The Country Doctor, Franz Kafka

   Franz Kafka's novella, "Metamorphosis,"  and short story "The Hunger Artist," has forever placed Kafka as one of my personal top 10 or 20 preferred writer's list for the 20th century. So, when I found "The Country Doctor" by Kafka on feedbooks.com, I of course had to read it. It would seem that it is supposed to be a series of stories. I must hunt down the rest of them and be a bit more diligent in hunting down as much of his work as I possibly can.
   I'm not sure how to look at this story. It's like a backtrack to a very distant age when doctors were largely incapable of doing very much to help people. Their equipment was extremely primitive. For instance, when he listens to the heart of the patient, he must place his head against the chest rather than use any instrument.
   He discovers that the problem with the farmer is that he is infested with worms. There's nothing he can do to help him. Regardless, he is stripped naked and forced to lay with the dying man by the family. He is instructed to save the man or be killed should the man die. Fortunately, he is able to escape through the window with his clothes in hand with the assistance of a powerful team of horses which he had been able to borrow.
   I had no idea what kind of story this was when I started it. But it was definitely a journey into a very strange world. What a loss to literature it was when he died so young. What amazing literature he left behind. He really has very very few peers.