User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
Here's a link to a
BooktTube Video - all about the fabulous (and not so fabulous) old books I've read.
The Written Review UPDATE FEBURARY 2021 At this point, it's become a yearly tradition to check back on this and
see whatever shtstorm happened over the year.
I think
my favorite comments are when people are upset that my review is the most popular & they say it doesn't deserve its position.
It's like...lol...what? Do you think I'm going around making
nearly a thousand fake accounts on my free time so I can like it myself or something?
I'm in grad school for crepes sake. I got a thesis to write.
If anything, I feel like the popularity of the review shows that there must be a lot of people out there who agree...or they want to follow the resulting fallout as goodreads users lose their minds over one negative review of a classic... 50/50
I do feel somewhat bemused by the
people raising hell over me not liking/getting The Metamorphosis...
Sometimes I want to say, hmm..
.perhaps you just don't "get" my review? Perhaps it is just going over your heads? But then I realize that it's not up to me to convince them. And that it
isn't my job nor my right to force someone to think positively of something that they don't like.
Could you
imagine a world like that? Where you are ONLY allowed to think positively about literature and if you aren't, then an angry mob of "literature lovers" will harass you for literally years? What a world that would be...
Ps. thank you for the positive comments as well. I appreciate them. I'm also hella loving your collective effort to bring this review to
400+ comments. I don't think any other review I've written has come even close to that.
Pps. High five to those of you who have read this book and felt like me, that it was a rather pointless tale about a bug that died. Don't let anyone ever tell you different (ha).
UPDATE MARCH 2020 Hi.
It's me.
Your friendly neighborhood reader.
You all want to know why people don't like reading the classics? Try reading the comments.
I didn't like this book and wrote a jokey review in 2018. People freaked out because A) I didn't like the book and B) poked fun at this classic in my review. The horror.
Two years and 300+ comments later...annnnd *drum roll* I really don't give a sh*t anymore.
I'm tired. I'm bored. It's been
TWO FREAKING YEARS and people won't leave this review alone.
Feel free to talk about my (lack of) intelligence all you want down below but I really don't have anything to say in the comments anymore.
A BIG EFFING DISCLAIMER (January 2019): I read books for fun, not to better myself.
I originally published this review
MONTHS ago, for a book published
DECADES ago... and I just want to say:
Reviewers be warned.
People are not the forgiving sort if you don't like this book. It seems that some classics must be liked,
or else .
Since publishing this review, many people have posted their interpretations of this book - some of which I can see, some of which I don't buy and some that really are quite brilliant.
People seem convinced that if only I (the "stupid broad" as one now-deleted comment said) could
understand the d*man book , then my "absolute idiocy" could be resolved and I wouldn't have to worry about my children "inheriting the stupid."
While your sentiments about my future children were strong (and no doubt your hearts were in the right place), I'm afraid that won't help them.
They are doomed. Even if the most stunningly accurate interpretation of the novel comes into my life, that doesn't change the fact that
I didn't like the book. I'm not a professional.
I'm not an English teacher.
I have never claimed to be anything other than an avid reader.
Just because I'm a "casual" doesn't mean that I'm only going to stick to fluffy novels. I like to branch out, sometimes with awesome and sometimes with awful results.
And this one just didn't work for me.
The Original Review - (February 2018) If you are someone who is looking for a
serious interpretation kindly check out another. There plenty of brilliant interpretations of this novel, and so many people LOVE it.
Unfortunately, I did not.
I cannot make you understand. I cannot make anyone understand what is happening inside me. I cannot even explain it to myself.
Allow me to explain it to you then:
You (Gregor) turned into
a giant bug. Your family alternated between
fearing, caring, and loathing you in your bug-body.
Ultimately, you began doing lots of creepy bug-things and became a burden to them.
Then you
starved to death and your parents got their spare bedroom back.
*slow clapping*Okaaaay, if you haven't already guessed,
I didn't enjoy this one. I am not a fan of books where things just *happen* without any sort of explanation. Nor if books that give off a consistently dreary feeling throughout.
I could summarize the entire book as:
Gregor turns into a bug, it was not a smart move. Which is slightly misrepresenting the book - cause the book actually has Gregor turning into a bug without any rhyme or reason.
Actually.
Wait a moment.This is probably one of those books where everything is a representation of something significant in real life.
An "Important Novel", if you will.
Lemme Wikipedia this.
...
.....
........
Ok. I'm back.
