Episode 169: A Bug's Life (Kafka's "The Metamorphosis")

[00:00:00] Very Bad Wizards is a podcast with a philosopher, my dad, and psychologist, David Pizarro, having

[00:00:06] an informal discussion about issues and science and ethics.

[00:00:09] Please note that the discussion contains bad words that I'm not allowed to say, and knowing

[00:00:14] my dad, some very inappropriate jokes.

[00:00:17] I know a fence somewhere that's a weak ass thinking.

[00:00:20] You equivocating like a motherfucker.

[00:01:07] Welcome to Very Bad Wizards, I'm Tamler Sommers from the University of Houston.

[00:01:15] Dave, today we're going to talk about death anxiety, insomnia, and Kafkas metamorphosis.

[00:01:21] Are we slowly turning into anti-natalists?

[00:01:25] I mean, to deal with this depression that comes from my death anxiety, I feel like

[00:01:32] I'm slowly but surely getting there.

[00:01:35] I mean, you were halfway there anyway.

[00:01:38] I mean, I'm just sitting all afternoon, just sitting in my chair reading this shit and

[00:01:42] just like fighting back panic attacks.

[00:01:46] And me?

[00:01:47] I'm like, I was weeping.

[00:01:49] I've never wept.

[00:01:51] Like, I don't remember weeping when I've read something like I did the end of metamorphosis

[00:01:58] both times.

[00:01:59] You don't cry easily.

[00:02:01] Yeah?

[00:02:02] I don't cry at sad things easily.

[00:02:05] I cry very easily at happy things when I cry at art or entertainment.

[00:02:12] It's because either something really happy and moving happened maybe that involves

[00:02:19] parents and children and families.

[00:02:22] If something is just really good, if something is really well done, that makes me tear up.

[00:02:27] But not like deep, deep sadness where I'm trying to figure out what is evoking this

[00:02:35] emotion in me.

[00:02:36] Not like that that I can remember.

[00:02:39] Yeah, I cry so easily that my daughter mocks me.

[00:02:44] Like we would be watching like even when she was little.

[00:02:47] If I watched like a tender episode of the Justice League animated series.

[00:02:52] Yeah.

[00:02:52] And she yeah, she would like turn and be like, are you crying?

[00:02:56] Just clearly.

[00:02:57] Same thing, like, but you know, like Simpsons, I would cry at the end of like 50% of Simpsons episodes.

[00:03:04] Yeah, but I also do get come to tears when I see like the first, but my sister took me

[00:03:10] to to Europe when I went for the first time and we went to museums and you get to see

[00:03:16] like all this Renaissance art that you've seen so many times, you know, in books

[00:03:21] and on TV and seeing it in person was literally bringing me to tears.

[00:03:26] And my sister was the fuck is wrong with you.

[00:03:28] Where's the bathroom?

[00:03:32] Like slapping you in the face.

[00:03:34] Yeah, be a man.

[00:03:36] Now, that's how my daughter is too.

[00:03:38] And it's funny because she's, you know, like especially sometimes little kids,

[00:03:42] they'll cry, but they don't cry about this sentimental stuff.

[00:03:45] And you're right, right, right.

[00:03:47] It requires like some some years of just like hard living.

[00:03:54] But but on the other hand, if there's a like, if there's a dog in anything that

[00:03:59] that something that like I cannot still to this day, she's 14, I can't show her

[00:04:03] something with it that's sad with a dog.

[00:04:05] That yeah, me neither.

[00:04:07] In fact, she won't see John Wick because beginning of that.

[00:04:13] And there are movies like great movies that she swears that she hates because

[00:04:19] like a dog and even if it's the most like incidental thing in the story,

[00:04:26] she will. Yeah.

[00:04:28] Yeah, we have we have similar interactions.

[00:04:32] I used to tell her all the time, like, won't you care that much about

[00:04:35] like starving kids?

[00:04:36] You know, she was just she doesn't give a fuck.

[00:04:39] No, I know.

[00:04:39] And they are not feeling guilty.

[00:04:41] They don't know feel guilty about not giving a fuck.

[00:04:44] It's like.

[00:04:48] Oh, well, one day, one day when those years catch up to them, they're

[00:04:52] reminiscing.

[00:04:53] They'll learn.

[00:04:56] Are you surprised at my tears, sir?

[00:05:00] You fucking.

[00:05:02] Strong men also cry.

[00:05:06] Strong men also cry.

[00:05:10] So so let's let's get right to the anxiety, I guess.

[00:05:15] Let's get.

[00:05:15] Yeah, let's get to this paper, which looks like it was written for

[00:05:20] for you, especially.

[00:05:22] Yeah, I feel like I was they just surveyed me 245 times.

[00:05:28] Life is short.

[00:05:29] Stay awake.

[00:05:30] Death, anxiety and bedtime procrastination by you can do the names.

[00:05:37] Oh, damn it.

[00:05:38] I didn't practice this.

[00:05:39] These are Turkish authors.

[00:05:41] Turk, Arslan, OK, Severim and Bozo.

[00:05:48] I'm sure that was 100 percent perfect.

[00:05:51] Kutlu, Kagan, Turk Lars Lars and Dennis OK.

[00:05:57] Yeah.

[00:05:58] Mustafa, Severim, Oslem, Bozo.

[00:06:02] Yeah.

[00:06:03] Yeah.

[00:06:04] They're kind of calm.

[00:06:05] OK and Bozo.

[00:06:09] They fake their names, too.

[00:06:11] Is the Journal of General Psychology.

[00:06:13] Is this a good journal?

[00:06:18] I've never heard of it.

[00:06:19] So doesn't mean a good paper can't be published in it, but I've never heard of it.

[00:06:23] OK.

[00:06:25] Yeah, yeah, could could be decent, could be paid to publish.

[00:06:28] Who knows? Nowadays, everything's on the Internet.

[00:06:30] I don't even pay attention to what it's in.

[00:06:32] You know.

[00:06:33] So you're going to describe the paper, but basically it tries to make a connection

[00:06:36] between bedtime procrastination and death anxiety.

[00:06:42] Yeah, I mean, it's fairly straightforward and simple.

[00:06:45] So so an online survey, they surveyed

[00:06:49] two hundred and forty five participants and they gave them a number of measures

[00:06:55] which included a measure of death anxiety and a measure of of bedtime

[00:07:00] procrastination, bedtime procrastination scale, death attitudes, profile, purpose

[00:07:07] in life, brief self-control scale, circadian energy scale, Pittsburgh sleep quality index.

[00:07:14] So the idea, the core idea comes from terror management theory,

[00:07:19] where the view is that we as as animals who know we're going to die,

[00:07:26] right, human beings.

[00:07:27] This is what characterizes the human condition for for terror management theory

[00:07:34] that states like sleep are are kind of like death, at least reminiscent of death.

[00:07:42] So anything like going into a coma or going to an operation or or just being

[00:07:46] unconscious for any amount of time would be a potent reminder that we are

[00:07:51] limited and as the authors propose, perhaps people realize that every minute

[00:07:59] spent asleep is a minute less of life that we have.

[00:08:04] And one of the things they point out is is that that over time sleep,

[00:08:08] the average sleep has gone way down.

[00:08:09] So it used to be nine hours a night on average, like whatever,

[00:08:13] fifty hundred years ago, and now it's more like seven.

[00:08:16] But then they talk about sleep procrastination, which is just dilly

[00:08:19] dallying as I my daughter was often wanted to do before bed.

[00:08:25] Just you're doing everything you can to not go to sleep.

[00:08:27] So let's let's pretend that you're a subject.

[00:08:30] You get you're going to get a few scales.

[00:08:32] Death attitudes, profile revised.

[00:08:34] So here is one of the items there.

[00:08:37] These are dimensional, so seven point scale.

[00:08:41] I am disturbed by the finality of death.

[00:08:44] So you rate this from one strongly disagree to seven strongly agree.

[00:08:49] I don't know, kind of disagree.

[00:08:50] So whatever that would be.

[00:08:52] So like a four is the middle.

[00:08:53] So three.

[00:08:54] Three is. Yeah, I am two or three.

[00:08:56] I'm at a seven. I'm at a seven.

[00:09:00] So a bunch of questions like that and then a few other things.

[00:09:03] So here's a circadian energy scale.

[00:09:06] In general, how is your energy level in the morning,

[00:09:09] in the evening or in the afternoon on a five point scale?

[00:09:11] So what would you say morning, evening, afternoon?

[00:09:15] Well, it depends, you know, like what how much of a drink.

[00:09:19] And how yeah, like what other drugs play to roll in?

[00:09:24] Yeah, how much sleep?

[00:09:25] I mean, this is part of my problem.

[00:09:27] Like I couldn't I don't think I could answer any of these questions

[00:09:31] with any kind of reliability.

[00:09:34] Maybe, I mean, look, there is

[00:09:37] there is clearly a true difference

[00:09:39] between your death anxiety and mine. Right. Yes.

[00:09:41] So so to the extent that we could track this across people.

[00:09:45] Yeah, you know, it's but it's always a rough

[00:09:47] a rough indicator, I think, as you're pointing out.

[00:09:51] The the key finding here, which is we've already given it too much time

[00:09:54] because it's a very, very simple finding.

