The “Beetle-Story”
Kafka began to write his best-known story on the 17th November 1912. Within just three weeks he had set down on paper the story of the travelling salesman Gregor Samsa, who is transformed into a monstrous insect. The “bug story”, as Kafka’s publisher Kurt Wolff called it, first appeared in 1915 in the Leipzig periodical White Leaves (Weiße Blätter) and then as a book in its own right in the Doomsday series (published by Kurt Wolff). The first film adaptation was made in the US (The Metamorphosis, 1951), followed by further films in Great Britain, Venezuela, West Germany, Sweden, and Canada.
When Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from his troubled dreams, he found himself in his bed, transformed into a monstrous insect. He was lying on his hard armour-plated back, and, if he lifted his head a little, he could see his curved, brown underside, divided into stiff arching segments, on top of which the bedclothes were precariously balanced and now seemed about to slide off altogether. His many legs, pitifully thin in comparison to the rest of his bulk, flickered helplessly before his eyes.
Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis
Dear Sir,
You have made me unhappy. I bought your Metamorphosis as a present for my cousin. However, she doesn't know what to make of the story. My cousin has given the book to her mother, who is also unable to explain it. Her mother has passed the book on to another cousin, who also has no explanation for it…
A mystified reader
