I have finished reading a book recently. The title is "The Metamorphosis" written by Franz Kafka. I tried to read it in English. it was a little difficult for me. I managed to follow the story, but did not understand descriptions in detail as if I was reading sentences lacking adjectives, adverbs and lots of prepositions. As I am lacking of sense of reading, I'd not have understood the story fully if I had read it even in Japanese.
The brief story is following.
As Gregor Samsa awoke from uneasy dreams one morning, he found himself in his bed transformed into a gigantic insect. He was a travelling salesman and had to go to work that morning. However he could not get up and go out from his room. His boss came to his house in order to take him to the office. The boss, his mother and sister were standing in front of a door of his room and opened the door. As they had seen his ugly transformation, the boss left the house immediately and his mother was shocked. However his father was not interested in him. As transformed Gregor had not worked since then, the family, especially his sister, had to take care of him. To make matters worse, nobody earned in the family, so they had to rent their room. It was too much of a burden for the sister and family to take care of the gigantic insect. One day three lodgers had found Gregor and they told the father that they would leave the house. So the family quarrelled over Gregor. They could no longer take care of him. The sister insisted that Gregor was no longer human. That night Gregor passed away. His death resulted in the greatest improvement of the family's situation. They had changed their house, their future seemed to be brilliant.
There is no explanations why Gregor transformed and What insect he was like. I can guess the insect could be a cockroach which is hated by many people. I think the author wanted to describe an ugly insect as a metaphor for a person who had depression, became mentally disabled or needed special care. Sad to say, an insect is no longer human, it does not have any contact point with society. The last hope is only his family. If the insect were not expected to recover in spite of his family's devoted care, the family could be exhausted physically and mentally. Finally they might abandon the insect. This is a very ugly aspect of humanity, which the author wanted to express in the story. One more thing I noticed is that Gregor and his father was somehow apart in the entire story. If Gregor had got along with his father, he would not have died or transformed.
31.8.07
27.8.07
My grandfather
This month my grandfather passed away at the age of 88. I would like to think of him.
He was born in Hiroshima in 1919. He was 2 year younger than President Kennedy. He had been good at Classical Chinese when he was student. He wanted to be a high school teacher of Classical Chinese. However, he couldn't. World war Ⅱ and tuberculosis forced him to give up his career as a teacher. He spent his 20s in China as a soldier. He used to tell me about the war and how the Japanese army was ridiculous. When he was talking to me, he often said, "You can do anything you want because there are no longer wars in Japan." He emphasised that a war destroys future of young people. I think he'd have been a good teacher if the war had not happened. After the war he returned to Hiroshima, but he could not find a job. He often said, "A soldier never gets a proper job in time of peace, he can just murder." Finally he decided to leave Hiroshima and went to Tokyo in order to find a job. He worked at a factory until he was 50. At the age of 50 he suddenly quit his job
though his sons were still teens. However he had enough money to feed them. He had got a lot of money, but his life was absolutely frugal.
For the rest of his life he engaged in ploughing a field for vegetables. He had been going to his 20 Km remote field by bicycle every weekdays and grew vegetables for more than 30 years. I can remember that I had plenty of organic vegetables he grew such as tomatoes, cucumbers, corn, broad bean, white radishes and so on. Thanks for his vegetables, I hardly ever ate junk food in my childhood when first food companies had been landing in Japan from the U.S. For last few years he had got a small allotment nearby his house and he was ploughing it until this month.
He read books for his entire life. He not only read books in Japanese and Classical Chinese books, but also he has subscribed to an English magazine Newsweek for more than 10 years. I think he could not speak and listening English, but he could read it better than me. We found his very worn-out 3 English dictionaries when we were preparing for his funeral. At his funeral my father put the latest Newsweek and one of his dictionary into his coffin. I got the other dictionaries as a memento of him. He had been studying until he passed away. I learned from him that I have to continue studying and even getting older. I am proud of him and I would like to live as well as him.
He was born in Hiroshima in 1919. He was 2 year younger than President Kennedy. He had been good at Classical Chinese when he was student. He wanted to be a high school teacher of Classical Chinese. However, he couldn't. World war Ⅱ and tuberculosis forced him to give up his career as a teacher. He spent his 20s in China as a soldier. He used to tell me about the war and how the Japanese army was ridiculous. When he was talking to me, he often said, "You can do anything you want because there are no longer wars in Japan." He emphasised that a war destroys future of young people. I think he'd have been a good teacher if the war had not happened. After the war he returned to Hiroshima, but he could not find a job. He often said, "A soldier never gets a proper job in time of peace, he can just murder." Finally he decided to leave Hiroshima and went to Tokyo in order to find a job. He worked at a factory until he was 50. At the age of 50 he suddenly quit his job
though his sons were still teens. However he had enough money to feed them. He had got a lot of money, but his life was absolutely frugal.
For the rest of his life he engaged in ploughing a field for vegetables. He had been going to his 20 Km remote field by bicycle every weekdays and grew vegetables for more than 30 years. I can remember that I had plenty of organic vegetables he grew such as tomatoes, cucumbers, corn, broad bean, white radishes and so on. Thanks for his vegetables, I hardly ever ate junk food in my childhood when first food companies had been landing in Japan from the U.S. For last few years he had got a small allotment nearby his house and he was ploughing it until this month.
He read books for his entire life. He not only read books in Japanese and Classical Chinese books, but also he has subscribed to an English magazine Newsweek for more than 10 years. I think he could not speak and listening English, but he could read it better than me. We found his very worn-out 3 English dictionaries when we were preparing for his funeral. At his funeral my father put the latest Newsweek and one of his dictionary into his coffin. I got the other dictionaries as a memento of him. He had been studying until he passed away. I learned from him that I have to continue studying and even getting older. I am proud of him and I would like to live as well as him.
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