Rating: 
Summary: 582nd interpretation
Review: Metamorphosis is one of the most famous works in 20th C literature, and possibly has the most memorable opening lines in the history of story telling, - 'As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning after disturbing dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into an enormous insect'. The standard interpretation of this allegorical tale is that Gregor's transformation from hard working travelling salesman, providing for his family, to a grotesque useless insect that provokes disgust and pity and ultimately rejection by his family, represents physical disability, and society's treatment of it. I can see this in the story, but I read Kafka as essentially portraying his nightmare of the barrier between the public and personal inner world being removed. The private mental life, with its sensitive and raw secrets, its ugly and embarrasing little features, the desires and instincts that we strive to keep hidden, and/or are forced to repress. The bug is the embodiment of the ugly and raw inside turned out, exposed for all the world to see. Particularly nightmarish for Gregor (kafka) is the fact that those who see are those he loves and whose rejecton he fears most of all - his family.
Rating:
Summary: Only a great writer could make me feel sorry for a "vermin"
Review: Kafka stuns me. In the time it takes most writers to write a chapter, introduce a character, or illustrate a setting, Kafka lucidly conveys the sincere emotions associated with 20th century dissolutionment--and writes a damn good story. In 60 pages! This book is even quicker than it's 60 pages implies. The words flow and you will be drawn in. I truly felt sorry for Gregor, I wanted his sister to recognize him. This book begins weird and I was not sure about it. Even as it progressed, I was wary of its path. When Gregor first retreated to under the couch and put the sheet over him, it hit me hard. This poor, helpless man was hated by everyone, for being who he was. This book told me as much about the human condition as books ten times it's length. ADVICE: Spend 2 hours of your life and read this book. Then think for 2 days about it. milo
Rating:
Summary: Interesting and Thought Provoking
Review: I read this book for a German class, and I have to say, the German book is by far superior. However, I did read the English version to make sure I hadn't overlooked anything, and it is definately readable. Written in the expressionalist view, Gregor awakens to find himself transformed into an insect overnight. In the true style of the times, it is written so that Gregor realizes that he "awakens" from being a machine-type human to seeing what is really important in life, love and human contact. Gregor realizes this, but his parasitic family sees him as an animal, and cuts off the very emotions he is in need of. His sister, to whom he was very close, provokes emotion in him with her music, but it is seemingly too late. Kafka refers constantly to Gregor having a fear of his father's huge feet (which I believe any insect should be afraid of!!). This corresponds with the feeling of being overwhelmed by Kafka's own father. This book is definately worth reading, and the ending of this book is definately Kafkaesque!! I guess the moral of the story - In order to see life as it really is, is to see that life is not worth living without people who love you and whom you can love.
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Summary: Otherworldly Misery
Review: Two cautionary notes: If you don't like misery without redemption or justification, don't read this book. If you can't accept the transformation of a human into a dung beetle without an explanation, don't read this book. Gregory Samsa wakes up to find that he has become a dung beetle. This outlandish occurrence spawns a narrative that is otherwise painfully realistic and natural. Kafka squelches any expectation that this inaugural miracle will be counteracted by any mercurial redemptions. Instead, Kafka tells a realistic and thoroughly depressing story of a very human family confronted by such an atrocity. There is no justice in this story, there are no heroes to cheer for and no enemies to cheer against, just a regular joe with a chronic and horrid affliction. Gregory did nothing to deserve his plight, and after suffering its myriad indignities, receives no cosmic compensation for it. He is abandoned, abused and ignored. Things get worse and worse.... I think you get the picture. Metamorphosis is a moving work, but it moves you through misery to despair to numbness. Don't read it after a break up or a death in the family.
Rating:
Summary: A brilliant nightmare
Review: Kafka knew so well how to make us feel trapped, estranged and lonely like the characters in his stories. He struggled with anxiety and feelings of inferiority in his own life, and his writing expresses the passive realization that life is a dark and confusing nightmare where we in no way are masters of our destinies. A young travelling salesman, Gregor Samsa, wakes up one morning and realizes that he has been transformed into a giant bug. Having been the provider for his elderly parents and his adolescent sister, he is now forced to crawl around in his room all day, hiding his hideous self from the sister who brings him food, unable to communicate and barred from the world outside. It is a story about being dehumanized and alienated, of being useless and unwanted, of becoming a burden to oneself as well as to others. Kafka is such a phenomenal writer that the mere absurdity of the plot is completely overshadowed by the vivid and somehow realistic descriptions of the emotional and behavioral responses of Gregor and his family to the unreal situation. It is as if Kafka is telling us that this circumstance is no more strange or hopeless than the predicaments faced by the average family.
