Book Review. "The Metamorphosis" by Franz Kafka

Diving deeply into my essence and going through the dark days of my soul I smoothly approach the philosophy of existentialism, discovering my true values and the values of human existence, revealing the true meaning of life and the main purpose of living here on the Planet Earth. After Friedrich Nietzsche, I shifted to Franz Kafka’s philosophy of beauty of failure and one of his famous novellas “The Metamorphosis”. 

Read keenly these words “beauty of failure”. Take three conscious deep breaths and reflect….

We were taught that failures are bad and that we need to avoid failures and do them as little as possible. We even used to make some conclusions out of our failures and promote our fuckups as a perfect experience. But in reality, nobody tells or teaches us that there is beauty in each failure and Kafka built his philosophy in these three words “beauty of failure”. Each failure has beauty, and if and when we can see and reveal this beauty we will find our inner treasure, we will succeed, and become stronger.  

While reading the first chapter of “The Metamorphosis” I felt like I already read it before and that was true, that was an obligatory program for world literature at school. I am not sure whether a child, even an adult child at school could understand and feel the real meaning of this book, and realize the main idea and problem of Kafka’s philosophy. From that time, I did understand nothing and remembered only some very vivid scenes without acknowledging the profound idea. In my opinion, a person needs to read and reread this book again and again…

“The Metamorphosis” describes the story of a salesman Gregor Samsa who occasionally woke up one day not like a human, but like a huge and horrible insect, very often depicted as a cockroach. This is the only finished story of Franz Kafka and commonly discussed that he depicted his own life and confusion, worked in a job he did not like but hated, and could not enjoy life and live as he wished. 

“The Metamorphosis” showed the problems of isolation, alienation, and absurdity of human existence. Kafka wrote this story in 1912 and now we are living in 2023 and still facing the same problems and challenges. We lose our interest in one or another person as we do not need him/her anymore, as this person is no longer useful to us, as this person has become very different and “strange” to one’s opinion, as this person thinks really out of the box and behaves not according to some absurd standards and norms. So we still alienate such people and make them feel even more isolated and not fitting into society, not being part of it. We still go to work that we don’t like and that doesn’t give us a possibility to be creative, to reveal our true talents and true essence, to be ourselves. We still are slaves of our duties: at work, at home, and in society in general. We still live not our lives and don’t understand who we are, all the time being obsessed with our work as a financial resource and pretending to be someone else. We are still aggressive, rigid, insensitive to other people’s pains and sufferings living in a very superficial world full of egoic desires just to receive different personal benefits, overconsuming, and not accepting OTHERS if they are different in any manifestations. Here by “we” I mean humankind. So, it looks like from century to century we still don’t make correct conclusions and don't understand why we are here on the Planet Earth. 

The most painful moment personally for me in “The Metamorphosis” was the reaction of his family members and society at all: to alienate and isolate not to leave with this burden (as the protagonist of the book transferred to a burden to his family members) and their wish something happened to him so they have their magic and easy life again. His death at the end in complete solitude and loneliness shows our true society and our not readiness to accept, support, and help other people, but just continue living in an automatic mode consuming more and more…. 

Watch into the mirror and answer very important questions finding strength and bravity to do it truly and without any manipulation:

1. Do you tolerate people with disabilities? Do you support and help them? Do you accept them as they are?

2. Do you tolerate people who are very different, who don’t suit to societal rules and standards, and to your standards? Do you condemn them? Or do you accept them? Do you make them feel even more alone and isolated? Do you mock them and bull them? 

3. Do you feel comfortable with these groups of people? Do you feel your superiority? Do you feel they are abnormal and they should be isolated? 

4. How would you behave in case if your relative suddenly became disabled and you need to take care of him/her? Will you do it with love and gratitude? For how long will you be ready to do it with so-called “love”? Or will you condemn your fate, the Universe that now you have a difficult burden in your life? Will you think about their death?

5. How will you behave if suddenly your relative or your friend becomes very different not fitting into society? Will you still talk and communicate with him/her? Will you think that he/she becomes crazy? Will you tell him/her that you will wait until he/she becomes again normal and then continue communicating with him/her?

These are very simple questions, BUT if you answer truly they are extremely difficult. If you answer truly you will face your internal demons and will have a possibility either to try again to hide them or try to behave from now differently and not give a tiny possibility of these demons controlling your behaviour and your life.

December 14, 2023.