The Meowmorphosis

by Coleridge Cook, Franz Kafka

“One morning, as Gregor Samsa was waking up from anxious dreams, he discovered that he had been changed into an adorable kitten.”

Thus begins The Meowmorphosis—a bold, startling, and fuzzy-wuzzy new edition of Franz Kafka’s classic nightmare tale, from the publishers of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies! Meet Gregor Samsa, a humble young man who works as a fabric salesman to support his parents and sister. His life goes strangely awry when he wakes up late for work and finds that, inexplicably, he is now a man-sized baby kitten. His family freaks out: Yes, their son is OMG so cute, but what good is cute when there are bills piling up? And how can he expect them to serve him meals every day? If Gregor is to survive this bizarre, bewhiskered ordeal, he’ll have to achieve what he never could before—escape from his parents’ house. Complete with haunting illustrations and a provocative biographical exposé of Kafka’s own secret feline life, The Meowmorphosis will take you on a journey deep into the tortured soul of the domestic tabby. 

Genres: Fiction, Fantasy, Humor, Classics, Cats, Retellings, Horror

208 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2011

About the author

Coleridge Cook, writing under a different name, is a beloved fantasy novelist and blogger as well as the winner of several prestigious literary awards.

Reviews

[Owen · Rating 1 out of 5]

In compliance with FTC guidelines, I disclose thatI received the book for free through Goodreads First Reads.

I have never thrown a book away after reading it before in my life until I read The Meowmorphosis. I will admit that I am not particularly good at reading works of literature and divining the meanings, allusions, and symbolism, but this book has no value at all.

In order to get a good basis off which to judge this book, I read Kafka's The Metamorphosis. It was a very strange tale; weird, bleak, and depressing until the very end. It is spoken of as an extensively taught short story and a cornerstone of the academic literary world. It is because I read Kafka the same day that when reading The Meowmorphosis I realized it was almost a word for word copy with "cat" in the place of "bug", even when the change made little sense. The quality of the writing plummets in the middle, the section of 'original' writing, and reads like a high school student trying to mimic Kafka. Then Gregor the Cat returns and the book ends with Kafka's lines with the respective changes made to denote the cat transformation; again, even when it makes little sense in relation to the other lines.

Kafka's The Metamorphosis is in the public domain and easily available for free online from a number of sources, or as part of a print collection. What the people/business geniuses/plagiarizers at Quirk Classics are doing is taking a free book, making a few cosmetic changes, adding a rather poorly written middle, and charging $10-15 for it. Its a great strategy, but in terms of quality it is reprehensible. This book is the equivalent of staging a serious play, say 'Hamlet', and having the actors randomly throw pies and run around like loons while the audience stuffs their face with fast food and guffaws and the silly people on stage.

I will freely admit that there is a perfectly valid use of mocking serious works, but this book takes the tone of "Oh, funny 'literature', lets be goofy, mock it for being serious, and reduce it to a simpleton level" without the skill it requires to be genuinely entertaining.

I had always thought these books started off the same as the classic they mimicked, then went off the rails with crazy ideas and plots. This was a huge disappointment. Advertising this book as an original work is borderline criminal.

[Lolly's Library · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sorry Quirk Books, but you really quirked up this time.

Kafka is not an author I'd immediately associate with literary mash-ups, seeing as he's neither a fun nor, quite honestly, entertaining read. In fact, he's quite depressing and it's hard to imagine how his works could be spiced up enough to be made palatable to a more general audience. Enter Quirk Books with The Meowmorphosis. Okay, I thought, if anyone could make Kafka likeable, it's Quirk; add a cute, fluffy kitty into the mix and you've probably got a hit on your hands. Um, no.

Basically substituting the word "kitten" for "cockroach", Coleridge's writing still leaves us with the body of Kafka's story, which, despite the kitten influence, remains depressing and obfuscating. I'll be quite honest: I haven't the foggiest idea what the moral behind the tale (tail? Ha ha) is. Something to do with Socialism vs. Capitalism I'm guessing? Plus, by using the kitten/cockroach substitution, it actually made the story even more bewildering. We're talking about a cute, fuzzy kitty, right? So why are people running away in disgust? Why are they trying to step on it and kill it just like a cockroach? Then again, it's supposedly a man-sized kitty, but, if it is, when he wanders the streets, why does no one respond to his size? If there's a tiger-sized tabby cat wandering around my neighborhood, I'm certainly going to sit up and take notice. Yet no one does. And while I agree a tight collar on a cat is devastating, an affliction borne by Gregor thanks to his schizophrenic sister (read the book, if you dare, you'll see what I mean), why does it weaken his back legs? Did the collar cause a stroke? And why is Gregor occasionally weak, so weak he has to drag himself around, and then healthy enough to spring up onto the furniture? Quite frankly, by the time I finished this book, I was shaking my head in despair and mind-numbing confusion.

