The Metamorphosis
Reviews
The book finished me (literally).
In basic words, I cried. Not literally, however my heart broke. Just when I thought it couldn’t get worse, it did. I had some hope when the charwoman was introduced, I really thought she’d be the one to love and nurture him as he deserved and though she wasn’t fully disrespectful to him, I was disappointed. Maybe I am taking this much too personal because I myself am also the oldest, breadwinner of my family. I feel so empathetic towards him. The story is beautifully written, the motifs and biblical similarities are gorgeous. Heart wrenching for sure, I don’t think I could ever get over it.
read this on the plane back to cph, felt really pretentious but it was worth it. would read again
very intriguing read! gregor's descent into depression, spurred on by the isolation he felt from his family, was honestly relatable to me and very saddening to read. i was a bit nauseous when trying to imagine a giant cockroach scuttling around the walls and ceiling, but all in all this was an enjoyable and enlightening read.
Such an iconic book
very intriguing read! gregor's descent into depression, spurred on by the isolation he felt from his family, was honestly relatable to me and very saddening to read. i was a bit nauseous when trying to imagine a giant cockroach scuttling around the walls and ceiling, but all in all this was an enjoyable and enlightening read.
Read this for book group. Obviously it’s a great little book - it’s Kafka. Left me very depressed about capitalism, society and disability. Which was probably the point!
Very sad and intense book. By the end, I just wanted to get it over with. I was very annoyed with the character development of the people around the main character.
Kafka needs to calm down
Beautiful representation of suffering and the feeling of being useless, the way Kafka writes is like no other
The history took me to thing in so many situation in our life, like when someone is seek or incapacitated and the family and other people have to take care and spending time, the financial issues carried by incapacitated people, so in general it's a good book.
It was both an unsettling and thought-provoking read.
Its exploration of alienation, identity, and the fragility of human relationships was deeply saddening yet captivating.
The story, which can be interpreted as a trans allegory or as a broader reflection on societal rejection, challenges the reader to empathise with Gregor’s plight while grappling with the discomfort it evokes.
Kafka’s writing style is a bit challenging at first, but it grew on me; revealing layers of meaning beneath its surreal narrative.
Read it for a second time and is growing so much in me like what Gregor Samsa lived in.
This book's protagonist isn't really the protagonist of the story :(
Voy a ser sincera, si por mí hubiera sido, jamás me hubiera interesado en este libro. Si lo hubiese visto en una estantería entre otros libros, este hubiera sido el último que me leería. Y no es porque sea aburrido, bueno, a algunos sí que les parece aburrido, sin embargo, este no fue mi caso, y no sé si fue el hecho de que me lo terminé literalmente en un funeral pero amé y amo tanto este relato de kafka. Para mí, un 10/10
you can either relate to the feelings of gregor or not. this book destroyed me. kafka put into his words a lot of fears i have in life and this resonated so much within me.. ugly crying right now. wow.
the metamorphosis is a surreal tale of transformation, both physical and emotional. gregor samsa, the protagonist, awakens one day to find himself transformed into a giant insect, an absurd and grotesque event that serves as a powerful metaphor for alienation, societal pressure, and personal identity. his metamorphosis reflects the way he has long felt dehumanized, reduced to a mere function in his family and society.
the prose is cold yet profound, creating an atmosphere of quiet horror and tragic inevitability. the story unfolds in a space where the absurd becomes ordinary, and gregor’s growing estrangement from those around him mirrors a slow, painful dissolution of his humanity. each page drips with a haunting melancholy, as his family’s initial shock fades into indifference, symbolizing how society often discards those who no longer serve its purpose.
this book explores not only physical transformation but also the fragility of identity and the cruelty of social rejection, weaving a dreamlike, unsettling tale of isolation that lingers long after the final word.
So weird but so intelligent
gregor is me fr fr
ainda é o livro que eu mais gostei quando fiz a leitura — forçada — nos anos de escola.
a mente do kafka era insana. <3.
trans allegory
some thoughts: burnout, the feeling of uselessness, consequently leading to isolation, resulted from not being able to provide and work, one’s worth being tied to one’s labor
liked the writing style, descriptive and direct.
Highlights
Then, out of sheer delicacy, knowing that Gregor wouldn't be able to eat in front of her, she hurriedly left the room, even turning the key, just as a sign to Gregor that he could settle down and take his time over everything.
Metamorphosis
... his endeavours thus far had been a failure, that he should call a halt and come home - and thenceforth suffer himself to be stared at by everyone as a returnee - because it was only his friends who had known what to do with their lives, while he was an overgrown schoolboy, who would have done better to stick to what they, quite properly flourishing at home, now told him to do.
The Judgement
We're walking along without a care in the world, the wind is pushing through the gaps between us and our various limbs. Our throats feel free in the mountains! It's a miracle we haven't burst into song!
The Excursion into the Mountains
... when we find ourselves down on the street, with limbs that respond to the unexpected freedom they have come into with a particular suppleness, when by this one decision we feel all the decisiveness in us mobilized, when we recognize with uncommon clarity that we have more energy than we need to accomplish and to withstand the most abrupt changes, and when in this mood we walk down the longest streets – then for the duration of that evening we have escaped our family once and for all, so it drifts into vaporousness, whereas we ourselves, as indisputable and sharp and black as a silhouette, smacking the backs of our thighs, come into our true nature.
The Sudden Walk
"Calm —indeed the calmest— reflection might be better than the most confused decisions"
I cannot make you understand. I cannot make anyone understand what is happening inside me. I cannot even explain it to myself.
"Was he an animal, if music could move him so?"
Context: He heard Grete playing the violin again.
"I cannot make you understand. I cannot make anyone understand what is happening inside me. I cannot even explain it to myself."
me when monthly crisis identity and another bunch of sleep medicine relapse hit
I am too depressed at the moment, and perhaps I shouldn't be writing at all. But my story's hero has also had a very bad time today, and yet it is only the last lap of his misfortune, which is now becoming permanent.
he is so real for this
"How about if I sleep a little bit longer and forget all this nonsense"
I cannot make you understand. I cannot make anyone understand what is happening inside me. I cannot even explain it to myself.
Sometimes he looks at me, as if to say: ‘I’ll go with you, father.’ And then I think to myself: ‘You’d be the last man I’d entrust myself to.’ And then his look seems to say: ‘Well, then at least I’ll be the last.’
My grandfather was in the habit of saying: 'Life is astonishingly brief. By now it is all so condensed in my memory that I can hardly understand, for instance, how a young man can undertake to ride to the neighbouring village without wondering whether - even if everything goes right-the span of a normal happy life will be enough for such a ride.’
As he listened to these words of his mother, Gregor understood that the want of any direct human address, in combination with his monotonous life at the heart of the family over the past couple of months, must have confused his understanding, because otherwise he would not have been able to account for the fact that he seriously wanted to have his room emptied out. Was it really his wish to have his cosy room, comfortable furnished with old heirlooms, transformed into a sort of cave, merely so that he would be able to crawl around in it freely, without hindrance in an direction — even at the expense of rapid and utterly forgetting his human past?
Isolation and lack of connection only results in the deterioration of one’s own humanity and sense of self?
As nobody could understand him, nobody, not even his sister
It occurred to him how simple everything would be if somebody came to help him.
As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.
With a certain definitiveness he sensed, terrified, that everything was about to collapse all around him, and so he waited.
Poor Gregor :(
“would you love me if i was a worm?” just more complicated
They had been good times and they had never come again, at least not with the same splendour