tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2023956444265128672.post5843911204836584410..comments2024-03-29T04:12:48.987+08:00Comments on The Reading Life: "Samsa in Love" by Haruki Murakami - published in The New Yorker,
October 2013Mel uhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08714473754458914681noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2023956444265128672.post-26532599062152232982013-11-05T06:20:26.791+08:002013-11-05T06:20:26.791+08:00Anonymous normally i don't post anonymous comm...Anonymous normally i don't post anonymous comments but yours is worthwhile. ,Mel uhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08714473754458914681noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2023956444265128672.post-25244348364189735222013-11-04T21:51:01.262+08:002013-11-04T21:51:01.262+08:00To understand this story, you need to have read Th...To understand this story, you need to have read The metamorphosis. You should also know Kafka's life story as well as Prague's history. <br /><br />What happens in this story is that Gregor Samsa, on the morning of Hitler's invasion, metamorphoses back into the human being that he was before he became a beetle and was locked up by his parents. Which is why he is afraid of birds etc and doesn't have a clue how to use his human body- since he had been a beetle. <br /><br />And because Kafka's parents were jewish it is hinted that both his parents and his two sisters have been taken away by the Third Reich just that very morning, an act that somehow released him from his beetle-existence- hence the four empty places at the breakfast table - Kafka in fact had three sisters, but Ottilie had been sympathetic to him, and not a part of the oprression surrounding him. (Kafka's two sisters actually perished in concentration camps.)Kafka, like Samsa, lived in his parents' home, oppressed by his dominant father but almost a psycological prisoner who was unable to leave. So the story is as much about Gregor Samsa as Franz Kafka, which is fair, as Kafka even made sure their last names rhymed, which is a hint and a half. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com