Maybe I'm just not smart enough to appreciate this story. If that's the case, fine. I'll stick with my Terry Pratchett and Ann Aguirre, and leave this to the intelligentsia. So why two stars and not one? Because at the end of the book, Coleridge has provided us with a short, humorous "biography" of Kafka. Let's just say it features more kitties. It's not laugh-out-loud funny, but it's enough to provide a chuckle or two, which I felt deserved a star.

[Dara Salley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I came to this book with a fair amount of skepticism. I’m a big fan of Kafka and not such a big fan of the humorous/parody literature genre. I enjoyed “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” because the silly conceit of putting zombies into Jane Austen’s world actually created something meaningful. The zombies could be seen as a physical representation of the stultifying effect of harsh morality and the refusal of the gentry to acknowledge uncomfortable truths. However, many of the parodies that followed (Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, Android Karenina) seemed like brainless sequels with little to offer beyond the initial pun of the title.

I picked up the “Meowmorphosis” because it was offered free in a library book bin. Also, I could not resist the picture of a kitten in a top hat on the cover. However, I dreaded reading it. It sat on my bookshelf for years. When I finally forced myself to open it, I was initially pleasantly surprised. Turning all the disgusting, disturbing imagery of Kafka’s original into fuzzy, cute imagery was very intellectually pleasing. I found it very funny and also thought that it could engage a lover of Kafka’s literature, by putting his nightmare imagery into a different context.

The book lost me again about halfway through. Perhaps Coleridge Cook didn’t have enough material from the Metamorphoses to make a full book, because he departs from that text and starts adding scenes from “The Trial” and “The Castle”. I like both of those books more than “The Metamorphosis” but the idea of randomly transforming the characters into cats doesn’t hold up very well. I found that there was limited pleasure to be had from re-imagining scenes from those novels with cats instead of humans.

One question is: does this book really need to exist? Does the cultural canon need a version of “The Metamorphosis” starring a cat instead of a cockroach? Probably not. Still, I think it’s a mark of how far the human race has come that we can support this kind of nonsense. I like living in a world where such flights of fancy are tolerated and encouraged. God Bless America.

[Michael Dawson · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was suggested to read this book by a librarian. After reading the first three chapters the premise of the story was very interesting to start with but after it dragged on for quite a while with nothing remotely interesting happening I began to lose interest.

[Mark Flowers · Rating 2 out of 5]

I can't figure out what the purpose of this book is. Well over half of it is simply the text of Kafka's story with the word "bug" replaced by the word "kitten." Not sure if Coleridge thinks this is supposed to be funny (Kafka's story is already pretty funny) or insightful, or what (after all, there's a pretty huge difference between being a bug and a kitten, we would expect the responses of others and the consequences for Gregor to be quite different - not exactly the same). The middle section is taken up by Gregor the Kitten's escape to the outside world - this is mostly an excuse for Coleridge to try his hand and parodying another Kafka work, The Trial. He's slightly more successful at this, but not much, and it has pretty much nothing to do with The Metamorphosis. I really disliked Pride and Prejudice and Zombies as well, and I can't see why I would read another of these. The concepts are rich with potential, but the writers don't seem to understand that potential.

[Ruby Tombstone Lives!]

They say to never judge a book by its cover.... Fuck it. Have you SEEN the cover? Freakin' adorable.

[Evelyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

This seemed long winded and pointless, not at all how I remembered The Metamorphosis. I really liked the source book, though I have not read it since, probably 2001. I found it hard to care for the kitten, unlike the cockroach. The whole thing about cat-court was pointless. It doesn't seem like Coleridge Cook likes cats very much.
This "review" is about as poorly written as this book.

[clauie ✨ · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Meowmorphosis is meant to be a retelling of The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, which presents a more somber and darker atmosphere. This retelling remained faithful to a lot of origial elements in The Metamorphosis, including the main character's name - Gregor Samsa. Only instead of waking up as a hideous beetle, he wakes up as a kitten.

