Whatever your mother
is going to tell you about Kafka when you are 12 years old, you will never
forget it. That was a very thin book with a bizarre picture of a giant bug with
a human head. “That”, my mother told me, “is the only book that really
frightened me and caused one whole week of nightmares”.
All forgotten, of
course, until three or four years later I opened Metamorphosis (it was a damp, dusky day) and started reading. To
this day, it remains the only work of fiction longer than a short story that I
read without ever looking away from the
page. I don’t think I moved an inch, either.
And I had a chance to
think of it just the other day as I was discussing the most disturbing reading
experience I’ve ever had. And believe me, I’ve had many.
Metamorphosis is a singular book, and it’s the serenity of Kafka’s
style (I’ve always questioned people who call him complicated or
incomprehensible – who, Kafka?!?!),
the natural way in which he confronts the unnatural situation, that makes it so
unsettling and so unlike any other book ever written. I guess it won’t work for
every imagination out there – but if you do get it, and get it you should, it
won’t ever leave your head.
Not such a bad place
for a book to be. Who knows, you might even tell your kids about it – when they
are 12 years old or something.