Apparently the bug thing is either a metaphor for a "father complex" (Gregor's dad was the most anti-Gregor/anti-bug character) or a take on the "artist struggle" (Gregor's sister is the cruelest, because she can make music).
I mean, maybe? I guess that could be what the book means...? There's a cruel father and a gifted daughter...but who knows.
I guess the book is so open to interpretation that it could literally mean just about anything.
It kind of feels like one of those books just
written for the hell of it and then some English teachers got a hold of it and now it's become an
Important Novel. Therefore, I'm going to stick with my original interpretation - it's
a rather pointless novel about a bug that dies.Personally, I did not like the style, the characters and the ending.
It felt painful to read, the emotions and the feelings associated with the events just felt incredibly depressing.
Plus,
as a personal pet peeve - plenty of things happen without a solid explanation or clear motivation... which actually funnels back into my "English teachers got ahold of this novel" theory quite well.
Ultimately, this took up time that I can never get back and I don't think I'll ever enjoy it.
How about if I sleep a little bit longer and forget all this nonsense
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Rating: really liked it
Gregor Samsa wakes up one morning to discover he's been transformed into a giant beetle-like creature. Can he and his family adjust to his new form?
The Metamorphosis is one of those books that a lot of people get dragooned into reading during high school and therefore are predisposed to loath. I managed to escape this fate and I'm glad. The Metamorphosis is quite a strange little book.
Translated from German, The Metamorphosis is the story of how Gregor Samsa's transformation tears his family apart. I feel like there are hidden meanings that are just beyond my grasp. I suspect it's a commentary about how capitalism devours its workers when they're unable to work or possibly about how the people who deviate from the norm are isolated. However, I mostly notice how Samsa's a big frickin' beetle and his family pretends he doesn't exist.
There's some absurdist humor at the beginning. Samsa's first thoughts upon finding out he's a beetle is how he's going to miss work. Now, I'm as dedicated to my job as most people but if I woke up to find myself a giant beetle, I don't think I'd have to mull over the decision to take a personal day or two.
Aside from that, the main thing that sticks out is what a bunch of bastards Samsa's family is. He's been supporting all of them for years in his soul-crushing traveling salesman job and now they're pissed that they have to carry the workload. Poor things. It's not like Gregor's sitting on the couch drinking beer while they're working. He's a giant damn beetle! Cut him some slack.
All kidding aside, the ending is pretty sad. I'll bet Mr. Samsa felt like a prick later. The Metamorphosis gets four stars, primarily for being so strange and also because it's the ancestor of many weird or bizarro tales that came afterwords. It's definitely worth an hour or two of your time.
Rating: really liked it
A paraphrase. When my (ex)husband went out one evening from unsettling dreams of how faraway his wife was, he went out drinking and whoring. Next morning he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous vermin. A cockroach. Much he knew it though. None of his friends recognised it, in fact they preferred the cockroach to the person he had been and he had a great time. When it was time for him to come home, armour-plated as he was he crushed his wife underfoot (well fists and kicks, but same thing).
Unlike Kafka's poor cockroach whom no one could come to terms with and is destroyed by their ultimate hatred of creepy, crawly insects that roam the house, my ex was embraced by all and became the most popular party person. Although at one stage I did have to fight off a woman who was swinging her handbag at me and tell a Spanish prostitute that my husband's unwanted attentions were no business of mine.
The moral of the story is that there is more than one type of human cockroach and Kafka only wrote about one. It's all in the shell, if you are ugly, big, brown and with six legs you are hated. But handsome, big, brown and with only two, you are adored.
Read this book back in 1999 and loved it. Social isolation for visible or invisible characterists reverberated with me, as did the cold gang mentality that rules once each has identified themselves as a sympathetic member.
5 star book
2 star ex husband (I did get my son so he gets a star for that).
Rating: really liked it
I once used my copy to kill a beetle.
Thereby combining my two passions: irony and slaughter.
*wields*
Rating: really liked it
The Metamorphosis
Franz Kafka
The Metamorphosis can quite easily be one of Franz Kafka’s best works of literature- one of the best in Existentialist literature. The author shows the struggle of human existence- the problem of living in modern society- through the narrator.
Gregor Samsa wakes in his bed and finds himself changed into an a mammoth bug- the vermin; he battles to discover what really has transpired, he checks out his little room and everything looks ordinary to him anyway it gets a peculiar inclination it may not be so. He attempts to turn over and return to stay in bed request to disregard what has occurred, but since of the state of his back, he can just shake from side to side.