Honestly I was torn between giving this a 2.5 - 3 rating, but I ended up giving it a generous 3 stars anyway. Coleridge Cook has managed to weave parts of the original text to his new material, although his new material also included bits of Kafka's other literary pieces, which makes me question the actual originality and purpose of the novel.

What I do appreciate is the humor injected by the author (under the pseudonym of Coleridge Cook) while still incorporating the rather austere themes of the original story. I also do enjoy the questions/discussions part at the end, I think it was a pretty nice humurous touch. Lastly, the illustrations made reading this all the more enjoyable (and to some, maybe even more bearable).

I'm still torn whether or not I would recommend this. Avid fans of Kafka might find this a huge letdown and a hodgepodge of his other work, while cat lovers might find other parts funnier than others would.

In the end, I gave it 3 stars for its humor (as I am a cat person), the funny illustrations in between, and the effort of the author to further reiterate the complexity of Gregor Samsa's character.

["Bryn" Madison]

I’ve read The Meowmorphosis but not The Metamorphosis lol.
There are a lot of moments in the book where it’s very clear that the word bug was replaced with cat without any other changes to the story and context; it doesn’t make sense because cats are adorable and cat Gregor wouldn’t be rejected by his family so coldly. I've never read The Metamorphosis, but after reading this I can pretty easily understand what moral Kafka is getting at—changing the bug to a cat doesn't work. This book is a nothing burger, basically. Shoutout cats tho
Prolly should read The Metamorphosis eventually 😭

[Aida · Rating 1 out of 5]

Kafka deserved better than this reimagining. Kittens are objectively more lovable than cockroaches- kitten Gregor should have been adored, spoiled, and never had to work another day in his life! Rather, we were given a fate worse than the Metamorphosis: kitten abuse. Where's the poetic justice in that?? I wish I could unread this book.

[Constantina · Rating 3 out of 5]

One morning, as Gregor Samsa was waking up from anxious dreams, he discovered that he had been changed into an adorable kitten.

Γλυκουλι, αλλα μεχρι εκει.

[Joey Mazz · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don’t know what to say. Shit is fucked up.

[Rich Stoehr · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Meowmorphosis is certainly an oddity. And in the mashup genre - home to books like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Android Karenina - that's saying something.

I have to admit that I've never read Kafka's original Metamorphosis, so I can't compare the merits of the Quirk Classics version against the original. What I can say is that if The Meowmorphosis is any indication of the tenor of the original work, reading it gave me no desire to read the source material.

It took some effort to make it through Meowmorphosis, but there are saving graces too, that almost make the effort worth it. There are pages filled with ponderous dialogue and meandering descriptions. There are details about the drudgery of Gregor Samsa's former life and his ungrateful family. There is a trial, held by cats, in which it seems like nothing is really decided.

But there are also clever, funny moments sprinkled in. It was the touches of the ridiculous that kept me going, usually in the form of descriptions of Gregor's new feline awareness, having woken from "anxious dreams" to discover that he had transformed overnight into a rapidly-growing kitten and rediscovering the world.

For example, the passage about Gregor's new needs when leaving one room for another: "He would never have allowed the elaborate preparations that Gregor required to consider the door, consider himself, groom his whiskers, rub his cheeks against the jamb, further consider the natures of both doors and salesmen, and finally sniff at the air of his room, to see if it offered suitable napping opportunities, and thus perhaps, at the end of it all, get through the door."

Or this, which pokes sly fun at the source material itself: "I took you for and educated tom, sir, in which case you would have read your German classics and would be quite accustomed to a narrator who only loves to hear himself speak - you must admit I speak very well, with many masculine and robust subclauses, romantic dashes, and surprising punctuation - and forgets what the purpose of telling the story was in the first place something like two-thirds of the way through. This is considered traditional!"

There are a few of these moments of literary humor throughout The Meowmorphosis, but not quite enough to make it enjoyable. The heavy-handed symbolism of the original, turned on its head here but still symbolism nonetheless, weighs the story down and even the attempts to be light aren't quite enough.

Perhaps, fittingly, one last quote to conclude. This passage sums up my feelings on The Meowmorphosis well: "I suppose my little incident is symbolic...Nothing else. Symbolism is depressing; its meaning is always deferred. Nothing is what it is, only what it means, and I mean nothing but that the world is ugly and men are uglier still."

