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sabrina_reis 's review for:
The Metamorphosis
by Franz Kafka
I had a lot of thoughts pinging around in my head during this short novel.
Most of them were “da faq?”.
The others were amazed at how the tale of a giant bug can echo such a human experience.
It reminded me of living with people while I was depressed. You are discussed in loud whispers behind doors as if you are a struggling, demented pet rather than a human being with your own thoughts and preferences. You feel like a rotten and vile thing: lurking in dark corners, draining the energy from the room, watching others jump in fear and scatter when you enter. People make decisions on your behalf under the guise of “what’s best”, but do not involve you in those discussions. They accomodate you at first, then merely tolerate your presence with weary frustration, even if you ask as little as Gregor who simply wanted a clean room to live in. And yet you remain, so broken you are, thankful for any care you receive but occasionally oscillating to an incensed rage over how you are being treated.
| This book paints alienation and pain in a way that speaks to a universal aspect of the human psyche, a constant underlying whir that says “you are failing at the very things you are supposed to be offering others”. I don’t know if it was kafkas intention, but the MC’s concern with missing work (!!) the moment he is transformed into a creature with many legs who excretes a sticky substance feels, to me, like a deep critique of how capitalism rots you from the inside and makes you a creature valued by output and output alone. So weird but so good.
Most of them were “da faq?”.
The others were amazed at how the tale of a giant bug can echo such a human experience.
It reminded me of living with people while I was depressed. You are discussed in loud whispers behind doors as if you are a struggling, demented pet rather than a human being with your own thoughts and preferences. You feel like a rotten and vile thing: lurking in dark corners, draining the energy from the room, watching others jump in fear and scatter when you enter. People make decisions on your behalf under the guise of “what’s best”, but do not involve you in those discussions. They accomodate you at first, then merely tolerate your presence with weary frustration, even if you ask as little as Gregor who simply wanted a clean room to live in. And yet you remain, so broken you are, thankful for any care you receive but occasionally oscillating to an incensed rage over how you are being treated.
| This book paints alienation and pain in a way that speaks to a universal aspect of the human psyche, a constant underlying whir that says “you are failing at the very things you are supposed to be offering others”. I don’t know if it was kafkas intention, but the MC’s concern with missing work (!!) the moment he is transformed into a creature with many legs who excretes a sticky substance feels, to me, like a deep critique of how capitalism rots you from the inside and makes you a creature valued by output and output alone. So weird but so good.