald Barthelme’s playful fragmentation has been merged with a stand-up comic’s timing, and the result is a satire of high culture from inside high culture itself.
What makes it postmodern isn’t just the premise but the way the story knows it’s a story. Characters complain, plots misfire, texts break down under the strain of intrusion. Kugelmass’s desire to rewrite or inhabit someone else’s narrative becomes a parody of the reader’s fantasy of control. And because Allen keeps it light and breezy, the darker implications sneak up on you.
The idea that literature is a refuge from real life is undercut at every turn; even Emma Bovary, the ultimate symbol of adulterous yearning, becomes a sitcom partner when yanked into Kugelmass’s drab reality. There’s an echo of Borges’s infinite libraries and Calvino’s playful reader-as-protagonist here, but twisted into a distinctly New York neurosis, full of therapy jokes and self-loathing.
By the end, you’re left with the sense that “The Kugelmass Episode” is more than just a humorous conceit. It’s a snapshot of the postmodern predicament: the hunger for stories to deliver us from ourselves, the inevitable disappointment when they can’t, and the comic disasters that follow when we try to force them to.
Without a hint of solemnity, Allen captures the bittersweet truth that fiction can transport you but it can’t redeem you. The story stays spoiler-free here, but suffice it to say that its last turn is as sharp as it is inevitable, the punchline of a cosmic joke about readers, writers, and the characters we wish we could love into life.
Most recommended.
Kugelmass, a tired, miserably married humanities professor, longs for an affair that will reawaken his sense of self. Instead of finding another real-life lover, he finds a magician with a bizarre contraption that can literally insert him into any book he chooses. What could be more deliciously metafictional than a man physically stepping into Flaubert’s *Madame Bovary* to romance its heroine? Allen takes that premise and plays it like jazz, riffing on the absurdity of literary escapism with punchlines that double as existential digs.
The story’s energy comes from its self-reflexive humour. Kugelmass’s adventures in fiction are absurd but also familiar to anyone who has ever fallen in love with a character or a world. Allen makes that longing literal and then shows its consequences. The machinery of the plot—the magician, the box, the sudden appearances and disappearances—feels deliberately rickety, like a parody of time-travel and fantasy tropes.
This isn’t sleek science fiction; it’s a vaudeville act about metafiction. Even the prose style mirrors this. The sentences are crisp, wisecracking, full of references that treat the literary canon like a shared joke. It’s as though Donald Barthelme’s playful fragmentation has been merged with a stand-up comic’s timing, and the result is a satire of high culture from inside high culture itself.
What makes it postmodern isn’t just the premise but the way the story knows it’s a story. Characters complain, plots misfire, texts break down under the strain of intrusion. Kugelmass’s desire to rewrite or inhabit someone else’s narrative becomes a parody of the reader’s fantasy of control. And because Allen keeps it light and breezy, the darker implications sneak up on you.
The idea that literature is a refuge from real life is undercut at every turn; even Emma Bovary, the ultimate symbol of adulterous yearning, becomes a sitcom partner when yanked into Kugelmass’s drab reality. There’s an echo of Borges’s infinite libraries and Calvino’s playful reader-as-protagonist here, but twisted into a distinctly New York neurosis, full of therapy jokes and self-loathing.
By the end, you’re left with the sense that “The Kugelmass Episode” is more than just a humorous conceit. It’s a snapshot of the postmodern predicament: the hunger for stories to deliver us from ourselves, the inevitable disappointment when they can’t, and the comic disasters that follow when we try to force them to.
Without a hint of solemnity, Allen captures the bittersweet truth that fiction can transport you but it can’t redeem you. The story stays spoiler-free here, but suffice it to say that its last turn is as sharp as it is inevitable, the punchline of a cosmic joke about readers, writers, and the characters we wish we could love into life.
Most recommended.
November 20, 2024
The Kugelmass Episode, lançado por Woody Allen em 1977 para a The New Yorker (mesmo ano em que lançou o seu filme Annie Hall, protagonizado pelo próprio e por Diane Keaton) é talvez um dos meus materiais preferidos do mesmo.
Aqui Woody, como ávido leitor, escreve sobre algo que todos os que amam ler já sonharam: entrar nos seus livros preferidos e viver a sua história.
Para isto, Allen cria o protagonista Kugelmass, que certamente seria interpretado pelo mesmo se este texto virasse metragem. Tal como as outras personagens que o realizador interpreta, esta é também um romântico falhado e ao mesmo tempo nerd (tanto que o próprio Allen cursou o CCNY e foi reprovado em inglês na Universidade de Nova York, a mesma história da sua personagem). Mas, apesar de ter tudo para ser odiado, torna-se um espelho do espetador por viver o seu sonho, conseguindo conectar-se com o mesmo.
