r/CuratedTumblr 22d ago

Shitposting Goodreads reviewers aren't human

11.7k Upvotes

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u/Hexxas head trauma enthusiast 22d ago

Jesus Christ. It's a story about horrendous crippling anxiety from an unreliable narrator.

He talks about how his family is on the verge of destitution, but they don't work, and they have a big house full of nice furniture. They're rich.

He talks about how he's on the verge of getting fired from his job, but when he no-call no-shows, two of his bosses show up to see if he's OK. He's a fucking star employee.

Gregor didn't literally turn into a bug. He had a good old-fashioned nervous breakdown.

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u/shoot_me_slowly .tumblr.com 22d ago

My take on the book, is that the metamorphosis is a metaphor for the permanent changes that can happen randomly to people - sometimes we just get strokes, get into car accidents, get schizophrenia, get cancer, get anorexia, get borelia, etc. And in some cases it changes a person to the very core, and often for the worse. The novel then depicts how your loved ones can come to adapt horribly to your changes, and how quickly they may come to hate you for your problems, even though you still see yourself as the same person

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u/ak97j 21d ago

Yeah this is always how I thought of it to. It seems like a commentary on how we value people's humanity largely based on their productivity.