Ah, remember the days when you could be entertained by something as simple as a man starving himself in a cage?

(from Selected Stories of Franz Kafka, on loan from Ryan Godfrey and Jessica Lowenthal)

What is this, a commentary on fads? On artists? On mob mentality? On pricey cuisine? On changing morals? Yes, yes, perhaps, no, yes. Sometimes you feel like you’re reading some kinda allegory. All the signs are there: No proper names of people or places, no defined era, no extraneous detail to divert your senses from the main action. And by action, of course, I am referring to the guy curled up on the straw staving himself nearly to death. It’s a beautiful and heavy story.

Read it here.