"As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect." The initial lines of the novella relates the odd occasion of Gregor's change in a very direct way, the author utilized the differentiating image of an abnormal circumstance and common things of life to make a preposterous world which is crisp, disorganized as opposed to rational and normal, as we expect it to be; but the Kafka always do what you least expect.
Gregor becomes accustomed to his creepy vermin body and his family takes care of him (mostly an inappropriate things, however they couldn't care less) and expels furniture from his room with the goal that he can uninhibitedly move around and climb the walls. Be that as it may, they would prefer not to see his appalling structure, he is kept to his room, and normally stows away under the couch when his sister enters with his food, to save her sensibilities (as opposed to the pleasantly human creepy crawly Gregor, his sister isn't chivalrous in any way, yet progressively hostile and barbarous); his brutish dad (as Kafka himself had been quite afraid of his father) pursues him back by tossing apples at him when he once comes out. The relatives additionally need to take employments for they can no longer soak up the fruitful child. What's more, the circumstance separates, and the family crumbles.
The problem of alienation is explored to depth in the novella- Gregor become insect and behaviour of his family members change towards him, he may transformed to something unusual at the core he is still the same however he faces problem of acceptance by society due to his transformed appearance, which ridicules his being- his existence- as if he is thrown into the hell of nothingness without any notice. The feebleness of his existence disintegrates his being into nothingness, under the sheer pressure of the society- the 'Other'.
The novella raises some very basic and profound questions of human existence- alienation, identity, being. Kafka questions all our presuppositions of life- success, social position, money, that a healthy life is characterized by a steadily improving standard of living and a socially-acceptable appearance which we think matter most- through Gregor's metamorphosis. These presuppositions of our life pose more serious questions- which are very chilly and which can rip us apart from any sense of our (inauthentic) existence. The author robs Gregor-the protagonist- of every sense of his inauthentic existence by stealing off all assumptions of his life, now he is striped down to the very core of his existence. The protagonist is encountered with basic problems of human existence- what it takes to be?- which we encounter in our lives- if we once appeared socially acceptable and now have ceased to do so, are we still in fact ourselves? Was the socially-acceptable persona in fact ourselves, or is there more essential self-ness in the being we have now become? Or have we, in fact, been nobody in the first place, and are we nobody still? Gregor Samsa can make us ponder our own character, our identity, about the smoothness of what we take to be steady and fixed, and about the dangers and supernatural occurrences of our own metamorphosis. Kafka gives us that how the conventions of normal society are twisted because of our incompetence to look past the surface to the individual inside.
Rating: really liked it
Gregor waking up one morning as a bug was a hilarious analogy of the effects an illness can have on someone, as well as on those who are close to him. Though the underlying story behind the hilarity of the analogy was anything but funny. I took it as more of a warning of what NOT to do when a loved-one is afflicted by some unfortunate disease or circumstance. I found his resistance of acknowledging to himself that he had become a bug in the beginning of the story to be very interesting. When he couldn't ignore his state any longer, he looked to others' reactions as to how he would look at his own condition. As he was trying to unlock his bedroom door to let his parents and supervisor in, he thought,
"If they took fright, then Gregor would have no further responsibility and could rest in peace. But if they took it all calmly, then he had no reason to get excited either and he could, if he hurried, actually be at the station by eight."
The reaction of those around him, and most importantly, those of his closest loved-ones, is what influenced his own attitude towards himself and his own state. He became completely ashamed of himself, striving to completely hide himself from view, though it took great effort and pain on his part to do so. His imprisonment, or rather, his confinement from the company of others, had a devastating affect upon his mental well-being and in turn, affected his physical well-being. Such a sad story and the fact that his family didn't feel remorse for their actions, but relief for themselves at his death... I don't believe Kafka was trying to say this is how humans are indubitably, even though most of them try to put on a show of galantry and higher morals. But that humans certainly can become some of the most self-serving, self-centered creatures on Earth. It serves as a warning to us all that while it is good to allow others to serve us from time to time, it is far better to always serve others. Gregor's family had all become accustomed to being taken care of by him. They didn't even mind that he was held in servitude to pay off their debts. This was made evident when the fact was made known that Gregor's father had been saving up extra money earned by Gregor, when it could have been used to pay for his freedom much sooner. Gregor, on the other hand, had been serving his family and loved them purely because of it. His first thought was not of himself, but of the hardship his condition would cause his family.
So lest we fall into such an ugly state of existence, let us guard ourselves by serving those we love, thus loving more those we serve.
Rating: really liked it
Die Verwandlung = The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka The Metamorphosis is a novella written by Franz Kafka which was first published in 1915.
One of Kafka's best-known works, The Metamorphosis tells the story of salesman Gregor Samsa who wakes one morning to find himself inexplicably transformed into a huge insect and subsequently struggling to adjust to this new condition.
The novella has been widely discussed among literary critics, with differing interpretations being offered.
The Hunter Gracchus is a short story by Franz Kafka.
The story presents a boat carrying the long-dead Hunter Gracchus as it arrives at a port.
The mayor of Riva meets Gracchus, who gives him an account of his death while hunting, and explains that he is destined to wander aimlessly and eternally over the seas.
An additional fragment presents an extended dialogue between Gracchus and an unnamed interviewer, presumably the same mayor.
تاریخ نخستین خوانش: در سال 1974 میلادی؛ بار دیگر: روز دهم ماه نوامبر سال 1995 میلادی
عنوان: مسخ: نوشته: فرانتس کافکا؛ مترجم: صادق هدایت؛ کتاب در قطع جیبی و شامل داستانهای: «مسخ»؛ «گراکوس شکارچی»؛ «شمشیر»؛ «در کنیسه ما»؛
نخستین ترجمه فارسی این اثر، از متن «فرانسه» به قلم روانشاد «صادق هدایت» منتشر شد؛ سپس ترجمه ی بانو «فرزانه طاهری» در سال1358هجری خورشیدی، توسط انتشارات نیلوفر آمد، که از متن انگلیسی ترجمه شده بود، و انتشار یافت؛ ترجمه ی دیگری را نیز، جناب «علی اصغر حداد» از متن اصلی، و از زبان «آلمانی»، ترجمه کرده اند، که نشر ماهی منتشر کرده است
مَسخ داستان کوتاهی، از «فرانتس کافکا» است؛ که در ماه اکتبر سال 1915میلادی، در «لایپزیگ»، به چاپ رسید؛ «مسخ» از مهمترین آثار ادبیات فانتزی سده بیستم میلادی است، که در دانشکده ها، و آموزشگاه های ادبیات سراسر جهان غرب، تدریس میشود
داستان درباره ی فروشنده ی جوانی، به نام «گرگور سامسا» است؛ که یک روز صبح، از خواب بیدار، و متوجه میشود، که به یک حشره ی نفرت انگیز بدل شده است؛ برهان مسخ «سامسا»، در طول داستان بازگو نمیشود، و خود «کافکا» نیز، هیچگاه در مورد آن شرحی نداده اند؛ لحن روشن، و دقیق و رسمی نویسنده در این کتاب، تضادی حیرت انگیز با موضوع کابوسوار داستان دارد؛ «ولادیمیر ناباکوف»، در مورد این داستان، گفته است: «اگر کسی مسخ کافکا را، چیزی بیش از یک خیالپردازی حشره شناسانه بداند، به او تبریک میگویم، چون به صف خوانشگران خوب و بزرگ پیوسته است»؛ مترجم مسخ باور دارد، که «گرگور سامسا» در واقع، کنایه ای از شخصیت خود نویسنده (کافکا) است
نقل از متن پشت کتاب: (نویسندگان کمیابی هستند، که برای نخستین بار، سبک و فکر و موضوع تازه ای را، به میان میکشند، به خصوص معنی جدید میآورند؛ که پیش از آنها وجود نداشته است. کافکا یکی از هنرمندترین نویسندگان این دسته، به شمار میآید.؛ خواننده ای که با دنیای کافکا سر و کار پیدا میکند، در حالیکه خرد و خیره شده، به سویش کشیده میشود.؛ همینکه از آستانه ی دنیایش گذشت، تأثیر آنرا در زندگی خود حس میکند، و پی میبرد، که دنیا آنقدر هم بن بست نبوده است.)؛ پایان نقل
تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 26/05/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 10/05/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی
Rating: really liked it
4* for the novella + 1* for Benedict Cumberbatch narration ( I adore his voice).
A family (mother, father and sister) are forced to become responsible and find jobs when the son, the sole provider of the family, has a sort of a disease and cannot work anymore. As he becomes useless he is marginalized and despised. I almost forgot, the disease is that the son wakes up in the morning as a cockroach.