Rating: 
Summary: An Aspect of Life
Review: In the book Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, the main character Gregor Samsa deals with the trouble of waking up to becoming a dung beatle. I believe that Kafka wrote metamorphosis on a different level then its rather elementary outershell.I believe that Gregor's struggle is an exaggerated form works with differences in people in the world and I believe that that's what Kafka was trying to accomplish in his writing of this sci fi book. Over decades and decades, people have been judged by the way the look or their creed or their color of their skin. I believe this book symbolizes the way people react to unique forms of characteristics of people. I enjoyed this book because of Gregor's struggle with this change in his life even if it was a bit obtuse. As the story unravels you find out that in a fit of rage his father handicaps him, which is another weakness that he has to deal with. The story deals with coping with a handicap and is not the kind of "happy " stories that we have today. I believe that this book is a bit boring when it comes to its science fiction meanings but when you look at it as an abstract thought the book is well written and sends a great message. I would recommend this book to someone who is interested in taking a book on levels and not for the first level. If you are looking for a great science fiction book I would stay with a Bradbury book.
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Summary: Great work, hard to swallow !
Review: Backdrop -
This was my first Kafka story. I only picked it up because (a) There's a lot of mystique surrounding the very sound "Kafka" (b) He's one of the few whose name has been immortalised as a word in the english lexicon ...i.e., "Kafkaesque". I read this story , and others, while on my daily commute to Manhattan.
Thoughts -
I am usually leery of the quality of translated works, and being Teutonically Disadvantaged, cannot compare it to the Deutsch original.
A very original creation - so original that it is thought of as a "novel" although its just a short story. Requires complete suspension of analysis and critical thinking. Requires the reader to possess blind faith in the pen of Kafka.
Kafka, the master of "non-disclosure, non-closure", starts the story on an outlandish note .. that of Gregor Samsa, the protagonist, waking up one day, having metamorphed into a LARGE insect of unclear description. This discovery is met with different degrees of revulsion from his family, whilst he continues to have kind thoughts of them. He is kept sequestered and fed leftovers and rotting remains (something Gregor the Human would have abhorred, but Gregor the Insect loves). Gregor's life is one steep descent from here on, and it proceeds within the laws of some unstated logic. The stages that the story goes through seem to flow quite naturally, which is weird because none of us can actually relate to such an experience. The story could be a parable - that Gregor has done something so heinous that he's now an "insect" in the eyes of the world. But nothing in the story actually supports this theory.
Conclusion -
No reasons or explanations are offered, no attempt at placating the readers' curiosity about this usual occurrence. "Incompletion is a quality of his work, a facet of his nobility" said John Updike of Kafka. In Updike's words, Kafka "abjures aesthetic finish and takes asceticism to the next level, where he is kept company by Pound and Salinger".
There's no relief whatsoever in the story - intellectual, moral or emotional. The story rushes headlong to its logical conclusion. At the end there is an obliquely optimistic note, but with Kafka you can never tell. For readers like myself, brought up on more "user-friendly" writers, this kind of writing is quite hard to get down. But its useful in an archeo-literary kind of way - that is, if you want to study the literary layer called avant-gardism.
Rating:
Summary: A classic with deep psychological impact
Review: Gregor Samsa wakes up one morning after some restless dreams and finds he's been turned into a giant cockroach or beetle. What is fascinating is the transition that follows; the alienation of the family from Gregor, who is now externally an object of disgust and the alienation from the human race that Gregor experiences. The most telling passage is where Gregor approaches his beloved sister, scares her, and gets an apple thrown at him. It lodges in his back and festers. The symbolism--rejection, obsession, depression, hurt, is obvious, but the pictoral quality and spare prose of Kafka make this a timeless classic. This is a great book for younger readers to get acquainted with the classics, simple to read, yet with layers of meaning that can be mined in discussion.
Rating:
Summary: You wanta something weird?
Review: Read this then. I read this story for a College Fiction class...WOW! I really liked it. It was so strange and filled with dark comedy. And I can't believe the downfall of the family and how *horrible* they treated the boy/insect. They didn't even believe he weas him any more, and i suppose he wasn't. Great story!
Rating:
Summary: Gripping introspective drama
Review: First of all, I have to admit that I have never read Kafka's original story, although I did have a passing familiarity with it prior to picking up this graphic novel. I had never heard of Peter Kuper before. To say the least, I was pleasantly surprised by this graphic novel. To say a bit more, it was astoundingly good, full of gripping yet understated human drama... The story is that of a traveling salesman who awakens to find he has been transformed into a bug. The story deals with his family's reaction to this, and the course of his life afterward. Although the story is very subdued in many ways, it drew me in in a way that few graphic novels have been able to accomplish. Kuper is heavily influenced by many of Will Eisner's visual storytelling techniques, which he uses to great effect here. (IMHO, I feel he uses the techniques more effectively than Eisner did most of the time.) The artwork reminds me of some underground comics I've seen, and perfectly complements the character-based story. Bravo to the Mr. Kuper: He has visualized Kafka's story in a way that makes it feel as if this is the way the story was meant to be told. Now, I only have to pick up the original story to find out for sure...
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