Great Story, But Do Not Buy This Book: Buy Kafkas's Collected Stories

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	• 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

Why read Kafka?

There has been enough discussion about Kafka to fill volumes...his use of symbolism, subconscious references, his relationship with his father, use of archetypes, religious symbology, etc...so I have only have one comment.

I started reading The Metamorphosis in my mid-thirties. Since it's only about 50 pages long, I thought I'd breeze through it in a day or so.

But the first 2 nights I started reading it, I had vivid and disturbing dreams about war and disconfiguration. From that point, I only read a few pages a day until I completed it.

So I believe the critics who write about the power of his work; it's heady stuff, that can get into your subconscious.

Definitely worth a look.

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Great Story, But Do Not Buy This Book: Buy Kafkas's Collected Stories

This is a great story but very short, just 55 pages long. There is a cottage industry of sorts that has grown up trying to interpret the meaning of the story. I will skip that in my review and leave that to others.

First things first. The present book is ISBN 0553213695 and it was reissued in 2004 with the same ISBN number. If you look carefully at the "product details" listed above you will see a description for the old book published in 1972 with the same ISBN number. It has been replaced, and I received and read the newer version. It is a bit shorter than the original, just 195 versus 224 pages. It is translated by Stanley Corngold.

This is a famous and brilliant short story. For example, Nabokov selected this story as one of seven novels in his 1950s European literature course that he taught at Cornell (see Nabakov: "Lectures on Literature"). This is not a novel, but just a short story. He thinks that the aims of Kafka were relatively modest here and it is primarily an entertaining story and probably free of any Freudian interpretations. However, he does spend about 34 pages analyzing the story, the style, and the structure; he tries to explain what it means. Also, Nabokov thinks that some of the translator's words are not properly selected or are slightly confusing and those suggestions still apply to the current translation - as I checked this version against Nabokov's notes - and it is probably a better book in German.

As a general reader, I was disappointed with this particular version of the book. "The Metamorphosis" story itself is just 55 pages long and one in retrospect I thought that it was probably a bad buy for the avergae buyer. The rest of the 194 pages is given over to analysis and similar. If you want a better value, you should look at some of the collected works such as: "The Metamorphosis, In the Penal Colony, and Other Stories" (Schocken Kafka Library), ISBN 0805210571, or "The Transformation (Metamorphosis) and Other Stories : Works Published During Kafka's Lifetime," 0140184783. Also, "The Great Short Works of Franz Kafka" ISBN: 0684800705.

In any case, this is a brilliant story and it will not disappoint the reader.

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imprinted on my soul

i've read this story several times over the years. but i can assure you, it made it's mark on me the first time i read it. this story is very dark, and extremely sad. i love it...

poor gregor.

Strangely Kafkaesque

Kafka's Metamorphosis is more than a story. It is an exhibition of the existential and often absurd condition we experience as life.

Gregor Samsa wakes up one morning to find himself transformed into an unwanted creature, not an insect. This is an important distinction to make, as most reviewers will slavishly insist that Gregor woke up as a insect. The original German reads:

"Als Gregor Samsa eines Morgens aus unruhigen Träumen erwachte, fand er sich in seinem Bett zu einem ungeheueren Ungeziefer verwandelt."

Literally translated, Ungeziefer means vermin in German. Why is this an important distinction to make? The Metamorphosis centers around a man ostracized from society due to him not being wanted. Thus, portraying him merely as an insect, is an incomplete way of looking at Gregor's situation. Who wants vermin? Certainly not Gregor's family.

If you have not yet read The Metamorphosis, I envy you. The experience of reading the Metamorphosis for the first time was for me a seminal event in my life. Many of my preconceived ideas and insights regarding my own position in society have been influenced by this simple story. Even though Kafka wrote this short story in 1915, it is as relevant today as it was when Kafka conceived of the idea.

I have read the Metamorphosis at many times different phases in my life and it still amazes me that the story has the ability to address certain aspects of the human condition as accurately as it does. Each time I pick up the book, it is with a certain sense of dread, knowing that I will be forced to look within myself and confront some uncomfortable truths.

The Metamorphosis is open to many different interpretations and I'm sure you will find your own parallel as you are afforded a glimpse into the psyche of one of the most brilliant writers of any age.

Enjoy your existential crisis.

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