Kafka's nightmares

I finally finished Franz Kafka’s short stories. I’m so relieved. Reading his stories was like waking up from one nightmare and falling asleep into another. He is dark, inexplicable, even sick. It was pure torment but I can’t stop reading him, as if I need to punish myself for starting from page 1 in the first place. So he’s very good - in a difficult, grotesque, unbearable kind of way. Metamorphosis was still his best story, maybe because it was the longest. It reminded me of what it was like to have a cancer patient in the family. The comparison is brutal but realistic enough. Strange things to write for a German speaking Jew living in the 18th century. I wonder if he knew Hitler? Sigh. I'm glad that’s over with. Must move on to lighter books.