[00:09:56] And that is that that for men.

[00:10:01] So this is this is one of the things that is suspicious.

[00:10:04] But only for men does death anxiety

[00:10:07] correlate with bedtime procrastination.

[00:10:10] So so the more you report that you are anxious about dying,

[00:10:16] the more likely you are to dilly-dally before going to bed.

[00:10:19] And they report this as some evidence for the link between

[00:10:23] between sleep as as a reminder of death

[00:10:28] and this individual difference in death anxiety.

[00:10:31] So I don't know why they try they try to say they try to explain why

[00:10:37] they try to explain why for women this wouldn't be the case.

[00:10:40] And I don't I don't know.

[00:10:44] Well, no, they give yeah, they give an explanation that women are

[00:10:48] men's lifespan is shorter than women's.

[00:10:50] Oh, consequently, that time procrastination could be even more risky

[00:10:54] for males because it leads to insufficient sleep and fatigue.

[00:10:57] Yeah, yeah, it's it's a lot of hand waving.

[00:11:00] This is exactly the sort of thing

[00:11:02] that pre-registration is important about because if you start splitting the data

[00:11:07] after the fact and I'm not, I don't know if they

[00:11:09] it doesn't say that they pre-registered this.

[00:11:11] But but this one is a no-no when when you start dividing up the right.

[00:11:18] So if you start dividing up the sample into men versus women or older versus

[00:11:22] younger, you're going to find something eventually.

[00:11:26] So I don't know.

[00:11:27] I like just the idea reminds me, you know, there's a great

[00:11:30] nausea lyric I never sleep because sleep is the cousin of death.

[00:11:33] Yeah. Yeah.

[00:11:35] Yeah.

[00:11:36] That's interesting.

[00:11:36] I didn't even think of that, that they probably didn't get a significant

[00:11:40] result and then looked at the data.

[00:11:43] Well, what happens if we split up men and women and then they would get

[00:11:47] a significant result?

[00:11:48] And so they chose that.

[00:11:51] Yeah.

[00:11:51] And yeah, and that's a cast of spursions, but that's just the way

[00:11:55] for a long time people did all their analyses.

[00:11:57] So yeah, you know, maybe Brian Nozick in the open science movement

[00:12:01] hasn't hit them yet.

[00:12:02] Don't you say if you've pre-registered a hypothesis?

[00:12:05] You would. Yeah.

[00:12:06] Yeah.

[00:12:07] They it would be behoove you to in this case.

[00:12:10] So I have I had a somewhat strong reaction to this.

[00:12:15] And and I was so I have this idea for a new book, which I'm not

[00:12:19] ready to talk about yet.

[00:12:21] But it made me go back and listen to our episode on which

[00:12:27] discipline is more fucked philosophy or psychology.

[00:12:31] And I was you were arguing for philosophy.

[00:12:33] I was arguing for psychology being more fucked.

[00:12:36] And my main argument there wasn't about the replication crisis

[00:12:42] or data mining like this might have been, but it was like a

[00:12:46] deeper concern that the underlying assumptions of what

[00:12:53] many psychologists are doing at the core level, the fundamental

[00:12:58] level using experimental methods to try to explain highly

[00:13:03] complex phenomena or features of human nature or the human mind

[00:13:08] that there was something perhaps fatally flawed about it.

[00:13:14] Because these methods controlled experiments modeled on the

[00:13:17] hard sciences, they can't do that.

[00:13:21] They can't capture something that complex and messy as

[00:13:25] death anxiety or or even maybe bedtime procrastination sleep

[00:13:32] procrastination.

[00:13:34] And there's certainly not able to do it in a fine grain enough

[00:13:39] way that could allow you to explain one in terms of the

[00:13:43] other.

[00:13:43] So this one they got their samples from social media and

[00:13:46] their university itself reports on everything as if all

[00:13:51] these things are transparent to us, right?

[00:13:54] Like and that we can reliably express the actual phenomenon

[00:14:01] using like art scales.

[00:14:03] It just seems like a mismatch of method and thing you're

[00:14:07] trying to explain.

[00:14:09] And yeah, and this strikes me as something that is doomed

[00:14:14] not just at the sort of technical nitpicky level that

[00:14:18] people like Brian Nozick and Sanjay Shravastava.

[00:14:23] Is that my pronouncing that right?

[00:14:25] Yeah.

[00:14:26] And YOL in some moods and yeah, I mean, they have done a

[00:14:32] good job reforming that.

[00:14:34] But this criticism is something that even if you got

[00:14:39] your act together about some of those kinds of problems

[00:14:43] the P hacking, the data mining and all that, you would

[00:14:46] still have this potential problem.

[00:14:49] And I'm not sure.

[00:14:51] But like something like these phenomena, like

[00:14:53] these things are really hard to get your mind around.

[00:14:57] And I just don't think experiment controlled experiments

[00:15:00] using, you know, weird samples and all of that are the

[00:15:04] way to do it.

[00:15:06] OK, but you're you're pointing to two and you know,

[00:15:09] it's not like I'm not sympathetic to this this

[00:15:11] possibility, but I think that you've not even explained

[00:15:13] what it is that the fatal fly is because in your

[00:15:16] explanation you keep pointing to the technical aspects.

[00:15:19] So weird samples, self report scales.

[00:15:22] Right.

[00:15:23] The complexity of measurement and the stability of measures,

[00:15:27] the non transparency of some of these things to people.

[00:15:31] Yeah.

[00:15:31] What do you mean by non transparent?

[00:15:33] Like it's just not transparent to us.

[00:15:35] How like, oh, you mean we don't have access to it?

[00:15:37] Yeah.

[00:15:38] In proposing those those kinds of criticisms, those are

[00:15:41] all somewhat fixable.

[00:15:43] So you could have as we do very decent behavioral

[00:15:48] measures of sleep procrastination.

[00:15:49] Right. So you could actually just say at what time did

[00:15:53] you decide that you're going to go to bed and how long

[00:15:55] did it take for you to get from from there to

[00:15:58] to actually go to bed and you could find that on average,

[00:16:00] some people take 30 minutes and on average, some people

[00:16:02] take five minutes.

[00:16:03] Like it's not intractable in that sense.

[00:16:05] And you could, for instance, find using a reliable

[00:16:08] measure that sleep procrastination was correlated

[00:16:11] with something else of importance, like what time

[00:16:13] you get up or how alert do you feel in a completely

[00:16:16] subjective way?

[00:16:17] Like you could find that and that would be an

[00:16:20] actual finding.

[00:16:22] Right.

[00:16:22] So there are a lot of really complex technical

[00:16:25] hurdles in the complexity of something like, like

[00:16:28] I'm fully on board with that.

[00:16:29] So you could say like, well, there's a

[00:16:31] gazillion things that are influencing how awake

[00:16:34] I feel in the morning.

[00:16:35] Yeah.

[00:16:35] But then I'm awake and I can kind of report

[00:16:37] that this morning I feel more energetic than

[00:16:39] than yesterday morning.

[00:16:40] That doesn't seem intractable to me.

[00:16:42] No.

[00:16:43] But connecting that to your anxiety about death,

[00:16:47] that's the link that I'm saying is might be

[00:16:51] in principle with the methods that are even

[00:16:54] like really good methods that are available

[00:16:57] to social psychologists.

[00:17:00] That might not be.

[00:17:01] That might not be just something that you can

[00:17:04] you can draw any kind of insight from and

[00:17:07] certainly not as much as you could draw through

[00:17:10] other forms of inquiry through a more

[00:17:12] descriptive study or just a work of art

[00:17:15] or something like that, that would be

[00:17:18] more enlightening than this.

[00:17:20] Yeah.

[00:17:21] Well, a more descriptive study would you

[00:17:24] you might fall prey to the same kind of

[00:17:26] sort of like you have no access to

[00:17:29] to your actual death anxiety.

[00:17:31] Like an interview might not do any better

[00:17:33] at pulling that out.

[00:17:34] But there would be less pretense to

[00:17:38] you know, if William James wrote about this,

[00:17:41] you wouldn't feel like this was

[00:17:48] you would understand that this is from

[00:17:49] his perspective based on his observations

[00:17:52] of human nature and maybe interviews or

[00:17:54] maybe, but it wouldn't be it wouldn't

[00:17:57] have this pretense to this is a study

[00:17:59] and a finding and a result that we

[00:18:02] have to take seriously.

[00:18:03] Yeah.

[00:18:04] But calling it pretense is begging

[00:18:07] the question a bit.

[00:18:07] It's only pretense if you think that

[00:18:09] there's something flawed about it.

[00:18:10] And I'm not sure like in many cases,

[00:18:13] like look, so death anxiety specifically,

[00:18:16] that's a tough one.

[00:18:17] Like I don't know that I mean, even by

[00:18:19] definition, one day we will actually do

[00:18:22] the denial of death episode that we

[00:18:25] keep promising.

[00:18:26] But that construct, that idea is

[00:18:29] you know, originally was that this is

[00:18:31] an unconscious anxiety that that we're

[00:18:33] not even aware that we're having this

[00:18:35] that that seems doomed.

[00:18:36] So there are plenty of things I think

[00:18:38] that seem doomed to be measured

[00:18:41] through a seven, you know, seven point

[00:18:43] like a scale self report online.

