If you have never read any work by Franz Kafka (I have no idea why you wouldn't), GO DO IT! He was an incredibly influential German writer of the 20th century. One of the first to write what we call today
magical realism. One story he is well known for, and one I personally enjoy is
The Metamorphosis. Here's the beginning of the story to get a taste of Kafka...
The
MetamorphosisBy Franz Kafka
One
morning, as Gregor Samsa was waking up from anxious dreams, he discovered that
in his bed he had been changed into a monstrous verminous bug. He lay on his
armour-hard back and saw, as he lifted his head up a little, his brown, arched
abdomen divided up into rigid bow-like sections. From this height the blanket,
just about ready to slide off completely, could hardly stay in place. His
numerous legs, pitifully thin in comparison to the rest of his circumference,
flickered helplessly before his eyes.
“What’s
happened to me,” he thought. It was no dream. His room, a proper room for a
human being, only somewhat too small, lay quietly between the four well-known
walls. Above the table, on which an unpacked collection of sample cloth goods
was spread out—Samsa was a travelling salesman—hung the picture which he had cut
out of an illustrated magazine a little while ago and set in a pretty gilt
frame. It was a picture of a woman with a fur hat and a fur boa. She sat erect
there, lifting up in the direction of the viewer a solid fur muff into which
her entire forearm had disappeared.
Gregor’s
glance then turned to the window. The dreary weather—the rain drops were
falling audibly down on the metal window ledge—made him quite melancholy. “Why
don’t I keep sleeping for a little while longer and forget all this
foolishness,” he thought. But this was entirely impractical, for he was used to
sleeping on his right side, but in his present state he could not get himself
into this position. No matter how hard he threw himself onto his right side, he
always rolled onto his back again. He must have tried it a hundred times,
closing his eyes so that he would not have to see the wriggling legs, and gave
up only when he began to feel a light, dull pain in his side which he had never
felt before.
“O God,” he
thought, “what a demanding job I’ve chosen! Day in, day out, on the road. The
stresses of selling are much greater than the actual work going on at head
office, and, in addition to that, I still have to cope with the problems of
travelling, the worries about train connections, irregular bad food, temporary
and constantly changing human relationships, which never come from the heart.
To hell with it all!” He felt a slight itching on the top of his abdomen. He
slowly pushed himself on his back closer to the bed post so that he could lift
his head more easily, found the itchy part, which was entirely covered with
small white spots—he did not know what to make of them and wanted to feel the
place with a leg, but he retracted it immediately, for the contact felt like a
cold shower all over him.
He slid
back again into his earlier position. “This getting up early,” he thought,
“makes a man quite idiotic. A man must have his sleep. Other travelling
salesmen live like harem women. For instance, when I come back to the inn
during the course of the morning to write up the necessary orders, these
gentlemen are just sitting down to breakfast. If I were to try that with my
boss, I’d be thrown out on the spot. Still, who knows whether that mightn’t be
really good for me. If I didn’t hold back for my parents’ sake, I’d have quit
ages ago. I would’ve gone to the boss and told him just what I think from the
bottom of my heart. He would’ve fallen right off his desk! How weird it is to
sit up at that desk and talk down to the employee from way up there. What’s
more, the boss has trouble hearing, so the employee has to step up quite close
to him. Anyway, I haven’t completely given up that hope yet. Once I’ve got
together the money to pay off my parents’ debt to him—that should take another
five or six years—I’ll do it for sure. Then I’ll make the big break. In any
case, right now I have to get up. My train leaves at five o’clock.”
He looked
over at the alarm clock ticking away by the chest of drawers. “Good God!” he
thought. It was half past six, and the hands were going quietly on. It was even
past the half hour, already nearly quarter to. Could the alarm have failed to
ring? One saw from the bed that it was properly set for four o’clock. Certainly
it had rung. Yes, but was it possible to sleep peacefully through that noise
which made the furniture shake? Now, it is true he had not slept peacefully,
but evidently he had slept all the more deeply. Still, what should he do now?
The next train left at seven o’clock. To catch that one, he would have to go in
a mad rush. The sample collection was not packed up yet, and he really did not
feel particularly fresh and active. And even if he caught the train, there was
no avoiding a blow-up with the boss, because the firm’s errand boy would have
waited for the five o’clock train and reported the news of his absence long
ago. He was the boss’s minion, without backbone and intelligence. Well then,
what if he reported in sick? But that would be extremely embarrassing and
suspicious, because during his five years’ service Gregor had not been sick
even once. The boss would certainly come with the doctor from the health
insurance company and would reproach his parents for their lazy son and cut
short all objections with the insurance doctor’s comments; for him everyone was
completely healthy but really lazy about work. And besides, would the doctor in
this case be totally wrong? Apart from a really excessive drowsiness after the
long sleep, Gregor, in fact, felt quite well and even had a really strong
appetite.
Click here to read on!