The Meowmorphosis isn't an ugly book, but it's a book unsure of its own identity - parody or homage? Symbol or story? Even in fun, it's a lot of effort for only a little reward.

[Megan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the Pride and Prejudice and Zombies trilogy from Quirk Classics, so I was super excited that I won this one. I had never read Kafka before but I had been meaning to, so this was the perfect kick in the butt to finally get to it. I read "The Metamorphosis" right before reading this one, so it was pretty repetitive at the beginning. Essentially, Coleridge Cook replaces the word "insect" with "kitten" and leaves the rest of the story the same (except for some descriptions of how cute and cuddly Gregor has become) until about the middle of the book, when he escapes from the apartment and has an adventure with some other cats in an alley. After reading some other reviews and looking around online, I found out that this middle section is a retelling or twist on Kafka's other short story "The Trial" (which I have not read yet). I really didn't like this part. Josef K (the leader of the businessmen-turned-alley-cats) goes on and on with rambling, pointless, nonsensical speeches that last up to six freaking pages. I almost gave up on the book around that point, but since I had had such high hopes for it I pushed on and finished it.

I had several problems with this retelling of "The Metamorphosis." (1) Why does Cook glorify cats so much in this version? Kafka never glamorized insects (in fact he rarely even mentioned the fact that Gregor was a bug, except when it posed problems and Gregor was forced to look at himself and figure out how to move around in his new body). The whole cat society thing just seemed like a monumental waste of time and space, a filler to flesh out Kafka's original novella so that Cook could market this as a novel. (2) Cook somehow manages to butcher Kafka's story and make it boring and meaningless. The words are minced and made fluffy to accommodate kittendom and Cook seems to get lost in the hierarchy of the crazy cat society and the pointlessness of their trial. I think Cook tried to put too much Kafka and kitten history into one story and ended up with a hot mess. Whereas the P&P&Z trilogy added fun, wit, and adventure to the Austen original, this version just falls flat.

Gregor Samsa does indeed make for a precious, cuddly kitten, but this novel failed miserably to entertain me or do the original any justice at all. My recommendation is to just read the original and stay away from this one. (2 stars because it includes cute pictures of kittens in human clothes)

[Alex Livingston · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was a prize – not for me, but for somebody else who didn't want it. It was won in a quiz at an end-of-year philosophy meet-up. When I saw it being passed around, I though it was Kafka's The Metamorphosis and tried to announce proudly that I had read it in the original German (Die Verwandlung). The cat on the cover did however seem rather incongruous, and on closer inspection the title resolved itself into The Meowmorphosis. Seeing that no one appeared to be determined to take possession of the unwanted prize, I decided to take a closer look, secured the item, and read a sentence or two on a couple of arbitrary pages. Having done so my interest grew and I eventually became convinced that I might just read it. At this point a number of the other mildly interested parties gathered around started to show a little more interest too. To cut the story a little short, I eventually agreed to pass the book on to one of these parties once I had finished reading it (not actually acknowledging that I did not promise ever to do so).

Having made this undertaking I did in fact soon afterwards start reading the book, partly in the hope of relief from the other highly cerebral volumes I was in the process of masticating. The Meowmorphosis is, I suppose, a parody of Kafka's work, and I soon found it quite an enthralling read, and so thought it worth my while finishing it so as to acquire some gratification from a grateful reception when passed on. It kept my attention easily until about two-thirds of the way through, when a long sequence of feline monologues became rather tedious, and I had to take a break and go back to something else I was reading a couple of times between snack-sized sections of verbose catty soliloquy, which ultimately petered out, and it became more readable again.

I remember very little of Die Verwandlung, apart from its being quite unapologetically bizarre, and I suspect I wasn't worldly-wise enough at the time (decades ago) to appreciate it as much as I did The Meowmorphosis, which I suppose could be considered rather dark homour. Whether Kafka's original had any comedic intent I wouldn't hazard a guess. It didn't elicit any levity in me at the time I read it though.

I find I am imitating to a degree the style of the book I'm reviewing – probably very badly. Or so it seems. You might be bemused that I should suggest that.

At any rate, I've only given it three stars because its tedious bits render it not quite worthy of four. I'd give it three-and-a-half if I could.

[zxvasdf · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you awoke one morning to find yourself transformed into an adorable kitten, what would be your first response? Mine probably would be to play with a ball of yarn or to use my sister's leg as a scratching post. Not so our protagonist. He spends most of the chapter attempting to get out of bed while being simultaneously horrified and lethargic about his absurd predicament.