[00:18:46] But there are things that that are

[00:18:48] just nothing but the

[00:18:51] collective set of observations

[00:18:55] and reduction of noise.

[00:18:56] So if I say to you like our youth

[00:18:58] do you have death anxiety and you're

[00:19:00] like, yeah, I think I do.

[00:19:01] Well, now if I say to you like

[00:19:03] compared to other things you're anxious

[00:19:04] about where does death rank?

[00:19:06] And then I ask a whole bunch of other

[00:19:08] people that that's nothing but my

[00:19:09] observation that has become systematic.

[00:19:12] And surely there's some insight and

[00:19:14] truth to some of these methods.

[00:19:16] There's nothing in the method itself

[00:19:17] that is.

[00:19:19] Yeah, I just think when you're trying

[00:19:21] to connect these two things.

[00:19:22] So like think of how simplistic

[00:19:25] this is. OK, why do we put off going

[00:19:28] to sleep?

[00:19:29] Oh, because we're anxious about death

[00:19:31] and we associate sleep with death.

[00:19:33] That must explain it unless you're a

[00:19:35] woman and then you won't have

[00:19:37] that. Like that's just it's never going

[00:19:39] to be like that.

[00:19:40] It's never like that was the

[00:19:42] hypothesis.

[00:19:43] And I think that just shows a fundamental

[00:19:45] misunderstanding of how complex

[00:19:47] human nature is, how varied it is,

[00:19:50] how.

[00:19:51] But but they're saying that this

[00:19:53] explains this very, you know, like

[00:19:55] 2 percent of the variance.

[00:19:56] Like they're not they're not saying

[00:19:57] this explains everything.

[00:19:59] Like and they're not even denying

[00:20:01] that there are 100 things that might

[00:20:02] affect bedtime procrastination.

[00:20:05] They're saying like we found the one.

[00:20:07] And in principle, like I don't I don't

[00:20:08] know why you would deny that that's a

[00:20:10] finding without a good

[00:20:12] reason to say that this is impossible

[00:20:14] to measure.

[00:20:15] Yeah, I guess in some sense, I think

[00:20:18] the burden is not on me.

[00:20:19] The burden is on

[00:20:22] the psychologist to

[00:20:24] justify the assumptions that are

[00:20:26] driving all the on the

[00:20:28] on the research.

[00:20:30] Yeah, this could be a whole episode.

[00:20:31] So we should.

[00:20:33] I mean, I agree.

[00:20:33] I didn't want this to turn into something

[00:20:35] bigger. And like I said, I'm sort of

[00:20:38] this is something I've been thinking

[00:20:40] about in a broader context,

[00:20:42] not just involving psychology.

[00:20:44] We can tease that we're planning on

[00:20:46] doing an episode on

[00:20:50] on the article by Paul Rosin.

[00:20:52] Yeah. And in fact, that was something

[00:20:55] that I think influenced

[00:20:57] I came across it as I was thinking

[00:20:58] of this idea. But I think

[00:21:00] that the as I understand

[00:21:02] that article by Paul Rosin and

[00:21:04] thanks to Mickey Inflate

[00:21:07] for tweeting

[00:21:10] out just a quote from it.

[00:21:11] And what's it called? It's called

[00:21:14] Social Psychology and Science, some lessons

[00:21:16] from Solomon Ash. Yeah.

[00:21:18] And so what I take my criticism

[00:21:20] to be here is a

[00:21:23] is very much in line with the

[00:21:25] criticisms that are

[00:21:27] put forth by Paul Rosin in that

[00:21:29] paper.

[00:21:31] Well, good. I love that paper.

[00:21:32] And I take some.

[00:21:33] I mean, I take these criticisms.

[00:21:35] These are what keep me up at like

[00:21:37] along with death anxiety.

[00:21:38] These are the other things that keep

[00:21:39] me up at night because I worry

[00:21:41] deep. I worry deeply about it.

[00:21:44] I will say this.

[00:21:46] If we are ever to get to a science

[00:21:48] of full, fully understanding human

[00:21:49] behavior, it's going to take

[00:21:50] computational power and

[00:21:53] and complexity that I

[00:21:55] know I can't represent in my mind.

[00:21:57] They'll never be, you know, I was

[00:21:58] just giving a lecture for

[00:22:01] an intro psych class and

[00:22:04] is a video lecture.

[00:22:05] And they were asking me what I

[00:22:07] thought the errors of psychology

[00:22:09] have been like, what are what are

[00:22:10] some of the biggest missteps

[00:22:12] psychology have taken?

[00:22:14] And my thought was that any time

[00:22:15] that you try to explain, like

[00:22:17] whether it be Freud or Skinner

[00:22:19] or or any any of the big

[00:22:21] theorists, anytime you try to

[00:22:22] boil down all of human

[00:22:24] behavior into one

[00:22:26] grand theory, you're going

[00:22:28] to you're going to be wrong.

[00:22:30] I don't even think that that

[00:22:33] we can have very local theories.

[00:22:35] Like I could say like, well, when

[00:22:36] you drink caffeine, you're better at

[00:22:37] a memory test like fine, right?

[00:22:39] Right. Or this visual illusion

[00:22:40] will occur because of the way that

[00:22:41] the visual system is.

[00:22:43] But to try to say anything

[00:22:45] that grand

[00:22:47] like we're just not there.

[00:22:48] We're just not there. So yeah.

[00:22:50] And it might be and this is

[00:22:52] this is again very much in line

[00:22:53] with our discussion.

[00:22:54] It might be that we can't get

[00:22:56] there with the methods that are

[00:22:58] available to us now.

[00:23:00] Maybe our overlords

[00:23:03] will get there.

[00:23:04] Maybe if we are lab experiments

[00:23:07] for some higher being, they

[00:23:09] can understand it.

[00:23:10] You know, I think the real question

[00:23:12] is whether this is even the

[00:23:14] best way of trying

[00:23:16] to understand human age.

[00:23:19] It doesn't have to be the best way.

[00:23:20] It could just be a way

[00:23:21] that offered some insight

[00:23:23] in its own way.

[00:23:24] But again, we should talk about this.

[00:23:26] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:23:27] I will say this like I think at the

[00:23:29] end of the day, I'm an optimist about

[00:23:30] science, but that doesn't mean I'm

[00:23:31] an optimist about the specific

[00:23:33] methods that our science is using.

[00:23:34] Right.

[00:23:35] I think the only way to explain

[00:23:36] natural phenomena will be through

[00:23:38] science, but whether, you know,

[00:23:41] and this will dovetail into the next

[00:23:43] segment, what the way

[00:23:45] it's not even just the explanation

[00:23:46] that might be too like getting at

[00:23:49] the explanation that might be too

[00:23:49] complicated, but even

[00:23:51] communicating the explanation might be

[00:23:52] too complicated. And that's maybe

[00:23:54] why you're pulled

[00:23:55] and I'm pulled to the to the

[00:23:57] artistic, you know, poetic

[00:23:59] way of communicating some deep

[00:24:01] truths, because I'm not sure

[00:24:03] how an experiment could

[00:24:05] could communicate to us.

[00:24:07] Like I'm not sure, you know.

[00:24:09] Yeah, even if there was some sort

[00:24:11] of link, it wouldn't we wouldn't

[00:24:13] be able to communicate it through

[00:24:16] these studies.

[00:24:18] OK, well, that's a good if poetic

[00:24:21] if our we are drawn

[00:24:23] to poetic forms of

[00:24:26] shedding light on human nature,

[00:24:28] let's we will do that when we come

[00:24:30] back with a discussion of Kafka's

[00:24:32] metamorphosis.

[00:24:35] Speaking of methodological

[00:24:36] improvements that your field needs

[00:24:38] to make, we have a new sponsor,

[00:24:40] Dave, and it is prolific.

[00:24:44] Yeah, I'm really excited about this.

[00:24:45] Prolific is a research service.

[00:24:47] So it's a service that allows you

[00:24:48] to collect data from what

[00:24:50] now is consists of a pool

[00:24:52] of 70,000 regularly active

[00:24:54] participants in North and North

[00:24:56] America and Europe.

[00:24:58] And I just want to give a little

[00:24:59] background as to why this is so

[00:25:00] important, but personally

[00:25:01] historically matters to me.

[00:25:03] When I was in grad school in the

[00:25:05] in the mid 90s, we used to have

[00:25:07] to collect participants from

[00:25:08] just our our intro psych

[00:25:10] subject pools.

[00:25:11] So we ended up with studies

[00:25:13] that had like, you know,

[00:25:15] four conditions and 12,

[00:25:16] 12 people per cell.

[00:25:19] That led to some and then

[00:25:21] that would you would make your

[00:25:22] broad general conclusions from

[00:25:23] that about human nature.

[00:25:25] We know about human nature.

[00:25:26] Well, of course, that's that's

[00:25:27] how it works.

[00:25:28] But we are not we are not

[00:25:30] irresponsible like that anymore

[00:25:31] because we have services like

[00:25:33] prolific at our fingertips.

[00:25:35] So once we're able to start

[00:25:36] collecting data on the internet

[00:25:37] and then and then with the use

[00:25:38] of M Turk, but that changed.