Ao longo do texto, Woody Allen cria diversos momentos cheios de humor (é exemplo disso as frases contrastantes sobre o médico não ser terapeuta e vice-versa) e vai construindo uma grande piada que termina com uma punchline basta efetiva e inesperada. E tal como uma boa piada, Woody conta esta em pouco tempo - apenas 12 páginas -, sabendo perfeitamente a hora de a terminar para não a perder.
Assim como em Annie Hall, Allen volta a fazer aqui bom uso do contexto cultural, tal como faz em muitos dos seus filmes. Quem ler esta história e tiver visto o filme citado certamente se irá lembrar da icónica cena do cinema.
Em suma, The Kugelmass Episode é um conto curto, que, nunca perdendo o ritmo, entrega humor do início ao fim.
Aqui Woody, como ávido leitor, escreve sobre algo que todos os que amam ler já sonharam: entrar nos seus livros preferidos e viver a sua história.
Para isto, Allen cria o protagonista Kugelmass, que certamente seria interpretado pelo mesmo se este texto virasse metragem. Tal como as outras personagens que o realizador interpreta, esta é também um romântico falhado e ao mesmo tempo nerd (tanto que o próprio Allen cursou o CCNY e foi reprovado em inglês na Universidade de Nova York, a mesma história da sua personagem). Mas, apesar de ter tudo para ser odiado, torna-se um espelho do espetador por viver o seu sonho, conseguindo conectar-se com o mesmo.
Ao longo do texto, Woody Allen cria diversos momentos cheios de humor (é exemplo disso as frases contrastantes sobre o médico não ser terapeuta e vice-versa) e vai construindo uma grande piada que termina com uma punchline basta efetiva e inesperada. E tal como uma boa piada, Woody conta esta em pouco tempo - apenas 12 páginas -, sabendo perfeitamente a hora de a terminar para não a perder.
Assim como em Annie Hall, Allen volta a fazer aqui bom uso do contexto cultural, tal como faz em muitos dos seus filmes. Quem ler esta história e tiver visto o filme citado certamente se irá lembrar da icónica cena do cinema.
Em suma, The Kugelmass Episode é um conto curto, que, nunca perdendo o ritmo, entrega humor do início ao fim.
January 31, 2026
ეს არის 15 გვერდიანი მოთხრობა ერთ მექალთანე კაცზე, კუგელმასზე, რომელიც ღალატობს ცოლს... ის ერთი ჯადოქრის წყალობით შედის კარადაში და პორტირდება წიგნში, მადამ ბოვართან, რომელთანაც რომანს გააბამს, მაგრამ ერთხელაც როცა აქეთ გადმოიყვანენ მადამ ბოვარს, კარადას რაღაც დაემართება და რამდენიმე დღის განმავლობაში ვეღარ დააბრუნებენ მადამ ბოვარს წიგნში... კუგელმასი ძალიან შეშინდება და აღარასდროს გავიხედავ გვერდზეო. მაგრამ რამდენიმე დღის მერე კვლავ ესტუმრება ამ ჯადოქარს და ახლა სხვა წიგნში მოითხოვს ტელეპორტაციას, თუმცა უეცრად კარადას ცეცხლი მოეკიდება, მთელი სახლი დაიწვება, კუგელმასი კი ძველი ესპანური გრამატიკის წიგნში მოხვდება, საიდანაც თავს ვეღარასოდეს დააღწევს.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 29, 2021
I hate to say that Woody Allen's writing here is the literary, high culture equivalent to Weird Al or verging on the Seltzer and Friedberg movies (the likes of Epic Movie, Disaster movie, Date Movie, etc.), but it's how it felt. It's a real shame because I love Woody Allen's movies, though he has many, many movies and I have only seen a handful so I hope none approach the likes of this. Come on Woody!
September 21, 2022
It’s aight
October 10, 2022
Even if we ignore the lack of creativity, verisimilitude, and stakes with the premise of the book, it's just so silly and pointless. But, it's fine for a very short, quirky and funny pulp fiction
July 8, 2025
Beautiful prose stylings.
September 2, 2025
3.5
Meh
Osea la idea es interesante, por un momento pense que estaba escrito como medio rimando pero no
El final estuvo gracioso
Meh
Osea la idea es interesante, por un momento pense que estaba escrito como medio rimando pero no
El final estuvo gracioso
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 26, 2016
Satan loves the reckless but their Lord is relentless to any other second chance.
The feeling is contagious, human will never ever be satisfied, Emma and Kugelmass indeed.
The ditch will go deeper, the whole will be larger and the demons themselves know how to swim.
The feeling is contagious, human will never ever be satisfied, Emma and Kugelmass indeed.
The ditch will go deeper, the whole will be larger and the demons themselves know how to swim.
June 15, 2013
Funny parody of Madame Bovary.
March 26, 2016
If you read Madame Bovary, you Have To read this. I didn't like Flaubert's but I LOVED this.
April 5, 2016
what the hell
Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews