Kafka called this one his “dirty story,” and thought it imperfect, but it’s one of our favorites of his (though we also recommend “The Hunger Artist” and “A Country Doctor”). It’s so obviously a story about writing, in some ultimate way — a machine punishes its victims by writing on them over and over until their bodies give out — but it’s as if, while the body is the source of every problem in the tale, every weakness, it is also the only place where true knowledge can be translated.