Metamorphosis and Other Stories: Franz Kafka (PENGUIN CLASSICS)

I enjoyed this and it made me laugh and cry...man wakes up to find he's turned into a giant cockroach so he calls in sick (can't argue with that really) and initially people try and find out where he is and what's happening but it's kind of tragic how his friends and family lose patience with him, like people do when they get fatigue from others illnesses I guess. That's more a reflection of us than him as a cockroach. It's a short book, you can just about finish it in one sitting like a train ride or flight. I couldn't help feeling like the book was a bit half finished.

This is a great compilation of Franz Kafka's works. I got it simply for Metamorphosis as I'd never read it but heard so much. You get so much more with this and some of the short stories are fascinating and great reads in themselves. It's an excellent compilation package.

So hard to put kafka in a category. For me it was just to find out about this name ive often heard, and to put an idea of the works to that name. Enjoyed the metamorphosis, and several of the short works. But I reckon a lot of people would be dissatisfied. I preferred the trial, the castle, and Amerka. But I don't think they're in this collection.

Lovely quality and good book!

The key thing anyone can take from 'Metamorphosis' is that it isn't as obvious as it seems. The first few lines tell us that the main character woke up one morning transformed into an insect (cockroach). Or is he? Just as 'Gulliver's Travels' was intended as a satire (involving transformations), we should also take Kafka's short story as a deliberate subversion of traditional stories of transformation. Kafka here is probably attacking the human ego as a concept. A human being reduced to something else, except that 'other' is indefinable. To make a film of the piece would destroy what Kafka sets up here. We must not imagine the man as insect as a physical thing, but accept it as a transformation of human identity.

Yeah, great

I struggled to concentrate in places, but ultimately I think some of these stories will stay in my mind for years to come - so worth reading in the end.

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