Franz Kafka

Metamorphosis and other short stories

So the unknown author, what did I think of Kafka, did he amount to the expectation others had built for him? Well, starting the book I was entirely confused, there where short stories that would last about two, three pages or so, that would set a scene and vaguely a single or select few characters, then they would end. Ive been told that Kafkas work is quite deep, and so i tried to find any deeper meaning or moral in the writings, but couldn't. I gave the stories the benefit of the doubt, they are earlier in the book so were probably Kafka flexing his new literary muscle from an early stage in his career. A section for fascinated fans of the Author who wish to see his progression/ growth, but not great for a newcomer to gain first impressions. After a few of these i decided it would be best to jump straight to the title story Metamorphosis.

Metamorphosis

Hmm, another poor first impression, a man wakes up (Gregor), finds he is now a bug and can only think of how inconvenient it is. The most important part of any story to myself is great characters, false people that you can understand why they make the decisions they make, act the way they do, interact with some one way, and others another. Now saying that, i don't bloody care who you are, you wake up as a bug, you freak the f**k out! Nobody would ever calmly consider how inconvenient that situation would be upon waking to it. This clearly rubbed me the wrong way. But i'm not going to just trash the story, it was quite entertaining and the other characters, such as Gregors family were great. As for the moral of the story, it was never going to live up to the praise from its legacy, and i didn't finish the story with a blown mind and different worldview. I feel that the story was Kafka communicating that its Shite being weird around normal people, or to put it properly a feeling of alienation from society, which is a great thing to use as your theme, but thanks to the characterisation of Gregor, i just couldn't fully get behind the story. Possibly i'm just too brutish and dull to comprehend the themes of the story, but i'm honestly not too hot on using Kafka as an author either. Ill give another one of his stories a shot and see how it goes.

(Update:) Ive read both In the penal colony and and a hunger artist since writing my original thoughts and comparatively enjoyed them far more than my previous reading. They have great characterisation and more compelling messages i personally found. I think i've began to grasp why he gains such acclaim.