Lunchtime read: Metamorphosis and Other Stories

The stories at the beginning of this collection are obviously more innocent than those towards the end which display all of the most obvious traits of Kafka’s style but he is quite capable of hinting at something a lot more disturbing, which is on display in The Window on the Street, as well as providing humour in a story like The Rejection.

There are a series of snippets, some no more than a paragraph, that make up the Meditation collection

Meditation
These stories cover thoughts on what it must be like to live alone, why it is important to have a window that looks out onto the street if you do, and reminisces about walks in the country and the mountains

The longest two pieces – Children on a Country Road and Unhappiness – seem to bookend periods in his life when he was innocent and carefree and then more worldly wise

The feeling you get reading them is that he is always looking for the unusual in a situation and feeling out the reason why people make certain choices to either live alone or choose to act in certain ways. The final story, Unhappiness, about a ghost coming into a room, could almost be about one of those people that has chosen to live alone coming face to face with their childhood state at a time when they could have made other choices.