It has taken me two readings, and some help from AI, to start understanding the depth of this novella. When I first read this story in February 2013, I wrote :
Maybe it’s the translation, but I found this much touted novel to fall well short of awesome that I was expecting it to be. I get the metaphor, I liked the story telling and I was even surprised that someone who finds roaches so thoroughly disgusting could feel sympathy for one (albeit a human one). I guess that a big part of the respect for this novella is because of the metaphor, but I found it a bit too weakly developed to be that impactful.
Once again in June 2025, I read through this as a straight narrative. In the back of my head I was conscious of the allegory, but I didn’t truly appreciate it. At times I did think to myself, ‘I am rooting for this insect, I am mad at his family, I want to yell at them for siding with the “three serious men” who they brought in as lodgers, though this whole thing is just absurd’. Head smack! That’s the greatness of this piece, you dummy!
And then I had AI spell it out to me. Ah! The isolation, alienation and dehumanization of individuals, the coldness of society, the transactional nature of relationships – I see. I finally get it now. And the understated language and mundane details with which Kafka manages to paint a vivid picture of this grotesque, absurd narrative is masterful indeed.
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