My reading has been pretty bad this year and it has affected my blogging adversely. I tried to get out of this reading slump by participating in reading events, but this didn’t work. Reading plans just stayed plans. I missed participating even in my favourite reading event of the year – German Literature Month. But my heart couldn’t accept this state of affairs. So for the past few days I pushed myself and read a little bit. Though reading like this is not enjoyable, I managed to read three books. So today, the last day of this year’s German Literature Month, I decided to write about them.
This first post is about Franz Kafka’s ‘The Metamorphosis‘. I read the graphic novel adaptation of this book a few years back and had wanted to read the original since. I had two translations of the book – an older 1972 translation by Stanley Corngold and a newer 2007 translation by Michael Hofmann. With respect to translations, readers normally regard the shiny new ones as always better and opt for them. I am slightly different in this regard. I read the first sentence and the first paragraph and then maybe the first page and then read a random passage in both the translations and see which translation works for me. While deciding which one to read, I look at things like which translation feels faithful to the original and which translation reads better. I also look at things like, has the translator kept the implied meaning of the original sentence or has he / she tried explaining / clarifying the meaning in the translated sentence. Sometimes these things are contradictory – for example, the faithful translation may not read well while the translation which reads well may not be faithful. Then the choices become more interesting. In the present case, I read the first sentence of both the translations. They went like this.
When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous vermin. (Stanley Corngold translation)
When Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from troubled dreams, he found himself changed into a monstrous cockroach in his bed. (Michael Hofmann translation)
There are minor variations in the two translations and one can argue one way or another. For me, the most important difference was how the word ‘vermin‘ has been replaced by ‘cockroach‘ in Hofmann’s translation. That is a big change. The word that Kafka uses in the German original is ‘Ungeziefer‘. Readers, critics, commentators and Kafka scholars have debated for years what exactly Kafka meant by that word. It has been translated as ‘vermin‘ and ‘bug‘ and ‘insect‘ at different times and sometimes even ‘cockroach‘. But the general consensus has been that Kafka didn’t really specify the exact nature of the insect. As one commentator says – “The German word ‘Ungeziefer‘, like its English equivalent ‘vermin’, is a generic term, a collective noun denoting all sorts of undesirable insects. Kafka never divulges the kind of insect into which Gregor has been transformed, nor does he specify it’s firm and size.” So, that is 1-0 for Corngold over Hofmann. After thinking about this, I read a few random passages and Corngold’s translation leapt up to me everytime. I also have a soft corner for old-fashioned academic translators – translators who are professors of literature who occasionally translate a book. They are a dying breed now because many of the contemporary translators are professional full-time translators and not academics. All these factors made me choose the Corngold translation over the Hofmann one.
The Stanley Corngold translation (left) and the Michael Hofmann translation (right)
Now about the book itself. The story is about Gregor Samsa, a travelling salesman who gets up one day morning and discovers that he has turned into a monstrous insect. He thinks it is a dream, but it is real. He thinks he can sleep it off, but nothing happens. His family starts knocking at his door asking him why he has still not gone to work. His boss comes visiting at some point to find out what is happening. Through all this Samsa tries to keep his sanity intact by trying to think of mundane things like how he can catch the next train to work. At some point, after a lot of difficulty (it is hard to get up if one is an insect and lying on one’s back), he gets up and somehow opens the door and reveals himself to his family. They are stunned and then repulsed by his new appearance. What happens after that – how his family handles Gregor’s new situation, does Gregor’s mind continue to be human or does it undergo a transformation, does Gregor ever turn back into a human being – is told in the rest of the story.
Many people more intelligent and smarter than me have written about what Kafka’s story means. I am not going to add my mundane thoughts to that. I want to say one thing though. In the story Gregor Samsa is a hard-working everyday person whom people take for granted. Nobody cares about what he wants. When this kind of person undergoes a major transformation and is no longer useful to his family or to his firm or to society – what happens to him is what Kafka has imagined. It is heartbreaking to read. The cynic in me says – “If you are a cog in the wheel, be careful, because people you care for, who you think are important, will abandon you, if you are no longer useful.” It is a sobering thought.
When I started reading the book, I thought that it would be a 100-page novella. It turned out to be a 50-page book. But added to those 50 pages were 150 pages of critical essays, notes and commentary! I have never read a book before in which the critical commentary was longer than the book! I read all of the commentary. Many of them talked about alienation as a theme in Kafka’s book and many of them also analysed the book from a psychoanalytical Freudian perspective. Some of them also talked about how the book was a metaphor for Kafka’s own relationship with his father. Most of it was hard to read and went over my head.
So, what do I think of Kafka’s book? I wouldn’t say that it was one of my favourites. But it must have definitely been one of the most unusual books when it came out. It definitely inspired many copycats. It is regarded as one of great literary works of the twentieth century. It was not always easy going for me, but I am glad I read it.
Have you read Kafka’s ‘The Metamorphosis‘? What do you think about it?
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