on The Metamorphosis
"Of course, no matter how keenly, how admirably, a story, a piece of music, a picture is discussed and analyzed, there will be minds that remain blank and spines that remain unkindled. ‘To take upon us the mystery of things’—what King Lear so wistfully says for himself and for Cordelia—this is also my suggestion for everyone who takes art seriously. A poor man is robbed of his overcoat (Gogol’s ‘The Greatcoat,’ or more correctly ‘The Carrick’); another poor fellow is turned into a beetle (Kafka’s ‘The Metamorphosis’)—so what? There is no rational answer to ’so what.’ We can take the story apart, we can find out how the bits fit, how one part of the pattern responds to the other; but you have to have in you some cell, some gene, some germ that will vibrate in answer to sensations that you can neither define, nor dismiss."
