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Kafka's Roach — Marc Estrin
As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from disturbing dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into an enormous cockroach.
This, the most famous opening sentence of modern literature. And this, the most famous closing sentence of modern thought:
What we cannot speak of, of that we must be silent.
Between the two, there passed a life, Gregor Samsa's life. It was not the life many suppose a short life, a filthy life, a gathering of dust, a festering wound, a dessicated death. Franz Kafka knew only what he knew, and his famous 1915 report disclosed all it could. But Kafka's early death not only deprived us of a gifted writer; it also kept him, and all of us, from knowing the full story of Gregor Samsa, a life stranger than fiction, and worthy of contemplation.
This, the most famous opening sentence of modern literature. And this, the most famous closing sentence of modern thought:
What we cannot speak of, of that we must be silent.
Between the two, there passed a life, Gregor Samsa's life. It was not the life many suppose a short life, a filthy life, a gathering of dust, a festering wound, a dessicated death. Franz Kafka knew only what he knew, and his famous 1915 report disclosed all it could. But Kafka's early death not only deprived us of a gifted writer; it also kept him, and all of us, from knowing the full story of Gregor Samsa, a life stranger than fiction, and worthy of contemplation.
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