The Great Wall of China: Stories and Reflections
by Franz Kafka 
On This Page
Description
Drawing directly on original manuscripts, this collection comprises the major short stories published after Kafka's death. It includes The Great Wall of China, Blumfeld, An Elderly Bachelor, Investigations of a Dog and his great sequences of aphorisms, with fables and parables on subjects ranging from the legend of Prometheus to the Tower of Babel. Allegorical, disturbing and possessing a dream-like clarity, these writings are quintessential Kafka.Tags
Recommendations
Member Recommendations
Member Reviews
Various short stories (generally not as good as in Metamorphosis) and a short play. Several have legal/bureaucratic themes and others continue his habit of first-person musings, imagining himself as another creature (Report of a Dog and The Burrow). The Burrow is a very touching insight into the concept of home as a castle, fear of intrusion and persecution etc - very easy to add a Jewish spin to the interpretation.
See my Kafka-related bookshelf for other works by and about Kafka: HERE.
See my Kafka-related bookshelf for other works by and about Kafka: HERE.
LA MURALLA CHINA
De la construcción de
la muralla china
La muralla china fue terminada en su punto más
septentrional; avanzando del sudeste y del sudoeste se
unió aquí.
Este sistema de construcción parcial se utilizó también
en pequeña escala dentro de cada uno de los dos
grandes ejércitos de trabajo, el de oriente y el de
occidente. Para ello se formaron grupos de unos veinte
obreros que debían ejecutar una muralla parcial de unos
quinientos metros; un grupo vecino le salía al encuentro
con otra muralla de igual longitud. Pero luego de
producida la unión, no se continuaba la obra al final de
estos mil metros, sino que los grupos de obreros' volvían
a ser enviados a regiones completamente distintas para
la construcción de la show more muralla. Naturalmente, quedaron
así numerosos claros que sólo se llenaron poco a poco,
con lentitud, algunos sólo después de haberse ya
proclamado la terminación de la muralla.
Más aún: se dice que hay huecos que no se llenaron en
absoluto, afirmación que, probablemente, pertenece a
las muchas leyendas que se originaron acerca de la
construcción y que al menos para el hombre
aislado no son comprobables... show less
De la construcción de
la muralla china
La muralla china fue terminada en su punto más
septentrional; avanzando del sudeste y del sudoeste se
unió aquí.
Este sistema de construcción parcial se utilizó también
en pequeña escala dentro de cada uno de los dos
grandes ejércitos de trabajo, el de oriente y el de
occidente. Para ello se formaron grupos de unos veinte
obreros que debían ejecutar una muralla parcial de unos
quinientos metros; un grupo vecino le salía al encuentro
con otra muralla de igual longitud. Pero luego de
producida la unión, no se continuaba la obra al final de
estos mil metros, sino que los grupos de obreros' volvían
a ser enviados a regiones completamente distintas para
la construcción de la show more muralla. Naturalmente, quedaron
así numerosos claros que sólo se llenaron poco a poco,
con lentitud, algunos sólo después de haberse ya
proclamado la terminación de la muralla.
Más aún: se dice que hay huecos que no se llenaron en
absoluto, afirmación que, probablemente, pertenece a
las muchas leyendas que se originaron acerca de la
construcción y que al menos para el hombre
aislado no son comprobables... show less
Jan 6, 2019Spanish
I-2
Oct 9, 2020Catalan
Ratings
Members
- Recently Added By
Lists
Walls
24 works; 2 members
Author Information
1,493+ Works 103,339 Members
Franz Kafka -- July 3, 1883 - June 3, 1924 Franz Kafka was born to middle-class Jewish parents in Prague, Czechoslovakia on July 3, 1883. He received a law degree at the University of Prague. After performing an obligatory year of unpaid service as law clerk for the civil and criminal courts, he obtained a position in the workman's compensation show more division of the Austrian government. Always neurotic, insecure, and filled with a sense of inadequacy, his writing is a search for personal fulfillment and understanding. He wrote very slowly and deliberately, publishing very little in his lifetime. At his death he asked a close friend to burn his remaining manuscripts, but the friend refused the request. Instead the friend arranged for publication Kafka's longer stories, which have since brought him worldwide fame and have influenced many contemporary writers. His works include The Metamorphosis, The Castle, The Trial, and Amerika. Kafka was diagnosed with tuberculosis (TB) in August 1917. As his disease progressed, his throat became affected by the TB and he could not eat regularly because it was painful. He died from starvation in a sanatorium in Kierling, near Vienna, after admitting himself for treatment there on April 10, 1924. He died on June 3 at the age of 40. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Franz Kafka has a Legacy Library. Legacy libraries are the personal libraries of famous readers, entered by LibraryThing members from the Legacy Libraries group.
Some Editions
Series
Belongs to Publisher Series
Work Relationships
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title*
- De Chinese muur en andere verhalen
- Original title
- Beim Bau der Chinesischen Mauer : ungedruckte Erzählungen aus dem Nachlaß
- Original publication date
- 1950 (French translation) (French translation)
- Original language*
- Duits
- Disambiguation notice
- The French ed. (1950) contains texts originally published by Max Brod in different collections. Should not have been combined with editions in other languages
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 563
- Popularity
- 52,295
- Reviews
- 3
- Rating
- (3.96)
- Languages
- 7 — Dutch, English, French, German, Portuguese, Spanish, Turkish
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 32
- UPCs
- 1
- ASINs
- 21
