Second paragraph of third section:
| Und wenn nun auch Gregor durch seine Wunde an Beweglichkeit wahrscheinlich für immer verloren hatte und vorläufig zur Durchquerung seines Zimmers wie ein alter Invalide lange, lange Minuten brauchte – an das Kriechen in der Höhe war nicht zu denken –, so bekam er für diese Verschlimmerung seines Zustandes einen seiner Meinung nach vollständig genügenden Ersatz dadurch, daß immer gegen Abend die Wohnzimmertür, die er schon ein bis zwei Stunden vorher scharf zu beobachten pflegte, geöffnet wurde, so daß er, im Dunkel seines Zimmers liegend, vom Wohnzimmer aus unsichtbar, die ganze Familie beim beleuchteten Tische sehen und ihre Reden, gewissermaßen mit allgemeiner Erlaubnis, also ganz anders als früher, anhören durfte. | Because of his injuries, Gregor had lost much of his mobility—probably permanently. He had been reduced to the condition of an ancient invalid and it took him long, long minutes to crawl across his room—crawling over the ceiling was out of the question—but this deterioration in his condition was fully (in his opinion) made up for by the door to the living room being left open every evening. He got into the habit of closely watching it for one or two hours before it was opened and then, lying in the darkness of his room where he could not be seen from the living room, he could watch the family in the light of the dinner table and listen to their conversation—with everyone’s permission, in a way, and thus quite differently from before. |
Well known, fascinating and awful; the story of a man who ceases to be a man, who finds that humanity, including his close family, collectively turns its back on him. Does his transformation represent disability? Sexual identity? Mental illness? Something else entirely? It doesn’t matter in a way; the writing is mesmerising.
It’s also thoroughly infused with a spirit of place. Kafka comprehensively conveys the feeling of those central European apartment blocks which you will find in Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Bratislava, Zagreb, Ljubljana, and dozens if not hundreds of other towns and cities throughout the former Habsburg Empire. And you really feel that you are in the city, with its trams, bureaucracy and social structure.
It’s a short story, but it packs a heck of a punch.
This was the top book by LibraryThing populatiry on my shelves that I had not yet blogged here. Next on that list is Doctor Zhivago, by Boris Pasternak.
