Saturday, February 16, 2019
I Think the Metamorphosis is Bad
Kafka’s Metamorphosis is grossly overrated. Centuries after its writing, the novella somehow remains a staple in the Western canon. How? I do not understand! An overwhelming amount of the book describes the excruciatingly boring domestic duties of the Samsa family. Kafka elaborates for paragraphs upon paragraphs about the cleaning hobbies of the family now that they have to deal with Gregor’s bug state. Simply put, there are very few sections in the novella that are not painfully boring. Disregarding Kafka’s subpar style of prose, the premise of the story initially has potential; “As Gregor Samsa awoke one morningfrom uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect-like creature.” “Oh this should be a great story,” thinks the eager reader (I being one of those readers). Oh, how wrong I was. Like the Falcons with a 25 point lead in the Super Bowl, Kafka absolutely blew it. He had the Lombardi Trophy of plot potential in his hands and handed it over to Mr. Brady himself.
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5 comments:
On one hand I do agree that this definitely was not the most riveting novella we have read in the course of our high school English career. On the other hand, though, I feel that the boringness and domesticity of the book was purposefully on Kafka's part. As pointed out in Alana's post, he used the absurdity of Gregor turning into a bug contrasted with the monotonous daily life of the family to comment on the ridiculousness of everyday life. If that technique worked or not is totally up to the reader, and your point is totally valid. The reason we still read it today I suppose is its historical impact, influence on the modernist movement and literature, and for the fact that Kafka was one of the first to combine absurdist and realistic elements in that way.
I agree wholeheartedly with this blogpost Bennett! While I was reading the Metamorphosis myself, I thought it would be a hysterical piece of literature, especially with the way it started. I thought “Wow, this started quickly. This story seem very interesting and different already. I hope it turns out to be one of the best pieces of I’ve ever read.” NOPE. Sadly, I was very disappointed after finishing this. The story was pretty bland in most parts honestly. The Exciting parts are mostly in part I but then I goes downhill and part II and part III. There were too many drawn out moments where Kafka could have easily said something in just a few lines but he expands these moments to last for PAGES on end! This caused me to become very lost in the reading and not understand some of the context, thus I had to read some parts multiple times! To be honest, I actually fell asleep a few times while reading it. Whether I was tired or just bored, I’m not entirely sure but I believe it was the latter. The ending was underwhelming as well. Gregor does they the family moves away. That’s it!??!? I was very disappointed by this read. This isn’t to discredit Kafka’s work though. He did a good job with portraying important metaphors and symbols but I do believe he could have done it in a bit more interesting way.
I completely understand Bennett. Kafka had so much opportunity to make this story interesting. But the whole time it was just people going about their life with a big present. Gregor could’ve done more and it could’ve made for a much more interesting story other than Gregor stepped out of the room once or twice.
I agree with Rico's and Bennett's reasoning and was thinking of some of their arguments while reading it. If you only looked at the 5 or 10 most famous quotes from the novella, then it would look like one of the greatest pieces of literature ever written. However, in between these significant moments, Kafka really goes off tangents and could probably convey the same message in at least half as many pages. I thought that the plot was crafted nearly to perfection but the amount of content seems to resemble that of a short story, not a novella which is known to be slightly longer. I have read many great pieces of literature in which I felt like I wanted to highlight almost every word because it all felt significant. However, for this story, there were not lines or paragraphs, but PAGES of content that I did not find significant to the themes whatsoever.
Like Elise, I can both agree and disagree with your blog today, Bennett. I do agree that this story did not fulfill the hype that preceded reading it. I went into this part of the course very intrigued, to say the least, and just like you I felt somewhat unsatisfied with what I read: "paragraphs upon paragraphs about the cleaning hobbies of the family" as bennett put it. I can agree as to how boring it is reading about that considering I'm bored out of my mind from cleaning my own room all day and night (I've got a load of laundry in the wash as I'm typing this) I'm not saying it wasn't good writing on Kafka's part, but it certainly did not live up to its hype.
That being said, I do think that it was kind of silly to expect much else from a story with the point of view of a cockroach/beetle (i know it's not actually first person POV from gregor but it *is* third person from majorily the standpoint of gregors thoughts.) It makes sense, when you think about it, that the story was at points very monotonous and boring as a bugs life would most likely be. Again, when you think about it more, really most stories told from the point of view of most animals would be fairly boring and monotonous. Take a shark, for example. Besides the occasional attack for a meal, the life of a shark would be verrrrryyyy boring to read about. Can you imagine having to swim (/walk) in a straight line always??That's a no from me.
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