The Metamorphosis (MCI) (Hardcover)

I enjoyed this book because of Gregor's struggle with this change in his life even if it was a bit obtuse. As the story unravels you find out that in a fit of rage his father handicaps him, which is another weakness that he has to deal with. The story deals with coping with a handicap and is not the kind of "happy " stories that we have today. I believe that this book is a bit boring when it comes to its science fiction meanings but when you look at it as an abstract thought the book is well written and sends a great message. I would recommend this book to someone who is interested in taking a book on levels and not for the first level. If you are looking for a great science fiction book I would stay with a Bradbury book.

This discovery is met with different degrees of revulsion from his family, whilst he continues to have kind thoughts of them. He is kept sequestered and fed leftovers and rotting remains (something Gregor the Human would have abhorred, but Gregor the Insect loves).

Gregor's life is one steep descent from here on, and it proceeds within the laws of some unstated logic. The stages that the story goes through seem to flow quite naturally, which is weird because none of us can actually relate to such an experience. The story could be a parable - that Gregor has done something so heinous that he's now an "insect" in the eyes of the world. But nothing in the story actually supports this theory.
Conclusion -
No reasons or explanations are offered, no attempt at placating the readers' curiosity about this usual occurrence. "Incompletion is a quality of his work, a facet of his nobility" said John Updike of Kafka. In Updike's words, Kafka "abjures aesthetic finish and takes asceticism to the next level, where he is kept company by Pound and Salinger".
There's no relief whatsoever in the story - intellectual, moral or emotional. The story rushes headlong to its logical conclusion. At the end there is an obliquely optimistic note, but with Kafka you can never tell. For readers like myself, brought up on more "user-friendly" writers, this kind of writing is quite hard to get down. But its useful in an archeo-literary kind of way - that is, if you want to study the literary layer called avant-gardism.