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Almost everyone knows how "The Metamorphosis" begins. A young man wakes up one morning and finds that he has turned into some kind of enormous creature. What fewer people know is that nobody can agree on what, in English, to call the creature he becomes.
The German phrase Kafka used for it has been rendered in at least sixteen different ways. One of his translators, Mark Harman, has said it defies translation. So before you pick up a copy, it helps to know that the book you hold depends quite a lot on who translated it. That, oddly, is one of the pleasures of reading it.
Who wrote it, and when
Franz Kafka was born on 3 July 1883 in Prague, then part of the Kingdom of Bohemia in Austria-Hungary. He was a German-speaking Jewish writer, and he wrote in German.
Writing was not his day job. From 1908 to 1918 he worked as an insurance officer at the Worker's Accident Insurance Institute for the Kingdom of Bohemia, a job he took to earn a living and openly disliked. He wrote in the time left over.
He wrote "The Metamorphosis" in the autumn of 1912. It first appeared in October 1915 in a literary journal, Die weißen Blätter, and was published as a small book that December in a series put out by Kurt Wolff in Leipzig. It drew little attention at the time.
Kafka died of tuberculosis on 3 June 1924, at a sanatorium near Vienna, at the age of 40. He had asked his friend Max Brod to destroy his remaining manuscripts. Brod ignored the request and published them, and novels such as "The Trial" (1925) and "The Castle" (1926) made Kafka famous after his death. Today "Kafkaesque" is an everyday word for situations like the ones in his fiction: an isolated person caught in a bizarre predicament, often facing bureaucratic power that makes no sense.
Where the story begins
Gregor Samsa is a travelling salesman. He lives with his parents and his sister, and he is the only one in the household earning money. His father went bankrupt and still owes money, and Gregor works to support the family and pay them off.
One morning Gregor wakes to find that his body has been transformed into something monstrous and insect-like. At first he assumes the change is only temporary.
That is where we will stop. How Gregor and his family respond, and what follows, is something you should discover for yourself.
What makes it worth reading
It is short, and it is complete. The novella runs to about 70 printed pages. Even so, it is the longest of the stories that Kafka considered finished and published in his lifetime. That makes it an easy way into an author with a daunting reputation: a finished story you can read from start to finish in a single sitting.
The creature is deliberately left vague. The German word Kafka chose, Ungeziefer, is an old term for an unclean animal, and in everyday use it means something like vermin. When the first book edition was being designed, Kafka wrote to his publisher asking that the insect itself not be drawn on the cover. Popular culture usually imagines a cockroach. The novelist Vladimir Nabokov, who read the text very closely, argued for a beetle. Without a fixed image, the picture in your head is your own.
It refuses to tell you what it means. Readers have treated the story as a religious parable, as a psychological study of a son and his father, as a portrait of society and work, and as a story worth rereading from a feminist angle. Nabokov dismissed symbolic readings altogether and asked readers to pay attention to the details on the page. All of these readings sit comfortably side by side, which is one reason the book holds up to being read more than once.
Choosing a translation. "The Metamorphosis" has been translated into English more than twenty times. The first, by the Muirs in 1933, chose to call the creature a giant insect, and some editions use a different title, "The Transformation." If you want to try the story before committing to a printed edition, Project Gutenberg offers David Wyllie's translation to read online. Then, if you buy a copy, read the first page in two or three versions side by side. You will see the translation problem for yourself, and you will know which voice you want to spend the evening with.
Who will enjoy it
This is the natural starting point for anyone who has heard the word "Kafkaesque" and wants to see where it comes from. It suits readers who like short fiction with a strange premise and no easy explanation, and it is a very good choice for a book club, since everyone can finish it and nobody will agree about it afterward. It also rewards readers interested in translation, because few books show so clearly how much a single word can change.
Set aside one quiet evening, and see what you find when Gregor wakes up.
Sources
- Wikipedia, "The Metamorphosis" (first published in October 1915 in Die weißen Blätter, edited by René Schickele; book edition in December 1915 in Kurt Wolff's series Der jüngste Tag, Leipzig; a novella of about 70 printed pages and the longest of the stories Kafka considered complete and published in his lifetime; opening setup: Gregor Samsa, a travelling salesman, wakes transformed and at first thinks it temporary, and is the family's sole breadwinner paying off his bankrupt father's debts; meaning of Ungeziefer and ungeheuer; Mark Harman's view that the phrase defies translation; at least sixteen renderings; the Muirs' 1933 first English translation and its choice of a word meaning a giant insect; more than twenty English translations; the title also rendered as "The Transformation"; Kafka's October 1915 letter asking that the insect not be drawn on the cover; religious, psychological, sociological, and feminist readings; Nabokov's rejection of allegorical readings, his focus on detail, and his view that the creature is a beetle; the creature commonly shown as a cockroach in popular culture) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Metamorphosis
- Wikipedia, "Franz Kafka" (born 3 July 1883 in Prague, Kingdom of Bohemia, Austria-Hungary; died 3 June 1924 at a sanatorium in Kierling near Vienna, aged 40, of tuberculosis; German-speaking Jewish writer; insurance officer at the Worker's Accident Insurance Institute for the Kingdom of Bohemia 1908-1918 and his dislike of this "bread job"; works published in his lifetime, including The Metamorphosis in 1915, and the little attention they received; Max Brod ignoring the request to destroy his manuscripts; The Trial 1925 and The Castle 1926 published posthumously; the word "Kafkaesque" describing situations like those in his writings, with isolated protagonists facing bizarre predicaments and incomprehensible bureaucratic powers) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Kafka
- Wikipedia (German), "Die Verwandlung" (written in autumn 1912) https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Verwandlung
- Project Gutenberg, "Metamorphosis" (English translation by David Wyllie; released on 17 August 2005; available to read online) https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5200