Methamorphosis is considered one of the best books ever written which is quite remarkable considering its size. To succeed to have such an impact in a few pages is an accomplishment. At a first glance it is the story of Gregor Samsa, who wakes up transformed as a vermin and becomes treated like one by the family. As with great literature, and with Kafka in particular, there is more than meets the eye.
Some of the themes that come to my mind (and some that I read in other reviews) are:
- What happens when a person is no longer sociable acceptable and it becomes marginalized
- The novel can be seen as a critic of discrimination or
- Kafka’s own existential suffering and his alienation from the world ( I think some reading about Kafka’s life is needed to better understand his work).
- A fable of Jews’ condition
For a better and more in depth analysis of the novella please check Vladimir Nabokov’s contribution: http://www.kafka.org/index.php?id=191...
Rating: really liked it
Kafka’s classic tale written in 1912 is about the changes that can come about in our lives. Up until the very end, the entire tale takes place in an apartment of a mother, father, son and daughter. The son is unfortunately unable to continue to perform his job as a traveling salesman and support his family financially. This abrupt change forces the father, mother and daughter to exert more energy in their lives and take steps to earn money. Here is a word about each member of the family:
The Father – At the beginning of the tale he is too worn out to even stand up straight and walk across the apartment without pausing. At the end, he stands up straight, combs his white hair neatly, wears a uniform smartly in his new job working for a bank and can take charge of family situations and challenges with authority.
The Mother – At the outset, she is weak and helpless. At the end, she does the household cooking and helps support her family through taking in sewing.
The Daughter – A wan stay-at-home at the beginning and a healthy out-in-the-world worker at the end. At the very end, this 17 year-old blossoms into an attractive young lady, a real catch for some lucky guy.
This Kafka tale is, in some important ways, the forerunner of such books as
How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Of course, what I've written above is tongue-in-cheek. Not to be taken seriously!
Review of
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka ---- Take 2
If I didn’t write this ‘Take 2’ I suspect my book review would be the first in nearly 100 years not to mention Gregor wakes up transformed into an enormous bug. Since there already so many reviews posted, I’d like to offer several brief observations:
• What is it about our attempt to maintain the status quo? Gregor is transformed into a monstrous verminous bug and all he and his mother and father and sister can ask is: ‘How can we change things back to how they were?’.
• The objective 3rd person narrator lets us know directly that although Gregor’s body has transformed, he still has his human mind with its memories. Why does his family assume Gregor lost his human mind? If they wanted, they could simply ask him questions to find out. For example, ‘Gregor, if you can understand what I am saying, move over to the right side of your room’. This speaks volumes about how people are too narrow in their thinking to deal with life creatively and with imagination.
• What adds to the eeriness of Kafka tale is Gregor’s metamorphosis is in stark contrast to the humdrum regularity of the family in their apartment. The possible exception is the absurdist scene at the beginning where Gregor’s manager knocks on the door and insists on knowing why Gregor missed the early morning train. This combination of these opposites is a stroke of genius.
• The most insightful review of this Kafka tale I’ve read is from Vladimir Nabokov ------ http://www.kafka.org/index.php?id=191.... Nabokov adjudged Kafka’s tale the greatest novel of the 20th century behind Joyce’s Ulysses.
Rating: really liked it
It was no dream.Gregor Samsa awakes one day, changed forever. How unpredictable is life, one moment leading to a new labyrinth of existence where forward is the only motion available, our scars and choices following us in a tuneless parade with few interested spectators. Despite our lives being a personal struggle, it is constantly judged, criticized and appraised by all those whom we encounter. Oh, the injuries we inflict upon one another. We alienate and assume instead of communicate, we fear differences and we yell when we should love. Strange how the ones we love tend to be the ones we hurt, or hurt us the most. Kafka’s classic story
The Metamorphosis is an alarming tale of alienation and hurt that seems fantastical on the outside to house a bitter pill of reality that has roots in us all. What is most compelling about Kafka is his ability to construct a tale from personal anxiety and injury that broadcasts as a universal message to all that read it, honing in on the guilt, loneliness and frustration in every heart. Gregor’s terrifying tale of transformation is a powerful rendition of guilt and the failure to succeed in a father’s eyes that utilizes religious imagery and fantastical occurences to drive the knife into the reader’s heart and soul.