[00:25:41] But now we have an even better

[00:25:43] service that's dedicated

[00:25:44] specifically built for

[00:25:45] academic researchers to collect

[00:25:48] quality data.

[00:25:49] Prolific survey takers are regular

[00:25:51] citizens.

[00:25:52] You can quickly recruit people

[00:25:53] like Democrats, Republicans,

[00:25:54] African Americans, young people,

[00:25:56] old people, students, Jewish

[00:25:58] podcasters and the hottest

[00:26:02] demographic.

[00:26:04] And you can pre screen these

[00:26:06] for these participants at no

[00:26:07] additional cost.

[00:26:08] That is some services actually

[00:26:09] charge you more for this, but

[00:26:10] not with prolific prolific.

[00:26:13] I think most important to me

[00:26:15] as a researcher and I have

[00:26:16] students who have used it

[00:26:18] is that they care a lot about

[00:26:19] data quality.

[00:26:20] So they use techniques to improve

[00:26:22] the data quality and screen out

[00:26:24] what might be a bot

[00:26:26] or just bad participants in

[00:26:28] general.

[00:26:29] They they care about weeding out

[00:26:31] professional survey takers.

[00:26:33] They make sure that they

[00:26:33] distribute the surveys evenly

[00:26:35] across all of the people who

[00:26:37] take surveys for them.

[00:26:39] So it offers a lot of

[00:26:40] improvements.

[00:26:40] One other thing they do

[00:26:42] nicely is that you can do

[00:26:44] longitudinal or follow up

[00:26:45] studies with participants fairly

[00:26:47] easily. So if you have a study

[00:26:49] where you want to track people

[00:26:50] at time one and then look at

[00:26:51] the same people again at time

[00:26:52] two, they have really low

[00:26:54] attrition rates.

[00:26:55] So 85 or 90 percent of the

[00:26:56] original participants tend to

[00:26:58] take that study.

[00:26:59] One of the most important

[00:26:59] points is that they are they

[00:27:01] recently introduced the ability

[00:27:03] to get nationally

[00:27:05] representative samples from both

[00:27:06] the US and the UK at the

[00:27:08] click of a button.

[00:27:09] So so as we know, if we

[00:27:12] want to make any conclusions

[00:27:13] about a population, it's good

[00:27:14] to have a representative sample

[00:27:16] of that population.

[00:27:17] And you could do that now

[00:27:18] with prolific and make your

[00:27:19] research more generalizable.

[00:27:21] And we have a very sweet

[00:27:25] deal for our listeners.

[00:27:26] If you go to prolific.co

[00:27:29] slash very bad wizards, you'll

[00:27:32] get a hundred dollars credit

[00:27:34] if you sign up and then top

[00:27:36] up your account with two

[00:27:37] hundred and fifty dollars or

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[00:27:41] So for example, if you top up

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[00:27:44] dollars, you'll have three

[00:27:46] hundred and fifty dollars to

[00:27:47] spend. Or if you top up by a

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[00:27:51] eleven hundred dollars to

[00:27:52] spend. So once again, go to

[00:27:54] prolific.co slash very bad

[00:27:58] wizards and you'll get a

[00:28:00] hundred dollars credit if you

[00:28:01] sign up and fill your account

[00:28:03] with two hundred and fifty

[00:28:04] dollars or more.

[00:28:06] Yeah, thanks to prolific for

[00:28:08] doing this discount.

[00:28:09] We should note is valid for

[00:28:11] July and August only.

[00:28:12] So if you were thinking at

[00:28:14] all about signing up, sign up

[00:28:15] now with this URL.

[00:28:17] Let them know that you came

[00:28:18] from from our podcast and

[00:28:20] thank you prolific for giving

[00:28:22] our listeners this deal.

[00:29:25] Welcome back to very bad

[00:29:26] wizards. This is the time of

[00:29:28] the show when we want to

[00:29:28] express our gratitude.

[00:29:31] And once again, thank you

[00:29:32] everybody so much for all the

[00:29:33] ways in which you keep our

[00:29:35] little community going.

[00:29:37] Keep us going. Keep us

[00:29:38] recording. Seven years

[00:29:40] strong. It's it's

[00:29:43] a little insane to think of.

[00:29:45] But what's also insane is

[00:29:47] just the sheer amount of

[00:29:49] reaching out you guys do.

[00:29:50] And we really, really

[00:29:50] appreciate it. If you want

[00:29:51] to get ahold of us in

[00:29:53] any way, you can email us

[00:29:54] very bad wizards at gmail

[00:29:56] dot com.

[00:29:57] Email makes for a more

[00:30:00] coherent, better understood

[00:30:02] message on our part.

[00:30:04] But chances of reply are higher

[00:30:05] on Twitter, wouldn't you say?

[00:30:06] Statistically, not from me.

[00:30:08] No, maybe not.

[00:30:09] Yeah.

[00:30:11] But that's why we have these

[00:30:12] various methods of getting in

[00:30:13] touch with us. So we appreciate

[00:30:15] them all at Tamler

[00:30:16] at P's or at very bad

[00:30:18] wizards.

[00:30:19] You can join the sub

[00:30:21] Reddit community, which

[00:30:23] reddit dot com slash

[00:30:25] star slash very bad wizards.

[00:30:27] You can that's actually a really

[00:30:28] nice post the other day.

[00:30:29] Did you see it?

[00:30:30] Yeah. Yeah.

[00:30:31] People just talking about

[00:30:33] what they've gotten from listening

[00:30:35] to the podcast in a way that

[00:30:36] I'm totally going to save and

[00:30:38] read when I'm for

[00:30:40] a rainy day.

[00:30:41] When you're feeling anxious

[00:30:43] about death, that'll be my legacy

[00:30:45] like a subreddit discussion.

[00:30:48] You can join a Facebook

[00:30:49] discussion as well.

[00:30:51] Facebook dot com slash very

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[00:30:56] Some fun stuff on Instagram.

[00:30:57] How's that going?

[00:30:58] That's good.

[00:31:00] You know, lies.

[00:31:00] She's she's growing up.

[00:31:02] She's leaving the nest.

[00:31:04] By the way, are we ever going to

[00:31:06] change that intro?

[00:31:07] Do you think that she should

[00:31:08] revamp it or this is going to

[00:31:10] be just in stone for the rest

[00:31:12] of her life?

[00:31:12] I mean, what do you think about

[00:31:13] that? Because

[00:31:15] I like there's something about

[00:31:16] the way the show starts with

[00:31:18] that and then your intro music

[00:31:20] that I feel like it would be

[00:31:21] too weird to change.

[00:31:22] Yeah. At this point, like we

[00:31:23] could do it on as a one off.

[00:31:25] We could change it, but not

[00:31:26] not for good.

[00:31:27] Yeah. I don't know if we can.

[00:31:29] It would just sound like it would

[00:31:30] be jarring to me.

[00:31:32] Like I just love the way

[00:31:33] that transitions.

[00:31:35] I never get tired of the intro

[00:31:36] music either.

[00:31:37] Like the intro music is so good.

[00:31:38] I can't you did that in like a

[00:31:40] night, right?

[00:31:41] It was like seven years ago, eight

[00:31:42] years ago.

[00:31:43] Yeah, I had I had that music

[00:31:45] already. I was fucking around with

[00:31:47] it. And then when when we're

[00:31:48] like, oh, like we're doing this

[00:31:49] podcast, I was like, oh, I could

[00:31:50] just chop up some Wizard of

[00:31:52] Oz into this.

[00:31:53] And and yet turned out way better

[00:31:55] than I ever thought.

[00:31:56] Yeah, that's great.

[00:31:57] Way better than a lot of the

[00:31:58] subsequent beats.

[00:31:59] Thank you, by the way, to

[00:32:00] everybody who's been supportive

[00:32:01] about the beats.

[00:32:03] I released the Beats Without

[00:32:04] Rhymes volume four

[00:32:07] for our Patreon dollar and

[00:32:08] over subscribers finally.

[00:32:10] And thanks for the kind

[00:32:12] words. So yes, if you would

[00:32:14] like to support us in more

[00:32:15] tangible ways, our favorite

[00:32:17] way, probably although we love

[00:32:18] our PayPal donations

[00:32:19] donations is through

[00:32:22] Patreon because it allows

[00:32:24] us to also offer you

[00:32:26] some bonus content in gratitude.

[00:32:28] And in fact, since the

[00:32:30] since the last time we've talked,

[00:32:32] you released your beats and

[00:32:35] we also released the YOL

[00:32:37] with YOL in bar in an episode,

[00:32:39] a bonus episode on two

[00:32:41] Rick and Mortys.

[00:32:42] I can't remember if we brought

[00:32:43] it up last time.

[00:32:44] I can't.

[00:32:45] I was asking you.

[00:32:46] No, so but anyway, there's

[00:32:47] some new stuff there and you

[00:32:49] can always go back and get

[00:32:50] download some of our earlier

[00:32:52] bonus episodes, including

[00:32:54] at least five and a half hours

[00:32:56] of me talking about Twin Peaks

[00:32:59] with Natalia Washington.

[00:33:01] And that's your that's your

[00:33:02] legacy right there.

[00:33:03] That's my yeah.

[00:33:04] And you can also support us

[00:33:06] on PayPal and we know that

[00:33:07] some of you can't do it on

[00:33:08] Patreon.

[00:33:09] And so we really appreciate

[00:33:10] those of you who do it via

[00:33:12] PayPal as well.

[00:33:14] You can do a recurring

[00:33:15] donation there.

[00:33:16] And we really, really

[00:33:18] appreciate it. We're very grateful.

[00:33:20] Yeah, thanks to everybody.

[00:33:22] Just one little because I think

[00:33:24] this is the segment to mention

[00:33:25] it there in Toronto

[00:33:28] in September, I'm going to be

[00:33:29] speaking at BE Works, which

[00:33:30] is the consulting company

[00:33:32] that I work at.

[00:33:33] They put on a yearly

[00:33:34] behavioral

[00:33:36] economics summit.

[00:33:37] So my colleagues

[00:33:40] there at BE Works

[00:33:41] said that if anybody wants

[00:33:43] to sign up for it, now,

[00:33:44] this is behavioral economics

[00:33:46] consulting primarily targeted

[00:33:48] at businesses, but this we're

[00:33:49] going to get a bunch of

[00:33:50] psychologists to come talk.

[00:33:51] I'm going to be one of them.

[00:33:52] So if you want to see me,

[00:33:53] you can sign up there.

[00:33:54] But if any of our listeners

[00:33:55] actually want to go to it,

[00:33:57] you can go to be works.com

[00:33:58] slash summit.

[00:33:59] They actually are giving our

[00:34:01] listeners a discount.

[00:34:02] So you get a 10% discount

[00:34:03] if you put wizards

[00:34:06] into the checkout code.

[00:34:07] But also if you want to see

[00:34:09] me in Toronto in September,

[00:34:11] if you are at all inclined

[00:34:12] to go to that sort of thing,

[00:34:13] come check it out.

[00:34:15] All right.

[00:34:16] So Franz Kafka,

[00:34:18] we've had a bunch of requests

[00:34:20] to do a story by him.

[00:34:22] This was a good place to start

[00:34:23] because it's short.

[00:34:24] Some of our listeners don't

[00:34:25] like to read long works

[00:34:27] understandably.

[00:34:28] You can.

[00:34:30] There is access to a lot

[00:34:31] of versions of this book online,

[00:34:33] including a Benedict Cumberbatch

[00:34:36] audio book version

[00:34:39] that you can find on SoundCloud

[00:34:41] if you search for it.

[00:34:43] All right.

[00:34:43] So there's so much to talk

[00:34:45] about. It's a it's a classic

[00:34:47] classic coming of age tale.

[00:34:49] But but at bottom, right?

[00:34:51] It's like kind of a simple

[00:34:53] and sad story.

[00:34:55] It's about a young man

[00:34:57] who sacrifices himself

[00:34:59] for his father, mother

[00:35:00] and sister.

[00:35:01] He works this mind numbing

[00:35:03] soul crushing job.

[00:35:04] And he does that because

[00:35:05] of his father's debt from

[00:35:07] a failed business.

[00:35:09] And then one morning he turns

[00:35:10] into an insect of some kind,

[00:35:13] some sort of verminous insect.

[00:35:15] And we can talk about the word,

[00:35:16] the German word there, because

[00:35:17] it's a it's a subjective translator

[00:35:19] controversy.

[00:35:21] And so whereas before

[00:35:23] they were kind of parasitic on

[00:35:24] him, he now is the one

[00:35:27] that they have to sacrifice

[00:35:28] for and they do it for a period,

[00:35:31] but they don't want to do it

[00:35:32] for very long.

[00:35:33] They just want him to

[00:35:35] disappear and not be there.

[00:35:36] And in the end when he dies,

[00:35:39] it turns out that

[00:35:40] they're better off.

[00:35:42] And not just better off

[00:35:43] than when he was an insect,

[00:35:44] but better off than they were

[00:35:46] when he was sacrificing

[00:35:47] himself for their benefit.

[00:35:49] So it's a really sad story

[00:35:52] in that sense.

[00:35:53] You know, before we even get

[00:35:55] into the allegory

[00:35:57] allegorical nature of it,

[00:35:58] if you want to go there,

[00:35:59] if you take it literally,

[00:36:00] it's a very sad story,

[00:36:01] not sentimental, but

[00:36:03] but very sad.

[00:36:05] And in that sense,

[00:36:07] I think something that's

[00:36:08] deeply in line with,

[00:36:10] you know, how I associate

[00:36:11] the sadness that runs through

[00:36:14] and the despair

[00:36:15] and the alienation.

[00:36:17] And I mean that not yet in the

[00:36:18] Marxist way that

[00:36:21] his characters feel from the

[00:36:23] world around them, part of

[00:36:24] being a lonely human being

[00:36:26] that feels more and more

[00:36:28] disconnected from from the

[00:36:29] world.

[00:36:32] I like that you're that

[00:36:33] you're pointing to the sadness

[00:36:35] from the get go because

[00:36:37] I feel like at least with me,

[00:36:39] this story, and I read it many,

[00:36:41] many years ago during my little,

[00:36:43] you know, existentialist kick in

[00:36:45] college.

[00:36:46] For me, the story was always

[00:36:48] just about getting

[00:36:50] transformed into an insect.

[00:36:51] Like that's just how the

[00:36:53] story is talked about

[00:36:55] in popular culture and like

[00:36:56] it's but

[00:36:58] on these readings, I think we

[00:37:00] both read them twice this time

[00:37:02] this summer.

[00:37:04] It became so evident that all

[00:37:05] you do is remove that plot

[00:37:07] point.

[00:37:08] It's just a tragedy about a guy

[00:37:09] who's maybe sick, right?

[00:37:11] And is like it does that insect

[00:37:13] part really doesn't matter.

[00:37:14] It's the fantastical part comes

[00:37:17] at the beginning, but the rest

[00:37:18] of the story is just people

[00:37:19] struggling with this with

[00:37:21] a hard circumstance in life.

[00:37:23] Right. Yeah.

[00:37:24] And then also and I remember

[00:37:25] this struck me the first time

[00:37:27] I read it, which was high

[00:37:28] school or college like you,

[00:37:30] the fact that they're

[00:37:31] flourishing

[00:37:33] once he's gone.

[00:37:35] Like that was that was a kind

[00:37:37] of tragic irony

[00:37:39] that I remember really

[00:37:41] I felt deeply when I first

[00:37:43] read it and I felt even more

[00:37:44] deeply.

[00:37:46] Like I said in the opening, like

[00:37:47] I was just weeping at the end

[00:37:49] of this story.

[00:37:52] Both times I read it and I

[00:37:54] don't do that.

[00:37:54] Like that's not something that

[00:37:56] I do. So I probably have to

[00:37:58] like figure out why this

[00:38:00] gets to me and in a way

[00:38:02] that most literature just

[00:38:04] doesn't.

[00:38:05] You're not going to like

[00:38:07] squash a bug for the next couple

[00:38:09] of weeks.

[00:38:11] No, I'm not into that.

[00:38:13] I know that's kind of your

[00:38:14] porn habit.

[00:38:17] But yeah, no, like, yeah, I

[00:38:19] don't want to turn this into

[00:38:20] psychoanalyzing me, but it

[00:38:22] but I do need you to

[00:38:24] figure out by the end of this

[00:38:26] episode, like why this

[00:38:29] touches so much of an earth.

[00:38:30] Let me just say one other

[00:38:31] thing, just briefly

[00:38:33] introducing it.

[00:38:34] It's like a perfectly

[00:38:35] structured piece of art

[00:38:38] and it has three parts

[00:38:40] and in each part you

[00:38:42] start out with this

[00:38:44] somewhat peaceful compared

[00:38:46] to what always happens at the

[00:38:47] end of the part, but it's

[00:38:49] always anxiety kind of

[00:38:50] infused and weird

[00:38:53] beginning and it works

[00:38:55] towards some sort of crisis

[00:38:56] moment where Gregor leaves

[00:38:58] his room

[00:39:00] and the family

[00:39:02] and sometimes other strangers

[00:39:04] are confronted by what he is

[00:39:06] and they react with

[00:39:08] shock, hostility and sometimes

[00:39:09] violence and they drive him

[00:39:11] back into the room.

[00:39:12] So that's every one of the

[00:39:14] parts has

[00:39:15] has that.

[00:39:17] So you want to just go through

[00:39:18] it and yeah, part

[00:39:20] by part and

[00:39:22] let's work our way through it

[00:39:23] because I think this I mean

[00:39:25] just from the from the first

[00:39:26] sentence is amazing.

[00:39:27] So so this was written in

[00:39:29] German in 1915

[00:39:31] language is always going to be

[00:39:32] an issue for a translation

[00:39:34] that that first sentence

[00:39:36] when Gregor, Samsa woke one

[00:39:38] morning from troubled dreams.

[00:39:40] He found himself transformed

[00:39:41] right there in his bed into

[00:39:42] some sort of monstrous insect.

[00:39:44] What an opening and apparently

[00:39:45] Kafka just had that line

[00:39:47] like that that idea popped

[00:39:48] into his head for the story.

