A few years ago, I finally got ’round to reading Kafka’s The Metamorphosis and was completely blown away by it. Kafka’s ability to convey the anxiety of the modern age , in the most palpable metaphorical terms, also has a powerful, emotional immediacy.
Kafka’s short-short story “A Little Fable“, which has quite the poignancy these days, is but two paragraphs long and reads:
“Alas,” said the mouse, “the world gets smaller every day. At first it was so wide that I ran along and was happy to see walls appearing to my right and left, but these high walls converged so quickly that I’m already in the last room, and there in the corner is the trap into which I must run.”
“But you’ve only got to run the other way,” said the cat, and ate it.
