Metamorphosis & Other Stories
ByFranz Kafka,Willa Muir(translator),+1 more
1915 • 218 pages
Ratings265
Average rating3.8
15
Ratings265
Average rating3.8
Kafka Die Verwandlung The Metamorphosis
A story - not very long - about a man, Georg Samsa, who when waking up one morning in his bed finds himself changed into a kind of enormous bug – I always imagine a kind of big May-bug, lying on its back.
At first the family cares for him or it, but slowly they lose interest – what shall they do with a bug? – and finally the bug dies from lack of food.
When reduced to its simple plot, the story doesn’t seem like a big story, but as always there is more to it than the simple plot.
I read somewhere about Nabukov (author of Lolita) that he held classes about this text, analysing the style and the technique of the narration.
To most people the story will seem somewhat mysterious. And anybody can interprete such a story as they want. Of course I have my own personal interpretation and dare to present it here.
It is known that Kafka had tuberculosis of the lung (doctors found this out in 1917 and at that time it was not curable. Kafka died 7 years later. An author whose destiny is burdened with an incurable disease and who is bound to die at an early point of time may see this as an injustice that fell upon him without his being asked.
Normally one would be at odds with one’s destiny – but Kafka transposed his situation of life in highly artistic images or better parables that have an astonishing effect. Only Kafka did not say: Listen I will tell you a parable so that you may understand better what I feel.
As I said, this is my own private view and it helps me to understand much of Kafka’s work. But this interpretation has a week point. Much of Kafka work was written before 1917. Of course someone who contracts a disease such as tuberculosis will have a feeling of his illness, but it is not sure that he will know he will die of this sickness at an early time. Nevertheless my interpretation helps me to understand much of Kafka’s stories better.
Reviews with the most likes.
I think this book is to read it more than once. You can't understand the meaning of the book because the story doesn't have good pace and is monotone. However, it has much to decrypt message, therefore one should read it more than once to understand it.
I liked it, the story was much better than I expected. The stress of reading it in German took away some of the pleasure, but still quite a good story.
What does your soul look like?
This masterpiece novella can be interpreted in many ways – as a symbol of isolation and/or depression, as a literal example of speciesism and so on and so forth. When I started reading this literary piece, I was quickly drawn into Gregor's minuscule world which slowly turns upside-down and larger than he could have imagined.
The ending, while expected, left me with a sense of hollowness – because as the cover blurb states, ‘Kafka is important to us because his predicament is the predicament of modern man.' The story of Gregor is heart-breaking beyond words – the shallow veneer of his ‘happy' existence is cruelly left exposed and Gregor is left gasping for air, as well as the fact that his sister Grete backstabs him – it can be argued that the deuteragonist of the story is so critical to rationalizing the story that she might as well be labelled as the co-protagonist. The subtextual metamorphosis that Grete undergoes, I would argue, is more important than Gregory's own – but that is the beauty of the novella – you can interpret it in many different ways and all of them would be equally valid.
A masterpiece of prose, visual imagery, allegorical storytelling and subtexts, The Metamorphosis truly lived up to its reputation as one of the best short works in modern literature. Another one of those ‘classics' that doesn't disappoint.
