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The Metamorphosis

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The Metamorphosis

Written by: Franz Kafka
Narrated by: Ralph Cosham
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About this listen

“One morning, as Gregor Samsa was waking up from anxious dreams, he discovered that in bed he had been changed into a monstrous verminous bug.”

With this startling, bizarre, yet surprisingly funny first sentence, Kafka begins his masterpiece, The Metamorphosis. It is the story of a young traveling salesman who, transformed overnight into a giant, beetle-like insect, becomes an object of disgrace to his family, an outsider in his own home, a quintessentially alienated man. Rather than being surprised at the transformation, the members of his family despise it as an impending burden upon themselves.

A harrowing - though absurdly comic - meditation on human feelings of inadequacy, guilt, and isolation, The Metamorphosis has taken its place as one of the most widely read and influential works of 20th-century fiction. As W. H. Auden wrote, “Kafka is important to us because his predicament is the predicament of modern man.”

FRANZ KAFKA (1883–1924), one of the major fiction writers of the twentieth century, was born to a middle-class German-speaking Jewish family in Prague. His unique body of writing, much of which is incomplete and was mainly published posthumously, is considered by some people to be among the most influential in Western literature, inspiring such writers as Albert Camus, Rex Warner, and Samuel Beckett.

©Public Domain (P)2011 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Contemporary Fantasy Genre Fiction Metaphysics Movie, TV & Video Game Tie-Ins Paranormal & Urban Philosophy Political Short Stories

Critic Reviews

“In The Metamorphosis Kafka reached the height of his mastery: he wrote something which he could never surpass, because there is nothing which The Metamorphosis could be surpassed by - one of the few great, perfect poetic works of this century.” (Elias Canetti, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1981)

What listeners say about The Metamorphosis

Average Customer Ratings
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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

A Good One Time Listen

It was a good one-time listenRalph had done a good job!Can easily finish it out in few hours

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

A story of a lifetime

I got to read this after years of knowing Kafka. This book is an experience. What a picture of humanity!

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Fine story depicting a certain & less obvious side of human emotions & behaviors

Wonderful listen. Filled my heart with so many emotions.
Now, as this story is so well paced, with no such immediate excitements, but with more of a pace, where the human behaviours to this unnatural situation that Gregor & his family & people around had to witness, seemed to fall naturally bringing out natural emotions to these behaviours, even though the subject of the story was quite the opposite of natural, that this story seemed to draw its charm from.
To me, its a story to remember & keep with one, knowing that a person can become worth that of a bug, if one becomes communally out of order, however much you may like the idea of it or not. Ofcourse there is much more to make out of it, but this is the prime fact to build more meaning out of it, which is quite beautiful, yet harsh.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

The message

I honestly don't know what to say about this. This book gives out a message that, no matter what you do or sacrifice for your loved ones, the moment you go down Infront of them, the moment you loose everything, you're done. Initially they will support you, care for you and try to love you, but it will never be the same. You are alone in this world, the whole time. People like you because of the things you do for them, because of the way you care for them, and once they don't get the same from you, they wouldn't need you anymore. I'm so saddened by this, but I feel the message. Give it a try, it's an awesome book.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Human value to a man

A good short story with deep meaning
What happens to a son father husband as a man when he becomes worthless/of no monetary use
Kafka must have gone thru a lot to bring out such emotions

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Interesting

Story was quite interesting and have wanted to read it for a long time. Performance was pretty underwhelming. Genuinely thought it was a text-to-speech narrator at first; it lacks any character.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

the story is mostly meaningless

you can find something in it. Perhaps the family is the one who really experienced metamorphosis. But it was overall a over rated waste of time.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

A little too grim

The story seemed a little too grim for my taste. In comparison, I found 1984 a lot more gripping, although that was grim too. The narrator is really good though.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Thought Provoking

While the absurdity of Gregor’s situation is difficult to understand in the beginning as the story moves on the absurdity of physical condition is far exceeded by those of the reactions of his family.
It’s thought provoking and intriguing.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

A strange but a classic story

It'll take me a quite a bit of time to think why the writer wrote such a story first of all. It wasn't engulfing, it wasn't boring, it wasn't happening, still in some way it was affecting.

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