He then proceeds to frighten his parents and his employer (who came to harangue Gregor for missing the ride to work) with his adorableness. Just because he is what he is, he spends a long time cloistered in his room. Eventually he escapes the house.

Outside he is almost immediately accosted by the pompous windbag Josef K, a fellow man turned cat, and is escorted to a trial in which Josef K expounds the qualities of being feline in a long-winded and self-serving manner before squashing Gregor under the proverbial paw. A thoroughly confused Gregor is imprisoned, then told he was never a prisoner and that he was free to go home. Gregor launches in a woe-is-me soliloquy about what awaited him at home and how much his life sucked. Guess what he does? Of course he goes home!

The home he finds is unwelcome as he is almost immediately pelted with apples by his father. He hides out in his room for many days, slowly suffocating to death as he grows into the collar placed upon his neck by his sister when he was but a kitten. After a final debacle, he dies as pitifully as he lived. His family undergoes a sensation of freedom not unlike the shrugging off of a fur coat in sweltering weather. They finally have a reason to smile.

The appendix seems to be culled almost verbatim from the Wikipedia entry on Kafka, combining facts with snarky and sarcastic not-so-facts. It is actually a breath of fresh air after the story. It also offers an insight as to why Kafka wrote The Meowmorphosis.

Being morbid about being an adorable kitten makes this notoriously depressing tale all the more depressing. This tale would be much more sad and harrowing if Samsa was transformed into, say, a cockroach. But he wasn't. He turned into a creature famous for spending three-quarters of its life asleep and the rest of it being catered to by humans. What the hell is wrong with him?

Really, it boils down to Gregor Samsa being one giant pussy.

Hey, what?


*I received the book for free through Goodreads First Reads.*

[usagi ☆ミ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quirk Classics, you are one awesome publishing house. Not only did you send me the ARC copy of this book, but you also sent me a poster to go with it. And now I don’t know where to put it (see the original review at witchoftheatregoing.wordpress.com to see the picture of said ARC/poster!). That said, I loved the original version (even if it did make me feel extremely anxious and paranoid after reading it), and this version makes Kafka’s classic even more palatable with the idea of Gregor Samsa turning into a kitten instead of a cockroach. And a lot less anxious afterward, too.

If anything, this made Kafka’s original easier to understand in terms of philosophy. For some reason, using cats instead of cockroaches just makes more sense to me with all of these ideas (especially in the “trial” part of the novel). I can see why Kafka originally used cockroaches (duh), but I just like the idea of a cat salesman better.

Quirk Press puts out a ton of awesome mashups each year, but all of the ones I’ve read this year so far pale in comparison to the fuzzy wuzzy politics of cat society versus human society. (Seriously though, guys, enough with the Jane Austen and Zombies series. I’m done with it, no more, please and thank you.) Coleridge was very careful with rewriting the original, and basically left most of it intact aside from changing words and people/cats involved. That’s hard to do when doing a literary mashup, and I applaud him for sticking to the original as he did.

What I also appreciated was the short but hilarious writeup about Kafka as an appendix after the book. It educates the reader if they haven’t read the original, but does it tastefully. By doing this, I hope that those who haven’t read the original do. If anything, the literary mashup genre has renewed the interest and love of modern classics within the Western canon of literature (though I’d love to see them do something with “The Three Kingdoms” or “Tale of Genji” — now THAT’s a challenge!) that, over the years with technology booming and print books decreasing/becoming more expensive, has definitely wavered. Here’s hoping that a lot more kids (and adults) read the classics after the mashups.

Quirk, you’re doing a great job. Keep it up. Now try doing more Kafka, and you’ll have my love (and money) forever.

(crossposted to librarything, shelfari, and witchoftheatregoing.wordpress.com)

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

When Quirk Classics revealed that their latest mash-up was going to be based on Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis, I wasn't really sure what to think. After tackling Jane Austen's popular classics and the fairly well-known Anna Karenina, I thought this was a very strange choice for a mash-up. Kafka and The Metamorphosis don't seem to be as well known, so it makes me wonder why Quirk chose this novel as the next in their classics series -not only that, but cats? Either it was a gutsy decision or a stupid one.

In Quirk's feline mash-up The Meowmorphosis, Gregor wakes up one morning and finds that he has been turned into a cat. Gregor now finds that his world has complete changed, and his family can't accept it -even though, of course, he's incredibly cute as a now human-sized kitten. Gregor must escape from his family's home and make his own away -even as an adorable cat.

