The Metamorphosis

So I'm a literature major and I think Kafka's famous short story is the best ever written. Don't see literature discussed much around here, especially not short stories. Anybody have anything to chime in on this? Among my other favorites are Dostoevsky's 'The Gambler' and Poe's 'The Cask of Amantillado'.

[istewart]

I remember that being a good read.

[daryn]

i also am a big fan of meta and cask

[private joker]

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Kafka's famous short story is the best ever written.

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[diebitter]

Old Man and the Sea?

Or is that more novella than short story?

[Card08]

On Kafka alone, I prefer "In the Penal Colony";however, I'd say that they are both great, highly-textured reads.

[RunDownHouse]

Go download Widespread Panic's "Imitation Leather Shoes" and pay attention to the lyrics.

[Los Feliz Slim]

Best short stories is harder than best book in a lot of ways. Some good ones:

The Things They Carried - Tim O'Brien
The Killers - Hemingway
In Another Country - Hemingway
The Snows of Kilimanjaro - I like Hemingway, OK?
A Rose for Emily - Faulkner

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Old Man and the Sea?

Or is that more novella than short story?

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That got me hooked on Papa for life.

[diebitter]

OP - nice thread - I will be actively seeking this out to read (Plus the Gambler + Poe). Tnx.

[TheBlueMonster]

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Best short stories is harder than best book in a lot of ways. Some good ones:

The Things They Carried - Tim O'Brien
The Killers - Hemingway
In Another Country - Hemingway
The Snows of Kilimanjaro - I like Hemingway, OK?
A Rose for Emily - Faulkner

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good list, but you can't forget:
- "The Garden of Forking Paths" by Borges

[DougShrapnel]

Can I add "The Death of Ivan Illich" Tolstoy I think.

[Blarg]

Metamorphosis was great. I loved it.

I'm also a huge fan of Italo Calvino's short stories, as well as Hemingway's, and Raymond Carver has written some of the best ones ever written. His book, "Things We Talk About When We Talk About Love," is unbelievably great and intense. Think Hemingway, if Hemingway were even better. The New Yorker magazine said that in the 80's, alost all the short stories submitted to them were Carver rip-offs. He was that good. Anyone who hasn't read Carver is missing out enormously, and the one I mentioned is his best. Reading some of those can make you feel like you were hit in the chest with a hammer, and the writing is so astoundingly good that, for a fiction lover or anyone who wants to get the most out of a story or understand how a brilliant craftsman works, they are worth reading over again immediately, even more than once.

Black Spring by Henry Miller is also very, very good. A great story with a great ending. Very moving.

And finally, you can't go without reading The Delicate Prey, by Paul Bowles. This has perhaps the best last line I've ever read in fiction, and has a sort of terrifying beauty to it.

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As Tobias Wolff writes in Esquire, "The Delicate Prey is in fact one of the most profound, beautifully wrought, and haunting collections in our literature.... Bowles's tales are at once austere, witty, violent, and sensuous. They move with the inevitability of myth. His language has a purity of line, a poise and authority entirely its own, capable of instantly modulating from farce to horror without a ruffle."


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-- from Amazon.com's page

I don't like all his stories, but this one is a must-read. I'll never forget the last line and the incredibly imagery and moral terror the story conjures up.