
The Metamorphosis
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
3 months free
Buy for $8.56
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Ralph Cosham
-
By:
-
Franz Kafka
With this startling, bizarre, yet surprisingly funny first sentence, Kafka begins his masterpiece, The Metamorphosis. It is the story of a young traveling salesman who, transformed overnight into a giant, beetle-like insect, becomes an object of disgrace to his family, an outsider in his own home, a quintessentially alienated man. Rather than being surprised at the transformation, the members of his family despise it as an impending burden upon themselves.
A harrowing - though absurdly comic - meditation on human feelings of inadequacy, guilt, and isolation, The Metamorphosis has taken its place as one of the most widely read and influential works of 20th-century fiction. As W. H. Auden wrote, “Kafka is important to us because his predicament is the predicament of modern man.”
FRANZ KAFKA (1883–1924), one of the major fiction writers of the twentieth century, was born to a middle-class German-speaking Jewish family in Prague. His unique body of writing, much of which is incomplete and was mainly published posthumously, is considered by some people to be among the most influential in Western literature, inspiring such writers as Albert Camus, Rex Warner, and Samuel Beckett.
©Public Domain (P)2011 Blackstone Audio, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...




















Critic reviews
Featured Article: The top 100 horror books of all time
This list encompasses the full spectrum of what horror can be—campfire-worthy tales, stomach-churning gore, and incisive social commentary. The classics are accounted for, but it also spotlights more recent titles, because that’s the nature of the genre—it is as perennial as it is ever-evolving, conjuring whatever frights most haunt our collective consciousness. Each title does have one thing in common: It makes for devilishly good listening. So cut the lights and press play—if you dare.
People who viewed this also viewed...


















It must be remembered that it was written in 1915. Recently I read a story that was a modern version of this story and the bug kills his family. I hate to admit it, but I liked the modern version better.
FK is a great writer of interpersonal relations, it just was not what I was expecting.
It was not bad and it is only 2 hours long.
Written in 1915
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Any additional comments?
This is a story about a man the turns into an insect, and then acts very conservatively British about it. But his family don't like it at all, and really make very little attempt to help him. The end is a bit of a downer, but life goes on, even for the characters in the story.Conservatively Depressing
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
on one hand I feel this book so much. as the fear of losing my ability to provide for my family would feel little different than what happened to gregor. he killed him self as a human so his family could live like discount dandies. when really they were the ones killing him by leeching off him.
on the other hand. after reading this book I finally understand better how other people view my life both past and present. to most people they see my brother as a Gregor. something inexplicable that has been saddled on my life. mind you I grew up in the 90s when doctors spoke of aids as a more honorable and survivable diagnosis than autism. being that were 2 years apart. I grew up with him as a norm. so to see such a surreal example of how something like that can change a families dynamic. change out Gregor's condition with cancer, death, dismemberment, addiction, etc. it is frightening.
over all this. this is why I picked up classical literature. going through them and looking not only at how the world is shaped by them. but how the world had shaped them. an invaluable read I'd say. not for parking what the author means. but rather what it means to you. I'll even go so far as to say the book is less about Gregor or his families metamorphosis; and much more about yours as the reader. definitely one I will come back to at a different point in my life and re-read..
i don't know how to feel.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I’ll never look at a bug the same way.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A fantastic tragic short story
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Great Writing... but, what's the point?
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Strange
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
That being said if I had to critique it I would say there isn't much of a "story" it is simply a description of interesting events. What I mean is that there is no clear arc or catharsis in the story, so if those are important to you, then I wouldn't recommend it. That being said I think as a contemporary reader where this type of narrative catharsis is universal its valuable and interesting to read something that isn't interested in catering to those sensibilities.
Great... but different (In a good way)
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Sort of a downer. I think it loses a lot in the translation, as apparently Kafka's prose in the original German was much of the reason for The Metamorphosis's high literary status.
This is a surrealistic piece which, technically, you could probably call "magical realism." (No explanation is ever given for Gregor's transformation into a giant bug, and no one seems curious about how such a thing could happen. They're just all rather distressed by the whole thing without ever really talking about it.
Frankly, as a story it was a bit flat and anti-climactic, and if there is some deeper meaning, I'm afraid I missed it. Would probably enjoy it more if I read it in the original German.
So this guy wakes up as a bug...
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
old scifi is so different
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.