The Metamorphosis
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Brandon
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Mar 10, 2007 09:25PM

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In case my third guess is right: How else could he have shown how absured he thought life is? He had to show it one way or another. He was good at writing, so he shoed it by writing !

Metamorphosis is short so most people start their journey into Kafka's world here...but I think The Trial or The Castle are better starting points with The Metamorphosis as the finale.
I have a friend who paints huge canvases of wide spaces with tiny people...they always make me think of Kafka. When another friend asked why the people were so tiny he replied that people are insignificant. Perhaps Kafka thought so too.
Because for some there is nothing more terrible to imagine than alienation from your loved ones and their growing disgust with you. And what is more loathsome--not frightening, but loathsome--than the insects who seek to infiltrate our pantries, wriggling around our feet in the dark?
May God forever bless Kafka's friend who refused to consign K's works to the flames.
May God forever bless Kafka's friend who refused to consign K's works to the flames.
Now why do you have to go and ruin perfectly good romantic thinking with right-headed reason? Darn it.


I was rather amused by it more than anything, and trying to understand what on earth it was all about. However not being my book, I couldn't take it. I should really get it out at the library and finish reading it. Certainly a book which had me wondering, not sure I should have found it so funny, but really, waking up as a large insect instead of your humanoid form, well it's just bizarre. And humorous, especially when he's panicking about his parents and boss opening the door.
Don't understand why it was banned for so long.
Kafka. "The meaning of life is that it stops."

Compare Metamorphosis to, say, the Brady Bunch. How would the Brady's have dealt with it if, say, Cindy, had woken up as a giant bug? They would have joined with her in heart-warming concern and sympathy and either found a way to cure her or made it a life lesson about how we can love each other and stick together through thick and thin no matter what we look like on the outside. Because that's what families do, right?
But here is a perfectly respectable, middle-class family, and what do they do? Resent him for the inconvenience he places them under by turning into a bug. In fact, we learn that his family has generally treated him like a bug for a long time: they rely on him, he is the only one who works, he is plodding, consistent, self-sacrificing...kind of like a bug. And he continues to be so, even when it turns out that once his family can't rely on him, they all get over their "sicknesses" and "weaknesses" that have forced him to support them, get to work and move on. So when they resent him, he forgives them. His final act of bug-like self-sacrifice is his death. While they happily go on without him. Because that's what families do.
Does it make more sense why it would be banned? Especially by both fascists and communists whose ideology is based on individual sacrifice for the common good?

personally i think this is one of those books that just basks in the reflected glory of his better works.

this book was named metamorphosis for a reason, for self-realization of our own pettiness.


Having said all that, I'm glad it's short, because I find it uncomfortable to read.



I think that more than he has no spiritual side of him is about the way his family saw him. Like i said before, the bug is the same Kafka. He hated his life and the way his family never let him be happy, he went to law school because of his father, he wanted to be a writter, he never was himself at home, he felt like that: like a bug. And at the end even when he died the family got rid of him, they went on with their lifes (this is the point where you really see that is about his family because if the book was about the Bug it should have ended when he died).

My problem with the book is that it never goes anywhere. Its a clever description of a situation but its not a story. I'd rather read something that has a plot, where change happens, where things move forward rather than a short unpleasant visit into a squalid and repulsive life. I could relate with the character very well because I've been in similar boots but ultimately I wanted to shut the door on him just like his family did.

My problem with the book is that it never goes anywhere. Its a cl..."
This is a great story. Maybe you should try V for Vendetta the comic book. I think is a great story with everything you are looking for.

You sly girl you. What acerbic wit!"
Is that sarcasm? i really meant what i said about V for Vendetta (is a great novel).
Is just that The Metamorphosis is such a deep book. I guess Sinjinn has to see it as Kafka´s biography (in a metaphore way but realistic at the same time). He has to ask himself: Do I have plots in my life? NOT EVERYONE HAS IT! so maybe he would find this book pleasurable.

http://asolitarypassion.blogspot.com/...

For me, the answer of that particular question is - because he had no choice. Sometimes the genius is stronger than the human body that holds it.


I took your remarks to be sarcastic and now you have taken mine to be. Hunh?"
Im so sorry it must be that im not from the same culture and language so i want to really understand! THANKS!
ANYWAY, you are right when you said that he internalizes their image of him...

The comment "My problem with the book is that it never goes anywhere. Its a clever description of a situation but its not a story. I'd rather read something that has a plot, where change happens, where things move forward rather than a short unpleasant visit into a squalid and repulsive life" is shockingly imperceptive and shallow. Just following this thread should powerfully illustrate that the book has gone many places, and affected many people, that there is not only a plot but a profound one.
Life metamorphosizes, sometimes subtly, and rarely episodically or dramatically. Life is not defined in 22 minute episodes, in sound bites, in convenient easily digestible morsels.

The comment "My problem with the book is that it never goes anywhere. Its..."
Honestly, I don't think it is imperceptive. I said he deals with the subject well, I can recognise the quality of it and the cleverness but it is bloody boring and gloomy.
Personally I dont think its right to praise and admire something just because other people think its a classic. A lot of people do not like this book for the reasons I have given and it is not because we dont "get it" , it is because we do get it and are not suitably impressed by it.

If you've got lots of yummy self-esteem, then you're not likely to connect to The Metamorphosis.
J.M. Porup
www.JMPorup.com

When he was asked about his opinion of the novel, he said he didn't like it. I can share the same opinion as well.

I don't know why he wrote it, but maybe...
I guess he had a feeling that life of one person was pointless. Gregor earned the dough for the family. But since he turned to a bug one day, he started being a burden to the family. The burden kept on escalating till his death. And then his entire family started looking at themselves anew. Like the family had something to look forward to after his demise. Sometimes screaming out - What was Gregor's role in the family at all? Was he really a help? Undeniably Life just goes on. No one owes you anything.
Your views?

I don't know why he wrote it, but maybe...
I guess he had a feeling that life of one person was pointless. Gregor earned the dough for the family. But since he turned ..."
I agree with you. It's sad and cruel to think that life goes on even if you disappear. Unfortunately or not, it is also true.
One can tolerate to be an outcast out of the family. Nevertheless, when the group whom you consider as a family starts having the same behaviour Greg's had, you can't take it and you feel totally destroyed.

About Kafka asking Max Brod to burn his stuff: There's some speculation that he knew Brod wouldn't--since he was a great admirer of his work and published some of his stories.

I'm asking because he always wrote in what dict.cc translates for me as "multi-clause sentences".
What I mean is that he has such a load of information in his sentences that in the original language - German - you have to put a comma there and keep in mind how you started that sentence because most of the time the verb will be at the very end of it.
Well, whatever. I bet if anyone is really interested in answering this they can write me a note or something. I won't pick up a translated version because that would make no sense since my native language is German anyway ...
As for this topic:
I bet someone already got an answer on this. Then again, why does anyone write anything?
I for my part like constructing stories I like. Writing them is the hardest part. But I keep trying.
Kafka loved being an author, even if his father disapproved.

Five stars Franz Kafka!

I loved it. Found it bittersweet and very insightful. Gross and funny too.

Why would one ever write a book?
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