I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised by The Meowmorphosis. I thought it was would painful and downright terrible. Though it does start out a little slow, once the story gets past the intial set up, and further away from the source material and, ultimately, spiral out of control for Gregor, it only gets better and better. Cook, which is acutally a pen name for a fantasy novelist, does an excellent job of taking the source material and injecting it with plenty of whimsy and action that makes the story go quickly. Cook did a particularly good job of describing Gregor's life as a cat and making it feel authentic -not to mention hilarious to the reader.

Though I did have to warm up a little to the idea of using The Metamorphosis as the source material, I quickly grew into this hilarious book -even as someone who prefers dogs over cats. Recommended for fans of the mash-up and the Quirk Classics line.

[Betty · Rating 4 out of 5]

According to the imaginative biography of Kafka at the very end of the novel, the main character Gregor Samsa is a traveling salesman like Kafka's real-life father with whom it's said that he had a troubled relationship. In Meowmorphosis, Gregor's job initially supports the three members of his unemployed family in a high lifestyle with a big apartment in Prague when one night he is transformed after a dream into a kitten. His father, mother, and sister know that the kitten is actually the transformed Gregor, who can no longer be the family's breadwinner. Gregor the kitten runs away, meeting up with urban cats, who had also been transformed from humans or something else. Gregor is mesmerized by their beautiful, dancing, cat movements, their way of communicating. Gregor the kitten thinks that he belongs but he isn't accepted by the cats or by his family. The assembly of cats try and convict him of something like his not possessing enough freedom and his possessing too much memory, but he is bemused by the ordeal and is always wondering what he did to deserve such unwarranted treatment. As a human,

"He had never acted according to his desires alone, but only according to the dicta of his kin, his duty, and that great filial ledger that ruled his life."

His sentence for the unknown misdeed returns him to his family, which is coping well enough without him and which is also isolating him in his room from familial connection. He is unloved and unneeded... Had his family taken him for granted when he was a human as when he was a kitten? Gregor's transformation proves a positive change for the family, which begins to discover a sense of itself and of its desires. Why Gregor was changed into a kitten in the first place is unanswered.

[Rachel · Rating 1 out of 5]

I received this book through first-reads. I had tried to read the original a while ago but couldn't quite make it through. When I saw the idea behind this spoof I had thought "kittens! That'll be hilarious". When I read it, I found it wasn't quite what I thought it would be.

As a few others have already pointed out, it doesn't seem like much spoof was added to this aside from the main character, Gregor, turning into a kitten instead of a cockroach. I was also baffled by the issue of size. In the description it's said that Gregor turns into a man-sized cat yet people treat him like a normal sized kitten and his dad keeps trying to step on him. I know people would be baffled with even a normal sized kitten running around, but trying to step on them like a cockroach? Also, if Gregor is supposed to be an abnormally large kitten, why doesn't anyone else say anything when he goes running around town?

I wanted to enjoy this but it left me asking too many questions, and not even the right sort of questions.

[Nathan · Rating 2 out of 5]

A reworking of Kafka's Metamorphosis where the protagonist is not turned into a cockroach, but a cute kitten. With a new middle section where the cat Gregor goes into the wider world and seems to wander into The Trial.

Strange book, this. Mostly a direct transcription of the original (with "cat" instead of "cockroach"), which occasionally does not work, with a fresh middle that attempts to tease out the messages of the original and what it means to be a cat all at the same time.

The new stuff read much quicker to the modern eye than the original, I think, and was certainly more entertaining than the morose moping around the bedroom that the rest of the book focuses on.

But it doesn't really take, in the end.

Rated PG for some scary scenes. 2/5

[Ms W · Rating 2 out of 5]

MsW: This one is from a clever genre, "Quirk Classics" (another is "Pride & Prejudice & Zombies"), of course WHS_Lib has copies of both :) I picked it up thinking how clever the spin was on the original classic title, "The Metamorphosis" by Franz Kafka, but was soon reminded how depressing the story was! I feel such compassion for poor Gregor, and complete disdain for his family that I'd like to turn them all into cockroaches and then take the sharp end of a cane to them! ...read the original, it's the only way this makes any sense; read the 'Quirk', still depressing but much more cuddly...which come to think of it, actually makes it even more depressing.

[Jacquelyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm not the audience for these "humourous" reworkings of classic works of literature. Much like with Pride & Prejudice & Zombies, I didn't find this funny or clever. And to call it a reworking is a little misleading - it's essentially Kafka's novella but with a few minor changes here and there. This book departs somewhat more from the original with an extra chapter where Gregor briefly leaves his family's apartment and encounters more transformed cats like himself, but this is just a reworking of Kafka's The Trial. Better to just read Kafka.

[Kelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5.

Love how it followed the Metamorphosis to a point, but then it also deviated and dove into Kafka's life and OTHER words, especially the Josef K thread. I'm not a mash up fan, and this isn't really a mash up. It's actually a revisioning of the original story, and those who are familiar with Kafka's work to a sickening point (like me) will appreciate this one.

[Ellstra · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great masterpiece that managed to take the atmosphere of the original story and build up on it, combining it with elements from other works of Kafka's as well as his own life. It is a story on its own as well as a decent tribute to the source material.

[G · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book took me two attempts to get reading. I managed to plod my way through it but it didn't captivate me.

[Vania Kris · Rating 3 out of 5]

The imagination is spellbinding. At certain point it just got too depressing for me to continue. Still, I pushed through to read it finish just because I didn't want to stop midway.

[Jewels-PiXie Johnson · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Meowmorphosis is a witty and clever reinterpretation of Kafka's own Metamorphosis. However there is one very interesting and key difference, instead of transforming into a bug , Coleridge's Gregor Samsa is changed into a kitten.
It is exactly this replacement from bug to feline that caused my cat , Snowball, to insist we read it.
So ,in Kafka's original it challenges our emotions when human Gregor wakes up as a bug. Gregor has been used as a meal ticket for his family working exhaustively to provide for his mother ,father and sister. He is extremely unhappy and unable to locate his own spine to speak out to have family and tell them how he really feels. And one has to wonder ,as we begin to know the characters ,whether they would even care at all. So waking up as a spineless bug presents problems for his greedy family ,as he no longer has any worth to them. And even though ,in essence, he is still their son/brother ,he had no utilitarian use and is repellent to them.
How interesting then to give this classic tale a new spin and instead of waking up as a bug ,Gregor wakes up as a cuddly kitten. How will Gregor the kitten fare , as a creature instantly adorable to many , a tempation to stroke and delight .
However the family behave in fairly the same way in spite of this new furry addition joining the family , better to be a kitten than a much less appealing bug right? Unfortunately not so. Gregor's mother shows some initial warmth and interest in wanting to connect but then as he grows rapidly ,he becomes as repellent as the bug in the original.
The only family member (as in the original) to show him any kindness is his sister ,Grethe, who provides him with food and tries to make his living conditions more comfortable. But the novelty of having a kitten for a brother wears thin quite rapidly. And soon we see that since Gregor can no longer go out to work and provide food and provisions for his family ,he just becomes an unwanted nuisance. And the ugliness to which our human kindness fails to extend becomes horribly apparent. When someone can no longer serve our needs ,how primitive can our attitude be....
Unlike the original ,but also paying homage to Kafka , Gregor escapes and enters a puzzling and nonsensical situation where he is put on trial by a hoard of street cats. This is an unexpected and clever sojourn into Kafka's mindbending Trial and is just as perplexing and surreal.

(spoiler) When Gregor returns home ,he is sorrowfully aware that he will reach his final demise. He feels worthless and alienated from affection. The scene which , for me ,feels incredibly pertinent ,is when Gregor creeps out from his room to listen to Grethe playing the violin for some lodgers staying at the Samsa's house. In spite of being quite violently abused by his father since his transformation and his sister losing all interest as he is not returning to his more useful form ; Gregor in thus scene really glows with the luminosity of love and pride for his sister. In spite of being transformed into a kitten ,he still shows the most positive human emotion. But the lodgers catch sight if the giant kitten and are repulsed demanding a refund.

This scene is the final catalyst that gives Grethe the fuel to decide that Gregor must go and her mother and father agree. Gregor overhears the conversation and soon is found dead.
What is most devastating of all his how quickly they heal from what should be exceptionally traumatic. As in the original we see Grethe blossom and it is she that has metamorphosed. Her parents realise that they believe her to be aesthetically pleasing and ready for marriage. So , Grethe becomes the new meal ticket and based on surface-only reasons.
It's fascinating to read Coleridge's explanation of the original translation of the creature that Kafka transformed Gregor into. So , Coleridge explores this alternate reading in a way that is emotionally evocative ,thought provoking ,witty and ultimately quite depressing. If there is no hope for a furry purry friend in this situation ,on what else can we look to and hope for human sympathy over financial and capitalist greed.
A quirky reimagining. Definitely worth reading!

