Rating: 
Summary: The Story Itself is Great; the Edition on the Other Hand...
Review: If you're reading this review, you probably have one of two things on your mind: A.) whether to read The Metamorphosis, or B.) whether to buy this particular edition of The Metamorphosis. I can answer question A pretty easily--you probably should read it. It's a classic story and a reasonably short one (58 pages in this edition), and many people have to read it at some point during high school or college anyway, so you might as well not be left behind. The book moves quickly, and the writing is straightforward and clear--although you could probably spend days debating the story's meaning. As for question B--which edition to buy--I'm no expert on the various versions of Kafka that have come out over the years, but I can tell you a little about what this one has to offer. The story ends on page 58, while the book goes up to page 201, and the page numbers don't include the introduction. What fills up all this extra space? The Bantam Classic edition includes selected letters and diaries by Kafka that are relevant to the Metamorphosis (including some highly self-critical diary entries by Franz Kafka himself, e.g. "I am now reading 'The Metamorphosis' at home and find it bad," and "Great antipathy to 'Metamorphosis.' Unreadable ending. Imperfect almost to the foundation. . . .") This edition also includes "Explanatory Notes to the Text," which appear after the text itself, and quote various critics in order to explain certain lines of The Metamorphosis. Unfortunately, these notes are hard to use. In the text itself, there is no indication of which lines have an "explanatory note," and in the "Notes," no page number is given to help you find the explained words in the text itself. Thus, you either have to read the text, flipping to the back after every sentence or two to see if there is an "explanatory note," or you have to read the "notes" and search within the text for the lines that are being explained. After the explanatory notes and letters/diaries, there are a series of critical essays. In my opinion, these won't be of interest to the average reader, and some of the interpretations are laughable unless you buy into Freudian logic. For example, critic Hellmuth Kaiser claims that "the metamorphosis into a filthy insect represents a regression to anal fixations" (155) and that the protagonist wishes "to gain the father's penis as a substitute for his own lost member" (156). Peter Dow Webster offers the following: "This initial conversion of the hero into the image of the dung beetle is followed by the inward discharge or abreaction of the castration fantasy, with progressive release, of the oral and anal fixations or cathexes, until a total phallic libido is achieved, as symbolized in the three priapic gentlemen, the restoration of the father and mother imagoes, and especially the nubility of the emancipated anima, Grete" (158). Riiiiight. In short, The Metamorphosis itself is worth reading. It's up to you to decide whether you want to buy this particular edition, with its 140-something pages of questionable interpretations.
Rating: 
Summary: My thoughts on the Metamorphosis
Review: Kafka is truly a great 20th century author and this book, along with "The Trial" are excellent and open to a huge number of interpretations. The bleak urban settings are some of the most memorable aspects. This book has a lot of essays and explanatory notes in the back that present theories about the deeper meaning (though you will want to think about it yourself before you read them). Why exactly the metamorphosis occurred is an issue you can think about. Gregor first seems to ignore the metamorphosis but later associates it with shame. In fact, it may represent some repressed side of him. Gregor's situation is made even worse by his family's failure to support him. This book is remarkable in that, while so much literature relies on extraordinary events or characters, the only real extraordinary event here is Gregor's unlucky transformation into a beetle. (Note, Kafka never actually says it is a dung beetle.) Everything after that is quite believeable and, while depressing, probably represents what would happen in real life and what does happen in so many people's lives that are never written about. The book manages to be both surrealist and brutally realistic at the same time.
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.
Rating:
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.
Rating:
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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