The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a welcome re-read, quite nice for Halloween season when we all become things we're not.

Or, in this case, he becomes a horrible drain on his family because he turned into a gigantic beetle. Or cockroach.

I was really struck with the sensation that this was a reality TV show where family members are doing all they can to pretend that they're not living with a cockroach until it becomes too much to bear and they vote him off the island.

Of course, if he was just depressed, and not an insect, or if he had some physical ailment, almost nothing in the text would change.

How strange, that.

Or not so strange, since this IS an undisputed classic of alienation comically written... and amazingly disturbing.

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