[Greg Talbot · Rating 1 out of 5]

Please believe me...I don’t look to trash books, or discourage authors. To put anything out into the world is brave and takes risk, gumption and an amazing amount of self-confidence. I’ve been moved by cliched romantic young adult novels. I have been felt inspired by stories written by people with no professional interests in writing. Generally, if I don’t enjoy a book, i can just stop after 50 pages...and gently let it go. Something written, that’s just not intended for me.

Meowmorphosis, is another book that is not intended for me. In fact, i’ve spent more time thinking about who this book is for..then thinking about the original retelling of Franz Kafka’s twisted imagining of modern alienation. The book converges plot and lines of at least two Kafka books i’ve read “The Trial” and “Metamorphosis”. It is the telling of the 100 year old story of Gregor Samsa , who wakes up to find himself a bug.

The original “metamorphosis” as a recall is a horrowing story about alientation from the workforce, from parents, from meaningful connection. I can’t say the story had a profound impact on me, but i’ve read very few books which leaving such a profound sense of hopelessness and despair. It reminds me in a lot of ways of Sylvia Plath’s “The Bell Jar”...where the character’s disassociated from self and reader..is just difficult to put it mildly. Kafka famously wanted all his works burned...but the work of course was published circulated. An easy-to-read, and easy-to-overlook book in high school...but one even now i wouldn’t mind re-reading. (Though I think The Trial, is much better)

This book...is in many ways much more harrowing. Yes, Gregor Samsa is a cat now..but his alienation is just as disturbing...the sentence structures leave ambiguity and aloofness to emotion in a way that is difficult and uneasy to read. It’s really not even funny..or all that cute...because the tone is so dour. I’m not opposed to a re-telling, or a modernist version of “Metamorphosis” that pokes fun at all the troops. But the book has really nothing to offer the reader. There is no intriguing insight...i don’t think anyone who reads this would want to read the original...and the biggest confusion for me is why this book exists at all. I mean...i can imagine the comedic retelling of Jane Austen’s books (“Sense and Sensibility and Sea monsters, “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies”) as fun to goof on picaresque/romantic stories.. But to cutesy up a book on existential despair...and having lines about the cat imagining it’s own execution...in a bare unexamined way...it’s disturbing, but is hardly an enjoyable, or playful mockery of the original. Plus who reads Kafka..and then feels proceeds to ape it’s story without offering a new perspective or really anything humorous. Yeah, it’s a cat...i guess

Of course..the book did lead me to my own path of existential despair. What does it say about a man who picks up a parody book about “The Metamorphosis” because it has an unsettled cat on the front cover? Is there fun to be had here that i’m missing? What kind of life am I living to devote more than 5 seconds to picking this thing up?

Profoundly awful

[Benjamin · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Quirk Classics have been an amusing experiment of mashing together a public domain classic and a vastly different genre to create something new. Most people know about Pride and Prejudice and Zombies , and my favorite from the set was definitely Android Karenina . The only one I hadn't read yet was The Meowmorphosis, an adaptation that uses Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis as its base. Unfortunately, the fundamental aspect of the Quirk Classics mashups doesn't work with such a bizarre novella like The Metamorphosis.

Part of what makes the other books in this series click is how the original text remains mostly unchanged in a way that the addition of zombies or sea monsters enhances the narrative. With the primary change in this book being that the main character changes into an enormous fluffy kitten instead of a cockroach, it's hard to keep most of the original text intact and still benefit from the amusing addition. That most of the Quirk Classics went in darker directions and this one tried to go lighter is perhaps the biggest reason it didn't work as well as the others.

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate when authors try to fuse these public domain works with new genres (like Steampunk Jane Eyre ). It's just that there still needs to be something new added to the original work to make it worth reading. If you're just slightly changing the genre to something that would be feasible with the original book, it's not really adding much. And if you're basically doing a find-and-replace for all the instances of "cockroach" or "bug" into "kitten" or "cat," it doesn't feel as inspired as when English ladies are trained in the ninja arts.

The one failed Quirk Classic, I give The Meowmorphosis 2.0 stars out of 5.