Contemplation (Kafka)

Contemplation

Betrachtung, first edition, 1912
Author	Franz Kafka
Original title	Betrachtung
Language	German
Genre	Short stories
Publisher	Rowohlt Verlag
Publication date	1912
Published in English	1958 (1958) New York, Schocken Books
Media type	Print (Hardback)
Original text	at German

Betrachtung (published in English as Meditation or Contemplation) is a collection of eighteen short stories by Franz Kafka written between 1904 and 1912. It was Kafka's first published book, printed at the end of 1912 (with the publication year given as "1913") in the Rowohlt Verlag on an initiative by Kurt Wolff.

Eight of these stories were published before under the title Betrachtungen ("Contemplations") in the bimonthly Hyperion. The collection Description of a Struggle, published in 1958, includes some of the stories In English, in whole or in part. All the stories appear in The Complete Stories of Franz Kafka (1971) and were published in a single volume edition by Twisted Spoon Press, illustrated by Fedele Spadafora. They have also been translated by Malcolm Pasley and are available in the Penguin Books edition, The Transformation and Other Stories (1992).

The book was printed in 800 editions and had in a year (1 July 1915 – 30 June 1916) sold 258 copies, the book wasn't sold out until 1924, the year Kafka died.

The original German title is "Kinder auf der Landstraße ()". Narrated by an unnamed little child, this short story follows her thoughts as she experiences childhood nighttime escapades. The plot begins with this little child on a swing watching passing carts of laborers returning from the fields. After dinner, she ventures into the woods and plays a game with other village children. The game is similar to king-of-the-hill, where the girls are pushed into deep ditches by boys. Later, she goes to the train-tracks and sings. “When you mix your voice with others you are caught like a fish on a hook.” The night ends with our narrator kissing a boy, and hearing from him rumors of the next village where the residents never sleep. This story has a tone of innocence, playfulness, and retrospection as the reader is transported into the mind of an eight- or nine-year-old girl. Images of big grown-ups, ever-deepening ditches, and youthful recklessness serve to further our impression of this child as an innocent adventurer. The fact that the narrator's name and gender is never specified allows the story to maintain a level of non-specificity. These themes can transcend time and place, so as to capture the thoughts of a child living in anytime or anyplace.