Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis: A Fresh New Translation

Bruno Correa Gauto: Good product.

Canada on Jul 01, 2023

Steiner: Susan Bernofsky's new translation breathes new life into Kafka's Metamorphosis, as her voice lets the humor, colloquialisms, and unrefined strangeness of the German original to come out. Kafka's novella sets the standard for all modernism, though it is a standard that in its development disarticulates the foundations of literature in their inherited stiffness (character, plot, motivating incident, etc.). A mordantly brilliant and compellingly relevant book.

United States on May 09, 2023

Angel: The translation was decent

United Kingdom on Nov 07, 2022

Sophie: The seller got me this used book cheaply and quickly and in the quality described. I'm not going to review Kafka's Metamorphosis here because it's over a 100 years old and has a million things written on it already.

Canada on Jan 23, 2022

Diego Canizales: I think the book, the translation, and comments made by David and Susan are great. This is a heart breaking story, really, and kind of portraits the superfluous feelings and actings of a bourgeois family just before the world war I kicked in.

Worth a read, but definitely read Davids introduction after reading the novel because it will definitely spoil the whole thing.

Mexico on Dec 13, 2021

I.C.: I wish I had friends to talk to about this story. I cried. Why didn't he run away and just live free as a giant bug?

United States on May 11, 2021

J. Chapman: With remote learning I am reading my daughter’s books as well, she really benefits from discussion —- even if she is the only one talking — lol. I found the forward quite interesting but it was the discussion on translation that really was engrossing to me. Oddball that I am. If you get this copy, do yourself a favor, read the forward and the translation info located after the novella BEFORE you start reading the book.

I remember being somewhat horrifically entranced by this book as a teen — but never got the hunter in it. I do now. Amazing how we change..... I think it too closely described how I felt at the time —— trapped by family and family expectations. Who knows. Glad I reread it though.

United States on Feb 06, 2021

Cribs: I’d been putting this off because of the preconceptions I’d picked up about Kafkas surreal style and all I can say is there is very little that is not accessible about this short and eye opening read.

Eye opening because you can really sense there is something of the actual authors true feelings delivered in this. A deep sadness but one that isn’t whiny and superficially brooding as is the typical fashion of our day, but melancholic yet accepting.... perhaps more typical of Kafkas day then.

I shopped around for a translation that had generally good reviews across the board and perhaps that was the key to my enjoyment as it reads very nicely too.

My hope whenever I start a new book is that the last page isn’t the last time I think about the characters and story and this massively ticked that box, that my time wasn’t wasted as time seems more and more fleeting as the days go by. So anything I put my time into I want to know was time well spent...

... It’s not that Kafka expertly crafted a detailed world and filled it with beautifully complex people... more that I read a story of change that allowed me to question my circumstances, my future,...

United Kingdom on Feb 03, 2021

Amazon Customer: Gregor is what 90% of the world are. The nails to the hammers, the lambs to the wolves. No one to blame but himself for his misery.

United States on Dec 10, 2018

Ksenia Anske: You haven’t read The Metamorphosis? You haven’t?!? Run and do it and pray you won’t wake up as a bug in your own bed the next morning, to spend your life… Erm, yes, this is where I need to stop. Number one, please don’t read the introduction. This particular translation is fantastic, but! I wish I’d been warned about the spoilers upfront. Read the novella first, THEN read the introduction. It has ruined the ending for me, well, ruined is too strong of a word, let’s say, I really wish I didn’t know. Although this brilliant macabre story is over 100 years old, I didn’t know how it ends, and I was disappointed to find out before reading it. This was my first Kafka (I know, you can stop pointing your fingers now) and I got enthralled to the point of forgetting myself until I got to the end.

You might have heard it’s a story of a salesman waking up one morning as a monstrous vermin. But it’s much more than that. It has dark humor to it. It’s a story of turning mute, being unable to communicate with the world, your own family first and foremost, it’s a grotesque depiction of what it’s like to be alien. I don’t mean some green alien creature with...

United States on Apr 16, 2014