Gregor lives a life of solemn servitude to his job and, most importantly, his family. His job is a necessity to support a family whose debts accrued by the now-unemployed father are being repaid by the fruits of Gregor’s labor. While Gregor has provided the family with a modest home which he shares with them, the debt seems an unquenchable burden he can never fulfill. In the original German, the word
schuld means both ‘debt’ and ‘guilt’¹, a critical texture to the text ironed away by translation that opens a gateway of understanding Gregor’s father issues. There is the guilt at being unable to satisfy the father, to live up to the father, and the senior Samsa is a quick tempered man. Kafka struggled with a strained relationship with his own abusive father, a struggle that he transformed into a literary theme permeating much of his artistic output. Much of Kafka’s life soaks into this work, much like the constant slamming doors he often complained of in his own household with his family.
Despite his transformation, what initially upsets Gregor most is that he is missing work. I felt this sting deep within myself, being the head of a household and barely making ends meet despite long hours. The burden of the working class is to be so dependant on a job as life-blood creating a system of guilt and depraved necessity that pulls us from bed to work despite any affliction; we must work, we must provide, we must survive. To stumble is to die, yet even staggering onward seems just a slow suicide climbing towards an unattainable surface from our pit of existence. Gregor feels this, the reader feels this, and Kafka’s magic has been unleashed. To fail to work is yet another failure in the eyes of the obdurate father, but also in a society that is built to enrich the upper classes on the blood and sweat of the working class and at their expense. At its very core, this story is a critique of capitalism and the absurdities of upholding such a system.
The father and the Father seem united in the character of the elder Samsa. Kafka himself struggled with his Jewish identity, made plain in his diaries. As Vladimir Nabokov points out in his exquisite lectures on
The Metamorphosis², the number three is pivotal to the understanding of the story.
The story is divided into three parts. There are three doors to Gregor’s room. His family consists of three people. Three servants appear in the course of the story. Three lodgers have three beards. Three Samsas write three letters.
Three, of course, representing the Holy Trinity (there are many other important details surrounding three, such as the clock tower striking three after Gregor retreats into his room, or Gregor standing on his three hind legs since the fourth was damaged beyond repair). The rejection and unfulfillment of the father is also Gregor’s failure to be valuable in the eyes of the Father, God, and perhaps this may be the cause of the unexplained (and rather unquestioned for the most part) transformation that has befallen the poor man. The fatal blow pinning Gregor to the ground like a crucified Christ (while this may be a slight stretch, there are other Christ-like references such as the sudden pain in Gregor's side much like the spear in the side while on the cross) is an Edenic apple thrown from the father, rotting and festering in him like our sins until we breath our last.
‘
All language is but a poor translation,’ said Kafka, made evident in Gregor’s failure to communicate in his new form. Communication is the cornerstone of understanding others, and being stripped of his voice severs his link to his family and humanity. ‘
That was the voice of an animal,’ the office chief exclaims after Gregor attempts to communicate with them through language. With his loss of language, his family slowly ceases to view him as Gregor but as a dumb beast, easing them into letting go of their notions that he is still Gregor. He is now an unproductive, dumb hindrance to their lives and they begin to forget him and move on to a productive life of work and family without him. It is like an invalid aging relative, many continue to care for them out of respect for their memory, but the person slowly becomes a chore or a burden and not a human-being in their minds. Another view of Gregor in his new state is that of a person stricken by crushing depression or other mental or emotional ailments where those around them begin to view them by their illness and not their soul. They forget the person that is still there, the person they know and love, and dwell on the chasm forged between them. It is human nature, it makes it easier to cope. How many people walk away when times get tough, even abandon the ones they love because it is easier to convince yourself they are not the person you loved than it is to fight for them or fight for what was once had. Kafka’s genius is that he took a personal experience and related it as a universal parable with endless interpretations, each unique and equally valid as they blossom within each respective reader.
Rereading this story was a rewarding experience and I very much connected with it. Gregor was a traveling businessman, and I am a traveling delivery driver. The musings on the plight and unique depression of long hours in strange faraway places hit home, as well as the notion from everyone else that traveling in such a manner is some royal treat. Granted, I greatly enjoy the work and the freedom of being, essentially, a professional vagrant, yet there is a tinge of alienation being a person without an anchor, always on the move, always chasing a horizon. The feelings of guilt, of alienation, the struggles with family, everything range true plucking my heartstrings like a guitar to form a foreboding yet fantastic melody. Kafka is as relevant to the modern reader as he was in his own time with themes that illuminate us with their timeless insight into society and the individual.