[00:39:50] Yeah. Right.

[00:39:51] So insect here, the word I

[00:39:53] guess means some sort of

[00:39:54] unclean animal like

[00:39:56] it evokes insect, but it's

[00:39:57] not it's not precise

[00:39:59] like an insect.

[00:40:00] It could be like a rat.

[00:40:02] It could be just the word.

[00:40:04] Now, I think there's reason to

[00:40:06] think that it's an insect.

[00:40:08] Yeah.

[00:40:09] But and to try and like some

[00:40:11] people translate it into

[00:40:13] monstrous vermin.

[00:40:15] And I don't think that

[00:40:16] that's right.

[00:40:17] Yeah. As we'll see, he's

[00:40:19] on his back and he has little

[00:40:20] little legs floating in the

[00:40:22] air.

[00:40:24] Yeah. And the the Char

[00:40:25] woman calls him an old

[00:40:27] you old dung beetle.

[00:40:29] Dung beetle. That's right.

[00:40:30] So here's what struck me

[00:40:33] when I first read it.

[00:40:34] Here's what struck me on these

[00:40:36] readings, the

[00:40:38] the normalcy with which he

[00:40:40] deals with this realization.

[00:40:42] Yes. Like the absolute

[00:40:44] like, oh, shit, man, I must

[00:40:46] have slept wrong kind of

[00:40:47] attitude that Sam

[00:40:49] Gregor has upon realizing

[00:40:52] that he's transforming an

[00:40:53] insect. What normally would

[00:40:56] would be just a panic

[00:40:58] moment, right? You just

[00:40:59] freak the fuck out.

[00:41:01] He's just wondering like what's

[00:41:03] what's happening to me is

[00:41:05] it's very dreamlike

[00:41:07] nightmare like

[00:41:08] right, like an anxiety

[00:41:10] dream. He's woken up as

[00:41:12] this insect, but really

[00:41:14] what he's worried about is the

[00:41:15] fact that he missed his alarm

[00:41:17] and that he missed his train

[00:41:19] and

[00:41:21] and straight to the mundane

[00:41:23] like directly to the mundane

[00:41:24] and the worrying.

[00:41:26] That's what I mean.

[00:41:26] It's like one of those

[00:41:27] anxiety dreams where

[00:41:29] and and and those don't make

[00:41:31] sense either. It's like you are

[00:41:32] concerned about mundane things,

[00:41:34] the talk you have to give or

[00:41:36] like taking a test or something

[00:41:38] like that. And the fact that

[00:41:40] you're naked in a quad

[00:41:42] or whatever is only noticed

[00:41:44] as a kind of an obstacle to

[00:41:46] the mundane thing that you

[00:41:48] have to do. And that's what

[00:41:49] this is like, right? Like

[00:41:50] he is he does

[00:41:53] notice that he's an insect,

[00:41:55] but the way in which it

[00:41:56] concerns him is only the way

[00:41:58] in which it'll, you know,

[00:42:00] impede him from packing his briefcase

[00:42:02] or from doing even getting

[00:42:04] out of bed. He's like, all right,

[00:42:05] all right, at seven o'clock

[00:42:08] I'm definitely going to get out of

[00:42:09] bed. All right.

[00:42:11] He's like apparently on his back

[00:42:12] and can't move. He's like, all

[00:42:13] right. It's almost just

[00:42:15] like he's he's hung over

[00:42:16] something. He's like, you can

[00:42:18] do this Gregor. You can do this.

[00:42:20] And then you find out you get

[00:42:22] these great Kafka is so good

[00:42:24] at this. Like you get these

[00:42:25] glimpses as to how terrible

[00:42:27] the job is, how much they use

[00:42:29] their workers, how, you know,

[00:42:32] how much he is sacrificed or at

[00:42:34] least he believes he's

[00:42:35] sacrificing for his family.

[00:42:37] And just like he's a traveling

[00:42:38] salesman and I forget where I

[00:42:40] read this that this is like

[00:42:42] he's a traveling salesman.

[00:42:43] And sometimes you wake up in a

[00:42:45] and we can relate to this.

[00:42:46] You wake up in a hotel and

[00:42:48] you don't know where you are

[00:42:50] or what's going on for those

[00:42:51] first moments. It kind of

[00:42:53] evokes that too of this.

[00:42:55] What is going on?

[00:42:56] I've been here.

[00:42:57] I've been there and I don't know

[00:42:58] where I am.

[00:42:59] And it just takes like some time

[00:43:02] to get your bearings.

[00:43:03] Right. Sometimes actually those

[00:43:05] moments of not knowing where you

[00:43:06] are extend into like

[00:43:09] what to me is a very

[00:43:11] panicky kind of kind of moment.

[00:43:13] But but wait, what?

[00:43:15] Right. Really?

[00:43:15] Like, yeah, yeah.

[00:43:16] Well, I'm like, oh, holy shit.

[00:43:17] What the fuck? Like, wait, why

[00:43:19] can't I remember where I am?

[00:43:21] And then I see then I see the

[00:43:23] young the dad, the hooker,

[00:43:24] Filipino boy.

[00:43:28] There's a good little description

[00:43:29] of the shitty life of the

[00:43:31] traveling salesman when

[00:43:33] he says, Good Lord, what an

[00:43:34] exhausting profession I've chosen

[00:43:36] day in and day out on the road.

[00:43:38] Work like this is far more

[00:43:39] unsettling than business

[00:43:40] conducted at home.

[00:43:41] And then I have the agony of

[00:43:42] traveling itself to contend with

[00:43:43] worrying about train connections,

[00:43:45] the irregular, unpalatable meals

[00:43:47] and human intercourse that is

[00:43:48] constantly changing, never

[00:43:49] developing the least

[00:43:50] constancy or warmth.

[00:43:52] Devil take it all, which

[00:43:53] is again, like the second

[00:43:56] thought he has after realizing

[00:43:58] he's an insect. Like he's worried

[00:43:59] about work. He's worried about

[00:44:00] the shitty nature of his job.

[00:44:02] It's it's I know I've focused on

[00:44:04] the me crying and how sad

[00:44:06] this is. But it's also very funny,

[00:44:08] the opening scene.

[00:44:10] It's slapstick almost of

[00:44:12] him worrying about

[00:44:14] like he's a giant bug if you

[00:44:16] just picture it.

[00:44:17] And you have his family on the

[00:44:19] outside kind of not knowing

[00:44:21] why he won't get up.

[00:44:22] And every time he tries to talk,

[00:44:25] he he can understand it.

[00:44:27] But they can't understand him.

[00:44:29] He can understand them.

[00:44:31] And then the boss.

[00:44:33] This is another nightmare's

[00:44:34] quality. The boss comes.

[00:44:36] It's like seven in the morning.

[00:44:37] And the boss is just

[00:44:39] in his house already

[00:44:41] admonishing him for not being

[00:44:43] at work.

[00:44:44] And then, you know, he tries

[00:44:47] in these opening

[00:44:49] scenes, he tries to be kind

[00:44:50] of optimistic about

[00:44:53] his predicament even as

[00:44:55] a bug. And he's like, look, if

[00:44:56] they can see me, then

[00:44:59] they'll either recoil in horror

[00:45:01] and I can like rest for

[00:45:03] a little bit or they'll try to

[00:45:05] help me get to work like he

[00:45:06] still thinks he's going to get

[00:45:08] to work as a beetle.

[00:45:10] So I mean, like I think it does

[00:45:11] a really good job of evoking a

[00:45:13] lot of things. A nightmare

[00:45:15] just waking up in a strange place.

[00:45:17] But this idea of strangeness

[00:45:20] it sort of builds the relationship,

[00:45:23] the relationships in this first

[00:45:24] section where, you know, his

[00:45:26] mother and his father and

[00:45:28] his sister. So those are the three

[00:45:31] family members who were there.

[00:45:33] He seems to have a good

[00:45:34] relationship with his mom

[00:45:36] and if he won with his father,

[00:45:39] his father seems like a dick,

[00:45:40] right?

[00:45:41] Yeah. And

[00:45:44] you get the sense that the mother

[00:45:45] is kind of hapless,

[00:45:47] somewhat hysterical woman

[00:45:50] but that deeply is devoted

[00:45:52] to Gregor and is worried about him.

[00:45:54] You don't get that sense.

[00:45:55] And the sister also,

[00:45:57] although we find out a lot more

[00:45:59] about her later.

[00:46:00] Right. I mean, this whole thing

[00:46:01] seems like a play, right?

[00:46:03] It seems as if it would be a great

[00:46:05] play, like all you need is this one

[00:46:06] set. You have the stage people

[00:46:08] going back and forth from the room

[00:46:09] to the living room.

[00:46:12] Yes, it's like a play

[00:46:14] if you didn't have to have

[00:46:16] the giant insect

[00:46:18] in it, you know.

[00:46:19] But it like it is like a domestic

[00:46:22] drama. It's very it almost

[00:46:23] all takes place in the apartment.

[00:46:26] Yeah.

[00:46:27] Yeah. And so then he

[00:46:29] finally for the first time,

[00:46:31] it merges out the door.

[00:46:32] He uses his jaws to

[00:46:34] open the lock,

[00:46:36] which has been locked.

