This small book includes English translations of four of Franz Kafka's shorter works of fiction, along with academic literary interpretations of those works. The fiction includes three of Kafka's best known classics -- -- "The Judgment", "The Metamorphosis", "A Hunger Artist" -- plus the lesser known "A Report to an Academy". The collection is introduced by a 9 page "Biography" by the book's editor, Angel Flores, a scholar who had published 5 previous books on Kafka. Also included are four pages of photographs of Kafka, his family, and his lady-loves.

With multiple collections and translations of Kafka's works available, the main rationale for this book lies with the interpretative essays. I found them to be marginally useful. In her analysis of "The Judgment", Kate Flores takes issue with two previous expositions, one of which viewed it in terms of religious symbolism (with the father being a stand-in for "God" and death of the mother signifying "the decline of the church." The other viewed the story as literal, under the assumption that the father is insane,. Flores takes a psychological explanation, relating the story to Kafka's own inner life, including his reluctance to marry his fiancé Felicia Bauer. She invokes a Freudian Oedipal complex to explain Kafka's guilt as well as "the agony, the self- contempt, the despair...", with "The Judgment" being "a quest for understand before his father, a quest for love and guidance, for law and certainty."

In an essay on "The Metamorphosis", F.D. Luke notes the tragicomic nature of the story, an aspect often overlooked by readers and reviewers. In his explanation of "A Report to an Academy", William C. Rubinstein takes a religious interpretation, on the grounds that the story is "really about a conversion" to Christianity, with the ape having symbolically participated in the sacrament of communion. Thus "the early life of the ape" represents "pre-European Jewish history" (with the cage in which it was confined being equivalent to Jewish ghettos). Of the fact that the ape engages 5 teachers, which he places in 5 communicating rooms, Rubinstein notes "Who these five teachers are it is difficult to say. Possibly they are the four evangelists and Paul, but this is only a desperate guess." Yes, a desperate guess indeed.

Finally, in R. W. Stallman's interpretation of "A Hunger-Artist" is said to epitomize Kafka's theme of "the corruption of inter-human relationships," a story able to be read on multiple levels. Accordingly, the plight of the hunger-artist reflects "the plight of the artist in the modern world; his dissociation from ... society". But the artist can also be viewed as "a mystic, a holy man, or a priest," with the story representing the plight of religion. Finally, the hunger artist represents "man as a spiritual being" with the panther of the story representing "the animal nature of man."

These are desperate interpretations, feasible due to Kafka's opaque, impressionistic style. The interpretations strike me as motivated by self- satisfaction and careerism, and constrained only by the interpreters' imaginations. It's interesting to see what interpreters come up with, but I cannot give them much of a recommendation. ( )