4.5/5I cannot make you understand. I cannot make anyone understand what is happening inside me. I cannot even explain it to myself.¹ There is an interesting article recently published by the BBC on ‘the German’s debt psyche’ and the cultural relationship between debt and guilt stemming from the word
schuld.
² There is a wonderful film adaptation of Nabokov’s lectures with Christopher Plummer as Nabokov. You can watch it here.
Rating: really liked it
Some modern personal transformations are no less dramatic than those immortalized by Ovid…
One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin. He lay on his armour-like back, and if he lifted his head a little he could see his brown belly, slightly domed and divided by arches into stiff sections. The bedding was hardly able to cover it and seemed ready to slide off any moment. His many legs, pitifully thin compared with the size of the rest of him, waved about helplessly as he looked.
On turning into the loathsome insect, Gregor Samsa actually acquired his authentic essential nature – his body just had come into accordance with his inner insectival self. In his new shape, his parents had no sympathy for him and for his sister he has become a kind of a pet.
Strange may it seem but Gregor’s metamorphosis had set his family free – everyone became more independent and his kin began to feel that they have some obligations.
Gregor drew his head back from the door and lifted it to look at his father. Truly, this was not the father he had imagined to himself; admittedly he had been too absorbed of late in his new recreation of crawling over the ceiling to take the same interest as before in what was happening elsewhere in the flat, and he ought really to be prepared for some changes. And yet, and yet, could that be his father? The man who used to lie wearily sunk in bed whenever Gregor set out on a business journey; who welcomed him back of an evening lying in a long chair in a dressing gown; who could not really rise to his feet but only lifted his arms in greeting, and on the rare occasions when he did go out with his family, on one or two Sundays a year and on high holidays, walked between Gregor and his mother, who were slow walkers anyhow, even more slowly than they did, muffled in his old greatcoat, shuffling laboriously forward with the help of his crook-handled stick which he set down most cautiously at every step and, whenever he wanted to say anything, nearly always came to a full stop and gathered his escort around him? Now he was standing there in fine shape; dressed in a smart blue uniform with gold buttons, such as bank messengers wear; his strong double chin bulged over the stiff high collar of his jacket; from under his bushy eyebrows his black eyes darted fresh and penetrating glances; his onetime tangled white hair had been combed flat on either side of a shining and carefully exact parting.
Nonentity’s tragedy was just his own tragedy and when he disappeared, everyone could breathe easy.
It makes me wonder how many paltry insects are really hiding behind human masks.
Rating: really liked it
Die Verwandlung und Der Jäger Gracchus = The Metamorphosis and The Hunter Gracchus, Franz Kafka The Metamorphosis is a novella written by Franz Kafka which was first published in 1915.
One of Kafka's best-known works, The Metamorphosis tells the story of salesman Gregor Samsa who wakes one morning to find himself inexplicably transformed into a huge insect and subsequently struggling to adjust to this new condition.
The novella has been widely discussed among literary critics, with differing interpretations being offered.
The Hunter Gracchus is a short story by Franz Kafka.
The story presents a boat carrying the long-dead Hunter Gracchus as it arrives at a port.
The mayor of Riva meets Gracchus, who gives him an account of his death while hunting, and explains that he is destined to wander aimlessly and eternally over the seas.
An additional fragment presents an extended dialogue between Gracchus and an unnamed interviewer, presumably the same mayor.
