I guess my disappointment is directed at myself - or at least maybe that's how Kafka would describe it, although not out loud. Few of the stories stand out as clearly above average, and those have already been highy praised (and with good reason). The rest are faintly interesting - maybe more so if one has a keen interest in mr Kafka's authorship/life.

But from a reader's perspective, I find most of the stories in here unable to give me any pleasure, other than that they are, for the most part, really short.

Those that do strike a note with me, however. Those few stories are simply amazing!