[00:46:38] So the door kind of swings open

[00:46:40] towards him and

[00:46:42] he's a bug on the floor again.

[00:46:44] This is so like I

[00:46:45] visually

[00:46:47] it's so good at just

[00:46:48] getting you to picture the scene

[00:46:51] and just that detail of him having

[00:46:53] to walk around the door.

[00:46:56] Yeah, because his boss has been

[00:46:57] being an ass or the manager

[00:46:59] has been being an ass on the other

[00:47:00] side of the door. Right?

[00:47:01] Yeah. The general clerk

[00:47:03] and he's this functionary, just

[00:47:05] this middle manager type

[00:47:08] that is

[00:47:10] just a part of this

[00:47:12] cog in this larger

[00:47:14] machine. And he is taking

[00:47:16] out his private frustrations

[00:47:19] on Gregor and then him

[00:47:21] having to go around the door

[00:47:24] and then giving this long

[00:47:25] speech to them when they're

[00:47:27] horrified by it, they can't

[00:47:29] even understand.

[00:47:31] It's both it's both horrifying

[00:47:33] like and comic

[00:47:35] at the same time.

[00:47:36] But it's definitely turned from

[00:47:38] a more comic

[00:47:40] nightmare scenario

[00:47:42] to something more like a horror

[00:47:44] movie at that point.

[00:47:45] Right, right.

[00:47:46] You it gets to a level of grotesque.

[00:47:48] I thought in this

[00:47:51] in this passage,

[00:47:52] in this one scene when he's trying

[00:47:54] to open the door, he says

[00:47:58] with their help, he actually

[00:47:59] succeeded in causing the key to

[00:48:00] move, paying no heed to the fact

[00:48:02] that he was no doubt injuring

[00:48:03] himself in the process for a

[00:48:04] brown fluid ran out of his

[00:48:05] mouth and down the key dripping

[00:48:07] onto the floor.

[00:48:08] And that that actually made me

[00:48:09] throw up a little bit in my

[00:48:11] and it's grotesque,

[00:48:14] but not in a comic way.

[00:48:15] That's when you first start to

[00:48:17] realize the degree to which

[00:48:19] this is, you know, this is

[00:48:21] really happening.

[00:48:22] This is hurting him.

[00:48:24] Yeah.

[00:48:25] And then he has to walk around

[00:48:27] and then

[00:48:29] and then he gives this long

[00:48:30] speech and the general manager

[00:48:32] gets freaked out.

[00:48:34] And then,

[00:48:35] you know, this the first of

[00:48:37] the scenes where the father

[00:48:39] just is this like it almost

[00:48:41] becomes like something of like

[00:48:43] domestic abuse, like a drunk,

[00:48:45] you know, it's like a horror movie,

[00:48:46] but then also one about abuse

[00:48:48] and the father going at him

[00:48:50] with the stick and this kind

[00:48:52] of terrifying feeling where

[00:48:54] he can't move backwards.

[00:48:56] And yeah.

[00:48:57] Yeah.

[00:48:58] And he what a great description

[00:49:00] that gives you gives you a

[00:49:01] little bit of that sense of being

[00:49:03] trapped.

[00:49:03] Yeah. Not moving backward and

[00:49:05] and having sort of the presence

[00:49:08] of mind to know that one critical

[00:49:09] hit with a stick might actually

[00:49:11] kill him.

[00:49:12] And so he doesn't know

[00:49:14] what to do. So he's kind of frozen,

[00:49:16] paralyzed and then he's

[00:49:18] the father sort of gauges that

[00:49:20] he just wants to go back into his

[00:49:21] room and so lets him

[00:49:23] kind of turn around and guide

[00:49:25] him. And then as he's walking,

[00:49:26] he says like he gives these anxious

[00:49:28] glances behind

[00:49:30] him because again, like you said,

[00:49:32] worried that he's going to get hit

[00:49:34] and it's this is the first

[00:49:36] like this really gets to me and

[00:49:38] this like reminds me of a dog

[00:49:40] at this point.

[00:49:41] Like dogs have trouble moving

[00:49:43] backwards, walking backwards

[00:49:45] and that little shooting the

[00:49:47] glances.

[00:49:48] Yeah. Yeah.

[00:49:49] Yeah. Actually, my heart moved a

[00:49:51] little bit at that.

[00:49:52] At that. And I didn't make that

[00:49:53] connection, but you're right.

[00:49:55] Like it went from confusion as to

[00:49:57] why people were

[00:49:59] reacting in such a strong

[00:50:01] way.

[00:50:02] And then a really kind

[00:50:04] of anxiety of like, holy shit,

[00:50:06] like they're mad and they can hurt

[00:50:08] me. And all I want to do is make

[00:50:09] them happy and just appease them

[00:50:11] and just not have

[00:50:13] them be mad at me anymore.

[00:50:15] Right. And throughout, you know,

[00:50:16] we're we're we're privy

[00:50:18] to Gregor's thoughts, right?

[00:50:20] So he's he's telling us the tale.

[00:50:22] You know, Kafka builds sympathy

[00:50:23] for him by by

[00:50:26] telling us the sort of things that

[00:50:27] are going through his mind.

[00:50:28] Like when he's there was a part

[00:50:30] that just I don't know why it

[00:50:30] made me so sad when he's trying

[00:50:32] to work the lock with his mouth.

[00:50:34] He's saying

[00:50:36] all of them should have been cheering

[00:50:37] him on, including his father and mother

[00:50:39] saying, come on, Gregor, they should

[00:50:40] have shouted. Just keep at it.

[00:50:41] Keep working on that lock like he all

[00:50:43] he wants is that seemed very doglike

[00:50:44] to me, right? Like all you want

[00:50:46] is them to just like, I know you're

[00:50:48] an insect, Gregor, but you could do

[00:50:49] this.

[00:50:51] Yeah, no, he wants to be

[00:50:53] on the same team with them.

[00:50:54] Yeah. Rarely not never,

[00:50:57] but rarely gets that

[00:50:59] wish.

[00:51:00] That's absolutely right.

[00:51:01] So then he gets to the door, but

[00:51:03] he can't fit.

[00:51:04] Well, no, first.

[00:51:05] No, this is a real like this is it's

[00:51:07] so vivid.

[00:51:08] Like he first starts turning

[00:51:10] around, but he goes in the wrong

[00:51:11] direction because he's so startled

[00:51:14] and bewildered by every all the

[00:51:15] pandemonium.

[00:51:17] And then when he gets

[00:51:18] to the door, he can't go through

[00:51:21] it. Yeah. Then then the father

[00:51:23] just hits him through

[00:51:25] with a stick.

[00:51:27] I honestly went and hugged my

[00:51:28] dogs.

[00:51:30] That's not a joke.

[00:51:31] Like I gave them big hugs and

[00:51:33] like, you know, because, you

[00:51:35] know, something like Omar just

[00:51:36] threw up like shit that he's been

[00:51:38] eating on the floor and we were

[00:51:40] horrified on the rug actually.

[00:51:43] And we were horrified.

[00:51:45] And of course, like and he didn't

[00:51:47] know, you know, like it just

[00:51:49] he didn't know that

[00:51:51] that why we were acting

[00:51:52] like that. And and then, you

[00:51:54] know, all of our agitation

[00:51:56] about it. And, you know, we

[00:51:57] didn't hit him or try to

[00:51:59] but, you know, like I had

[00:52:01] to hug them.

[00:52:02] Well, you know, and

[00:52:04] the way that Kafka is

[00:52:07] giving you the inner monologue,

[00:52:09] it really is something like

[00:52:11] you would imagine the frustration

[00:52:13] of a dog.

[00:52:14] Right. So and the good

[00:52:15] intentions of it.

[00:52:16] Yeah. The good intentions in

[00:52:17] Gregor is is actually

[00:52:21] you know, in his mind putting

[00:52:22] together these long strings of

[00:52:24] like at first an apology to his

[00:52:25] boss and then an explanation

[00:52:27] and then you realize

[00:52:29] that from the perspective of

[00:52:30] everybody else, all they're

[00:52:32] hearing is some weird

[00:52:33] chattering noise coming out.

[00:52:35] Like it seems as if they

[00:52:36] understood the yes and the no.

[00:52:38] So there's some something

[00:52:39] there, but the rest is like

[00:52:41] like the general manager says

[00:52:43] like he's just the sounds of an

[00:52:45] animal. Like what the fuck?

[00:52:46] And then just the way that

[00:52:48] I think a lot of animals can

[00:52:49] understand us, but we can't

[00:52:51] but when they talk to us

[00:52:53] and with animals, especially

[00:52:55] pets, you can kind of gauge

[00:52:58] what they want just based

[00:53:00] on your relationship, but they

[00:53:01] have no relationship with

[00:53:02] Gregor as an insect.

[00:53:04] If you had an fmri, you could

[00:53:06] yes, then you know.

[00:53:07] Yeah, exactly.

[00:53:08] Oh, that's the I want to go back

[00:53:10] to my room section of the

[00:53:13] the image of the father, the

[00:53:15] piece of father with a

[00:53:17] newspaper and a stick

[00:53:18] just knocking him back into

[00:53:20] the room. He's trying to, you

[00:53:21] know, to fit like not

[00:53:24] knowing why, you know, he's

[00:53:25] trying to walk backwards and

[00:53:26] fit and his father is hissing.

