'vermin'

>'vermin'

what the fuck is this and how did it get published?

Pretty sure that's the translation I read, it's actually not bad.

The vermin translations are the better ones you twonk.

this feels like some google translate shit

>*ungeheures* Ungeziefer
www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bhoWfC1L9k

Thank God I was raised in Germany

What kind of wonky shit is that I can't even

Stick to your Hemingway Americunts

Dude this is the Norton critical edition, I have the same one. Translator is Stanley Corngold. I doubt norton would use shit translation

>"woke up" instead of "awoke"
Garbage. Please only read the Edwin and Willa Muir translation. All the others are second rate.

I mean that the flow feels a bit awkward, like the translater is trying to emulate the German way of putting together sentences to build suspense.

>Edwin and Willa Muir translation
The worst of the insect translations, the gigantic insect translation. Holy shit.

Another good line from there:
>He was lying on his hard, as it were armor-plated

Thank God I don't read for the prose.

Also, does it matter if it is vermin or insect? He is described as a giant armor plated insect with mandibles and many short legs.

"Vermin" can be insects.

>MOM'S GONNA FREAK

The word in German can mean things like mice and bugs. In most respects bug is a good translation, except that we're not meant to know outright that Gregor is an insect, so vermin is about the next best.

P much in the German the only lines that seem to be directly saying he's an insect are where the carer lady calls him a little dungbeetle.

Maybe he meant VERMONT XD

>He is described as a giant armor plated insect with mandibles and many short legs.
The number of little arms and legs is never said, and it's armor like.

He has something like armor covering his body. Like an insect.

...

This just shows how much like a fucking weeaboo Nabakov was.

Like an insect, fine. Is an insect, not fine.

If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck it is probably a duck.

He could be an armadillo or a pangolin. They are covered in armor and have little legs.

He has a mandible.

>look guys, I really want Kafka to be super straightforward so can we just agree to some bullshit for me
No.

This is also true. It's a very mysterious transformation really, and much better when you don't just make him a cockroach or some shit.

We all have mandibles.

What do you picture him as?

Also, the book is more enjoyable if you picture him as an adorable armadillo instead of a gross bug.

>My opinion on literature is worth as much as one of the greatest authors of all time

Wew lad

>implying vermin isn't the correct translation

Kafka made it clear he didn't want people to try and put an image of Gregor on the cover because he knew every fuckface would make him some kinda bug. Kafka wanted something much less recognizable.

He sort of has a bunch of wavy useless limbs, like a centipede had mouse or frog like legs. I think of his big belly more like someone with liver failure too. When you remember he still sort of thinks he's human it's a lot more compelling than magic bug man.

Does being a great author give him some kind of superhuman ability to read the minds of other authors?

Maybe he shouldn't have described a fucking bug then.

I think the decision not to put the bug on the cover is more because it isn't important what turned into, not because not knowing what he turned into is important

>author is too uncreative to come up with anything more weird and gross than a bug
>after the fact tries to force people to visualize something better than a bug because he knows it's lame
>it never catches on because he explicitly described a bug in the opening paragraph so literally everyone who reads it imagine a bug

What a moron.

>>author is too uncreative to come up with anything more weird and gross than a bug
the word translates to treyf, it's something worse than a bug. some bugs are kosher

That's actually one of the better translations

damn dog spoiler alert

I always wondered about this, because outright saying 'dude he's a bug lmao' in the first line always came off as dumb to me.

>all of those fucking needless annotations

best way to spot a shitty edition

Ungeziefer means "vermin", you pseud.

>All of Kafka's family got gassed in the holocaust
Franz... had a hard life

I don't get it. What's the fucking problem?