The common experience of Kafka's readers is one of general and vague fascination, even in stories they fail to understand, a precise recollection of strange and seemingly absurd images and descriptions--until one day the hidden meaning reveals itself to them with the sudden evidence of a truth simple and incontestable. " --Hannah Arendt --This text refers to the paperback edition. Franz Kafka (1883–1924) was one of the most important writers of the twentieth century. His major novels include The Trial, The Castle, and Amerika. Susan Bernofsky is the acclaimed translator of Hermann Hesse, Robert Walser, and Jenny Erpenbeck, and the recipient of many awards, including the Helen and Kurt Wolff Prize and the Hermann Hesse Translation Prize. She teaches literary translation at Columbia University and lives in New York. David Cronenberg is an acclaimed Canadian director, best known for his work in the body horror and noir genres, such as The Fly and Eastern Promises. --This text refers to the paperback edition.
But now the dream is over, and the insect is awake. " 12. BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH READ IT ON BBC RADIO Can you imagine a more ideal voice for such a surreal story? The Sherlock actor read the novella in its entirety to celebrate its 100th anniversary. Sadly, the broadcast is no longer available for free on the BBC's site, but you can find it here.
It is not even to be seen from a distance. " He got his wish, with the first edition featuring a drawing of a tormented man wearing a robe. Subsequent editions, however, have interpreted Gregor in all sorts of creepy, crawly forms. 6. IT'S A PRETTY FUNNY STORY, IF YOU THINK ABOUT IT. Viewed one way, a story about a man who wakes up to find he's a bug is horrifying. Viewed another way, it's hilarious. Indeed, scholars and readers alike have delighted in Kafka's gallows humor and matter-of-fact handling of the absurd and the terrifying. The first pages of The Metamorphosis where Gregor tries to communicate through the bedroom door with his family, who think he's merely being lazy, is vintage screwball comedy. As translator Susan Bernofsky wrote: "I imagine Kafka laughing uproariously when reading the story to his friends. " 7. THE LANGUAGE IS FULL OF DOUBLE MEANINGS AND CONTRADICTIONS. Dream logic and contradictions abound in Kafka's work. A man is summoned to a trial for an unnamed offense; a country doctor is instantly transported to the home of a sick patient, who tells him he only wants to be left to die.
They all suspect that he must be seriously ill. With one of his many legs, Gregor opens the door and immediately apologizes for being late. They're all horrified at seeing him, and still no one understands him. The manager runs out of the apartment. His father chases him back into the room with his cane and shuts the door. Although, they were shocked at first, the family quickly accepts that their son is now a giant insect, and moves on to consider how they'll adjust their lives to this new reality. There is never any talk of seeking help or attempts at understanding what befell Gregor in that bedroom. Even Gregor himself quickly adapts to his new body and starts climbing the walls and the ceiling for fun. Due to the financial distress caused by Gregor's inability to work, the family takes in boarders. A moving moment amidst all the strange events, and perhaps the best respite from the theme of absurdity, was when Gregor heard his sister play the violin. He ventures slowly and unnoticed outside his room.
It is one of the most enigmatic stories of all time, with an opening sentence that's unparalleled in all of literature. Gregor Samsa, a traveling salesman living in Prague, wakes one morning from troubled dreams to find himself transformed into—what, exactly, isn't clear, just as any clear interpretation of The Metamorphosis has eluded readers for decades. In celebration of Franz Kafka's birthday (the author was born in Prague on July 3, 1883), let's take a look at a few things we do know about his mysterious novella. 1. A TORTURED, LONG-DISTANCE RELATIONSHIP PROVIDED INSPIRATION. In 1912, Kafka met Felice Bauer, an acquaintance of his friend Max Brod, at a dinner party in Prague. He began writing to Bauer, who lived in Berlin, shortly after, eventually penning two and three letters per day. The correspondence was desperate—and pretty much one-sided. Kafka demanded detailed accounts of Bauer's days, expressed his love for her and visions of their future together, and demanded that Bauer, who would eventually become his fiancé, respond to him in kind.
Just up at Fanzine is Joyelle McSweeney review of Susan Bernofsky's new, "fastidious, " translation of Kafka's The Metamorphosis, published by Norton this year. "Wake Up for the First Time Again" is at first a comparative study: "Als Gregor Samsa eines Morgens aus unruhigen Träumen erwachte, fand er sich in seinem Bett zu einem ungeheueren Ungeziefer verwandelt. "—FK "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"—Ian Johnston "When Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from troubled dreams, he found himself changed into a monstrous cockroach in his bed. "—Michael Hofmann "When Gregor Samsa woke one morning from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed right there in his bed into some sort of monstrous insect. "—Susan Bernofsky McSweeney also goes into the final line: when you re-read The Metamorphosis, it becomes a shifting topo-map, the text presenting new clefts and declivities, welling with intensities and sinking away into a diminishment one might choose to view as repose.
Susan Bernofsky Susan Bernofsky speaking at swissnex San Francisco on April 3, 2013 Born July 20, 1966 Cleveland Susan Bernofsky (born 1966) is an American translator of German-language literature. She is best known for bringing the Swiss writer Robert Walser to the attention of the English-speaking world. She has also translated several books by Jenny Erpenbeck. Her prizes for translation include the 2006 Helen and Kurt Wolff Translation Prize, the 2015 Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize, the 2015 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, and the 2015 Schlegel-Tieck Prize. She was also selected for a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2014. [1] In 2017 she won the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation for her translation of Memoirs of a Polar Bear by Yoko Tawada. In 2018 she was awarded the MLA's Lois Roth Award for her translation of Go, Went, Gone by Jenny Erpenbeck. [2] She teaches at Columbia University. Contents 1 Translations 1. 1 Robert Walser 1. 2 Jenny Erpenbeck 1. 3 Yoko Tawada 1.