تاریخ نخستین خوانش: سال 1974میلادی؛ بار دیگر: روز دهم ماه نوامبر سال 1995میلادی
عنوان: مسخ و گراکوس (گراچوس) شکارچی؛ نوشته: فرانتس کافکا؛ مترجم: صادق هدایت؛ کتاب در قطع جیبی و شامل داستانهای: (مسخ؛ گراکوس شکارچی؛ شمشیر؛ در کنیسه ما)؛ موضوع داستانهای نویسندگان آلمان - سده 20م
نخستین ترجمه فارسی این اثر از متن «فرانسه» به قلم روانشاد «صادق هدایت» منتشر شد؛ سپس ترجمه بانو «فرزانه طاهری» در سال1358هجری خورشیدی، توسط انتشارات «نیلوفر»، که از متن انگلیسی ترجمه شده بود، انتشار یافت؛ ترجمه ی دیگری نیز از جناب «علی اصغر حداد» را، که از متن اصلی و از زبان «آلمانی» ترجمه شده، نشر «ماهی» منتشر کرده است؛
داستان کوتاه «مَسخ» اثر «فرانتس کافکا» است؛ که نخستین بار در ماه اکتبر سال 1915میلادی، در «لایپزیگ» به چاپ رسید؛ «مسخ» از مهمترین آثار ادبیات فانتزی سده ی بیستم میلادی است، که در دانشکده ها و آموزشگاههای ادبیات سراسر جهان غرب، تدریس میشود؛
داستان، در مورد فروشنده ی جوانی به نام «گرگور سامسا» است؛ که یکروز صبح از خواب بیدار، و متوجه میشود، که به یک مخلوق نفرت انگیز حشره مانند، تبدیل شده است؛ دلیل «مسخ» شدن «سامسا»، در طول داستان بازگو نمیشود، و خود «کافکا» نیز، هیچگاه در مورد آن توضیحی ندادند؛ لحن روشن، دقیق، و رسمی نویسنده در این کتاب، تضادی حیرت انگیز، با موضوع کابوسوار داستان دارد؛
ولادیمیر ناباکوف، در مورد این داستان گفته است: (اگر کسی «مسخ» «کافکا» را چیزی بیش از یک خیالپردازی حشره شناسانه بداند، به او تبریک میگویم، چون به صف خوانشگران خوب، و بزرگ پیوسته است.)؛
مترجم فرانسوی «مسخ» باور دارد که: («گرگور سامسا»، در واقع کنایه ای از شخصیت خود نویسنده «کافکا» است؛
نقل از متن پشت جلد کتاب: (نویسندگان کمیابی هستند که برای نخستین بار، سبک و فکر و موضوع تازه ای را به میان میکشند، به خصوص معنی جدید میآورند؛ که پیش از آنها وجود نداشته است؛ «کافکا» یکی از هنرمندترین نویسندگان این دسته به شمار میآیند؛ خوانشگری که با دنیای «کافکا» سر و کار پیدا میکند، در حالیکه خرد و خیره شده، باز هم به سویش کشیده میشود؛ همین که از آستانه ی دنیایش گذشت، تأثیر آن را در زندگی خود نیز حس میکند، و پی میبرد، که دنیا آنقدر هم بن بست نبوده است.)؛ پایان نقل
تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 12/07/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 09/05/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی
Rating: really liked it
there was a trend going around on tiktok for a while where girls would ask their boyfriends,
‘if i were a worm, would you still date me?’ those girls are literally this MC, except gregor samsas tiktok would be him asking his family,
‘if i were an insect, would you still love me?’ and the answer is a hard
NO. at face value, i found this to be a rather weird and super depressing story. and this book is a perfect example of why i have such a love/hate relationship with stories that are considered classics. i read for entertainment, so i generally prefer not having to analyse the text in order to get a full understanding of the story. and this is one that requires deep analysis. gosh, any reader could spend hours trying to interpret this novella. religiously, psychologically, socially - all are different interpretations this story could take. not to mention the influence of different translations. but i found that i just didnt care enough about the story to put in all that effort.
maybe one day i will take the time to figure out what it all truly means. if i do, i have no doubt i will be able to appreciate this story more, like many other readers. but as of right now, im just not in the mood.
↠ 2.5 stars
Rating: really liked it
Gregor Samsa awakes from a bad dream, into a mad nightmare, as he struggles, stuck in his own bed this weary, young traveling salesman, has overnight been miraculously transformed... incredibly Gregor is now a hideous bug, a dung beetle , or even a cockroach does it really matter what ? He has missed his train in more ways than one, but Samsa, is a real trooper, still thinks he can catch the locomotive and make that vile business trip, eventually getting off the bed with great difficulty, just a slight crash, in truth, opening the locked door somehow and moving around on the floor, in his many, new, ugly little legs the parents and sister are greatly shocked, at his new repulsive appearance. And when the office manager arrives to see what happened , big mistake, he spots Samsa and is out the door without a word spoken (twitching a little). Now the "Bug" becomes a burden to his lazy, ungrateful family after years of Gregor supporting them, all by himself (a job he hated, with a big passion), they much embarrassed , hide him in his modest quiet room, feeding the "monstrous vermin", leftover garbage from their table scraps, a menu the bug implausibly prefers...Months pass and it becomes obvious something has to give, the reader will decide is Samsa a real dung beetle, or is he mentally ill? But to some, the gist of the fable is, how much does your family love you? A brutal depiction of a family in tremendous turmoil...expediency triumphs.
Rating: really liked it
Any day you wake up as a cockroach is a shit day.
