A Strange and Complex Work of Literature

books:


	• The Metamorphosis (Bantam Classics) Franz Kafka Bantam Classics, 1972 - 224 pages average customer review:based on 156 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

An Incredible Book

The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka is a phenomenal read. The symbolism in the book will exercise your mind and cause you to look within yourself to see if you are doomed to the life of an insect as Gregor was. It asks you to look around you and see if the people you love view you in the same way that you view yourself. The language Kafka uses is incredible, giving vivid images as if you were dreaming rather than reading.

A Strange and Complex Work of Literature

Gregor Samsa, a normal, unassuming guy, wakes up one morning to find himself turned into a giant bug. And here we enter the mind of Franz Kafka. In not very many words, Kafka presents an extraordinarily complex work, that is not so much an aberration in the realm of classic literature, not so much an odd story, but a thought-provoking novella that poses many questions about existence, transformation, relationships, Jewish literature, feminism, and any other number of topics literary critics are all too happy to dissect. This is a very good story with no frills, just straightforward writing. You follow Gregor as he comes to terms with his new condition, a man trapped inside the body of a vermin. His family is appalled and bitterly rejects him, dehumanizing and abusing Gregor. They attempt to cope but never really succesed. A quiet, unassuming work that ends on an odd note that is both sad and joyous at the same time. Never has a work been examined more. And if you want to see what all the fuss having to do with a giant bug is about, read it and see for yourself.

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582nd interpretation

Metamorphosis is one of the most famous works in 20th C literature, and possibly has the most memorable opening lines in the history of story telling, - 'As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning after disturbing dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into an enormous insect'. The standard interpretation of this allegorical tale is that Gregor's transformation from hard working travelling salesman, providing for his family, to a grotesque useless insect that provokes disgust and pity and ultimately rejection by his family, represents physical disability, and society's treatment of it. I can see this in the story, but I read Kafka as essentially portraying his nightmare of the barrier between the public and personal inner world being removed. The private mental life, with its sensitive and raw secrets, its ugly and embarrasing little features, the desires and instincts that we strive to keep hidden, and/or are forced to repress. The bug is the embodiment of the ugly and raw inside turned out, exposed for all the world to see. Particularly nightmarish for Gregor (kafka) is the fact that those who see are those he loves and whose rejecton he fears most of all - his family.

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Heartbreaking.

There are no better words for it. The literary equivalent to the life of the elephant man. The tightrope Kafka walks is to tug both at our sympathy for humanity and the animalistic world. The story is about so many things -- sacrifice, fate, lust, pain, the meaning of life, the meaning of soul -- that to sum it up here is hard.

There are certain sorts that will be put off by the subject matter of a big bug. Read past it. This is the portrait of failure, shame and despair beyond any other portrait. There is little that could ever be worse, than to be as sweet as you ever could be, as human as you ever were, and yet completely inhuman.

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A Classic!

One of my favorite stories of what it means to be human. It is rather melancholy, but yet so true at the same time. I recomend to anyone interested in Existentialism or just in man's journey as a human being.

reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, page 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19

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