“When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous vermin.”
With this startling, bizarre, yet surprisingly funny first sentence, Kafka begins his masterpiece, The Metamorphosis. It is the story of a young man who, transformed overnight into a giant beetlelike insect, becomes an object of disgrace to his family, an outsider in his own home, a quintessentially alienated man. A harrowing—though absurdly comic—meditation on human feelings of inadequacy, guilt, and isolation, The Metamorphosis has taken its place as one of the most widely read and influential works of twentieth-century fiction.
As W.H. Auden wrote, “Kafka is important to us because his predicament is the predicament of modern man.”
I just finished Franz Kafka’s seminal novella, The Metamorphosis. I wasn’t sure what to expect with the story of Gregor, waking to find himself transformed into an insect; and I was pleasantly surprised. Not only does it go through the struggles of this mysterious change for Gregor, but the intense effect it has on his parents and sister. This is a quick read, a little strange, very dark but thought provoking at the same time. A lot of people get dragged into reading this book for high-school (mainly in America) and as a result may end up hating this book. But there really is a lot of literary merit to this book, and I can see why people are made to study it.
Reading updates
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14 August, 2011:
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14 August, 2011:
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