The Metamorphosis - Franz Kafka

This is yet another of the cards in 52 Great Books to Read. Many thanks to Project Gutenberg for the text.

I believe I read this at some point in high school for a class. I had very little recollection of what happens in it besides what is common knowledge anyway, that the story is about a man turning into an insect.

Indeed, that is the plot of this short story. Gregor Samsa, a traveling salesman, wakes up in his home one day to discover that he has turned into a "horrible vermin." Literally, not figuaritvely. He has an armour-like back, a domed belly divided into sections, and many tiny legs. There is no actual process of metamorphosis in the book. This is not The Fly, in which we witness the (disgusting) progression of man into insect. In the story's famous first sentence, the entire metamorphosis takes place. Gregor wakes up a bug. The rest of the story is about Gregor as a bug and the happenings in a bug's life.

Thus we are offered no explanation as to how or why the change happened. We are simply introduced to a flustered Gregor, who is very confused but primarily very worried because he is in no condition to go to work and he cannot afford to lose his job. He hates his job, he hates his boss, he hates his co-workers, but he is the sole provider for his parents and sister with whom he lives. So he must make every attempt to get out of bed, despite his condition, and at least call in sick or try to catch a later train.

Kafka seriously underplays the improbability of a human suddenly transforming into a bug by writing in a very matter-of-fact style, thus underplaying the absurdity of the metamorphosis. As if turning into a bug is something that happens every day to anyone. The real conflict or exploration in the story is not how or why Gregor has been transformed but the consequences that result from his transformation: he loses his job, his family shuns him and locks him up because of how he looks, and his parents and sister must learn to provide for themselves.

A very brief look at articles that turned up during my Google search indicate that this story has been interpreted in tons of ways. It shows up in psychology and religious discussions, in existentialism and modernism and magical realism, and in biographies of Kafka (that the story is a reflection on Kafka's relationship with his dad). I don't know about any of that, I didn't really read the articles. What did strike me about the book is the writing style, which I guess is why the story is so famous, because it presents such an absurd situation in a very straightfoward way.

I also read somewhere in there that Kafka thought the story was very amusing and that he and his friends would laugh when he read it to them. I can see some humor but mostly I just felt really bad for Gregor. His life is stopped short the moment he turns into a bug, and instead of being a provider and productive person he becomes a recluse, he can't leave his room and he can't do much except run on the walls and ceilings and try to communicate with his family, who now feel his existence is a huge burden to them. I was very intrigued to find out what becomes of him and was saddened by the ending. Poor Gregor :(

17 down, 35 to go.