not quite Kafka (The Metamorphosis - Franz Kafka)

Name: the_grinder

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Product:	The Metamorphosis - Franz Kafka
Date:	29/06/01 (190 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: accessible

Disadvantages: too surreal for some?

Everyone loves this novella (me included) - it is beautifully written, touching, funny, bleak, and superbly constructed. But the more I think about it, the more I'm not sure where it stands compared to Kafka's other works, and his novels in particular.

The other reviews here describe the story very well, so I won't repeat that. What I have a problem with is the very thing that makes The Metamorphosis so good: its beautifully simple, tight construction leading to an inevitable conclusion: Gregor's death.

How can anything in Kafka's world ever be inevitable? The only certainty in his best work (and I would put The Trial and The Castle in this category) is that there is no fulfillment, no resolution of the situation. Even though K is executed in The Trial, his death is conducted so swiftly and out of synch with the rest of the novel, that there is no feeling of a natural conclusion, or an inevitable end.

Of course many of the best elements are still here: the hero is still on the outside looking in, still striving to fit in, but in the end he gives in. And I'm not sure K ever does. Where is the wandering, the senseless desparation, the aimlessness of Kafka's best characters? Metamorphosis is flawed as a piece of Kafka work precisely because of its perfection.

I don't know. Maybe I'm being picky. If you don't know any Kafka then this is a good place to start. It is short, accessible, and a startling piece of work. I would argue, however, that the real Kafka is found in his novels. There are plenty that would disagree with me.

Summary: