Written in 1912, The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka remains a remarkably modern parable for gaining insight into one’s true nature—that is, if you have the guts. While Kafka wasn’t famous in his lifetime, his legacy is rich. 

For how I see the essence of this tale, read Kafka and I: Angst for the Memories inside the main site gallery.

The following excerpt “Gregor Samsa and Modern Spirituality by Martin Greenberg” is from the book Franz Kafka’s the Metamorphosis by Harold Bloom; Chelsea House, 1988.

The mother follow’d, weeping loud,
“0, that I such a fiend should bear!”

—BLAKE

In the Middle Ages it was the temporal which was the inessential in relation to spirituality; in the nineteenth century the opposite occurred: the temporal was primary and the spiritual was the inessential parasite which gnawed away at it and tried to destroy it.

—SARTRE

The Metamorphosis is peculiar as a narrative in having its climax in the very first sentence: “As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.” The rest of the novella falls away from this high point of astonishment in one long expiring sigh, punctuated by three subclimaxes (the three eruptions of the bug from the bedroom). How is it possible, one may ask, for a story to start at the climax and then merely subside? What kind of story is that?

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We’ve heard this before: Wherever you go, there you are.

There is much to learn from this declaration. As Deepak Chopra points out: You are your attention. You are where your attention takes you. If your attention is in the past, then you are in the past; if your attention is in the future, then you are in the future; if your attention is on courage, then you are encouraged; if your attention is on fear, then you are afraid—and so on.

Better to be in the present moment and have your attention on God as you move through the eternal matrix we call life.

After all, as the cosmic tick tock clicks away, who better to model your self after than the Creator of every thing.

Yet another word worth extracting from your vocabulary is “just” in the sense of meaning “and nothing more.”

Just has its place in the realm of meaning moral excellence or justice.

The just I’m ferreting out makes sentences flat by stripping away liveliness with a self-effacing facade. “I’m just calling.” “I’m just trying to find out.” “I’m just wondering if this or that.” “I was just too upset.”

Why is this observation important? If you want to say “just” on purpose, that’s okay. If, however, you are a “just” abuser and unaware of your habit, then clearing it up will make you a more direct and powerful communicator.

After some practice, you will see that this exercise in self-control is a just cause.

You may recall the line: If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.

One of the most difficult and most liberating of challenges is giving up judgments about this and that.

I don’t mean to give up your sense of morality or what is ethically good—treat your neighbor as you would have him treat you.

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Excerpt from: But is It Art?: The Value of Art and the Temptation of Theory
Book by B. R. Tilghman; B. Blackwell, 1984.

For more on But is It Art, visit Questia —the online library for research.

A persistent feature of the last hundred and more years of art history has been the seasonal recurrence of what Ian Dunlop has labeled The Shock of the New.

On any number of occasions during this period the artworld has been shocked by the appearance of avant garde movements that have seemed to challenge artistic traditions and prevailing conceptions of art. One thinks immediately of the impact made by the first impressionist showings, the fauves, the post-impressionist, the surrealists, and so on. Professional critics and casual gallerygoers alike have been disturbed and puzzled by these new developments that they did not know what to make of.

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