[00:53:28] Yeah. You know, his father is

[00:53:29] making that just like a

[00:53:32] really like trying to scare away

[00:53:33] an animal.

[00:53:34] And this I don't know

[00:53:36] if this bothers him, quite animal,

[00:53:38] like because he's now an insect

[00:53:39] and this might be the kind of

[00:53:41] noise that bothers an insect.

[00:53:43] Yeah. Or if this is just a

[00:53:44] feature of his dad that he's

[00:53:45] always hated, like I couldn't

[00:53:46] quite tell. Yeah.

[00:53:48] And I think it's ambiguous

[00:53:50] in a good way.

[00:53:51] You get the sense that this

[00:53:53] is probably a part of their

[00:53:54] relationship, whether he's an

[00:53:56] insect or not,

[00:53:58] but in different ways.

[00:54:00] Yeah. And there is a way in which

[00:54:01] the dog, at least as pet

[00:54:03] analogy breaks down here

[00:54:05] because they don't know

[00:54:07] at least for now that this is

[00:54:09] Gregor a part of the family.

[00:54:11] They I think they do think it's

[00:54:13] Gregor.

[00:54:14] Yeah, it's under described.

[00:54:15] It's interestingly under

[00:54:16] described because as I read it,

[00:54:18] I assumed that they assumed

[00:54:20] that he became that thing, but

[00:54:22] it's not it's not there.

[00:54:23] They don't doesn't.

[00:54:24] What me? What would you think?

[00:54:26] Right? Like, oh, I would be

[00:54:28] like what the fuck kind of

[00:54:29] animal ate my what ate my son?

[00:54:31] That's what I would.

[00:54:32] Yeah, I mean, I guess and that

[00:54:34] just never comes up.

[00:54:35] No, no, it's I feel

[00:54:38] like they know from the beginning

[00:54:39] yeah, that this is Gregor.

[00:54:41] It's just weirdly sort of

[00:54:43] everybody immediately begins

[00:54:45] dealing with this new reality.

[00:54:46] And part two, they clearly

[00:54:49] think it's great.

[00:54:50] I think Gregor, but in part one

[00:54:54] I yeah, it is ambiguous.

[00:54:57] All right. So part two, do you

[00:54:59] have anything more to say about part one?

[00:55:00] I don't.

[00:55:02] I don't think so that it that

[00:55:03] it ends in a really dramatic way

[00:55:05] to me like it's

[00:55:07] it is interesting that contrast

[00:55:09] between the beginning of part two

[00:55:10] and the end of part one.

[00:55:11] We're just like, holy shit.

[00:55:12] Yeah. And then it just kind of

[00:55:13] calms down. That's how like, you

[00:55:15] know, both part one and part two

[00:55:17] have that feature of it sort of

[00:55:18] starting in a peaceful

[00:55:21] place in his room

[00:55:23] and then progressing towards

[00:55:25] a kind of frantic

[00:55:28] and horrifying end to the part.

[00:55:31] And there is there's one part that I

[00:55:33] actually meant to to ask you

[00:55:35] about.

[00:55:36] Kafka goes out of his way to

[00:55:39] describe the first

[00:55:41] time he actually gets on his feet.

[00:55:44] How wonderful it felt.

[00:55:45] Yeah, when he this is great.

[00:55:48] I can move.

[00:55:49] I can my legs are responding to me.

[00:55:51] Right. I take it he was on his back.

[00:55:53] He saw that he had these little weird

[00:55:55] appendages sticking out when

[00:55:57] he finally gets onto his legs.

[00:55:59] I took it as being like, oh, yeah,

[00:56:01] that it is my nature.

[00:56:02] This is now my nature.

[00:56:04] I feel good walking around

[00:56:06] on my little insect legs.

[00:56:07] There's a parallel in part two also

[00:56:09] where he realizes that he enjoys

[00:56:11] hanging from the ceiling.

[00:56:13] Yeah, right.

[00:56:13] And that that is again, that's a

[00:56:15] very bug like thing, but it's part

[00:56:18] of his nature that he actually has

[00:56:20] a moment before everything goes to

[00:56:22] hell to enjoy.

[00:56:24] Oh, another thing that gets

[00:56:26] mirrored in the heartbreaking end

[00:56:28] scene is that and we and

[00:56:31] we've alluded to it, but I didn't.

[00:56:33] I want to just note that it has

[00:56:35] a almost perfect kind of double

[00:56:37] in the end scene of him

[00:56:39] not trying to turn around,

[00:56:42] but that the not being allowed

[00:56:44] to and if he could just he even

[00:56:46] says if only I could if only

[00:56:48] he had been permitted to turn

[00:56:49] around, he'd have been back

[00:56:50] in his room at once, but he was

[00:56:52] afraid of provoking his father's

[00:56:54] fury with this time consuming

[00:56:56] maneuver and and at any moment

[00:56:59] a fatal blow from the stick in

[00:57:00] his father's hand might come

[00:57:01] crashing down on his back or

[00:57:03] head.

[00:57:04] This will come back.

[00:57:06] There's another scene at the

[00:57:08] in the final scene before his

[00:57:10] death, where he turns around

[00:57:12] where he says perhaps I'll be

[00:57:14] allowed to turn around now.

[00:57:16] Yeah.

[00:57:16] And nobody tries to stop him.

[00:57:18] And it's yeah, it's just

[00:57:21] really beautifully set up.

[00:57:24] It's not to get into the

[00:57:26] interpretation part too much, but

[00:57:27] it's pretty clear that Kafka

[00:57:30] is very familiar with a father

[00:57:32] who beats him.

[00:57:33] Like at the at the end of

[00:57:36] that section one, he's like his

[00:57:37] father administered a powerful

[00:57:38] shove from behind a genuinely

[00:57:39] liberating thrust that sent him

[00:57:41] flying bleeding profusely into

[00:57:42] the far reaches of the room.

[00:57:44] That's how it ends.

[00:57:44] The door was bang shut with

[00:57:45] the stick and then at last

[00:57:47] all was still.

[00:57:48] Yeah.

[00:57:49] It's quite sad.

[00:57:50] So then it's the father

[00:57:52] that's doing that in the

[00:57:54] in the last scene.

[00:57:56] It won't be the father.

[00:57:57] The only other thing to say is

[00:57:59] that he set up some real

[00:58:01] disdain for authority,

[00:58:03] I guess, you know, I don't

[00:58:05] know. I don't remember how much

[00:58:07] that theme goes through the book,

[00:58:08] but he really, really does not

[00:58:10] like

[00:58:12] the authority figures.

[00:58:13] I don't know if it's if it's

[00:58:15] coincides with his attitude

[00:58:17] towards his father as authority.

[00:58:19] But it seems like a tenuous

[00:58:21] relationship with at least the

[00:58:23] male authorities.

[00:58:24] So what do you think

[00:58:25] his.

[00:58:27] Attitude towards his father is

[00:58:29] in part one, do you get a

[00:58:30] do you glean anything

[00:58:32] about how he feels about his

[00:58:33] father?

[00:58:34] It feels like a very distant

[00:58:35] relationship, like

[00:58:38] not not close at all.

[00:58:40] He does sound

[00:58:42] just like a kid who's been

[00:58:43] ignored by his father and just

[00:58:44] wants.

[00:58:46] Is it in part one where he's

[00:58:47] sort of wistful about

[00:58:49] I think it's not until later

[00:58:51] about like the times when he

[00:58:52] put the money on the table

[00:58:54] and stuff.

[00:58:55] Yeah, he's even

[00:58:56] wistful about just normal

[00:58:57] random things like coming home

[00:58:59] and his father just being

[00:59:00] sitting there. Right?

[00:59:01] Yeah.

[00:59:02] Yeah, yeah.

[00:59:03] It's he starts out as kind of

[00:59:04] the villain, I would say.

[00:59:06] Yeah.

[00:59:07] And he's definitely the one

[00:59:08] who does who gives the least

[00:59:10] fucks about this.

[00:59:13] I wouldn't.

[00:59:14] I don't know if I would say

[00:59:15] that in part three.

[00:59:17] I think part three he gives

[00:59:20] more of a fuck than Greta.

[00:59:23] But at the beginning of part two,

[00:59:25] Greta is the one who's

[00:59:26] kind to him and it's almost

[00:59:28] sweet.

[00:59:29] Yeah, it's a kind of optimistic

[00:59:31] beginning like you said, you have

[00:59:32] the horrific ending

[00:59:34] to part one.

[00:59:36] And then you have this kind

[00:59:37] of it's peace.

[00:59:38] It's like I felt relief.

[00:59:40] I can only imagine how Gregor

[00:59:41] felt that I felt relief that

[00:59:43] that was over and he had a

[00:59:44] chance to just collect himself

[00:59:45] and chill, you know,

[00:59:48] and then.

[00:59:49] Right. And settles into some sort

[00:59:51] of a life.

[00:59:52] Yeah, exactly.

[00:59:53] And then he's hungry.

[00:59:54] And this is something that

[00:59:56] contrasts with the end

[00:59:58] of the where he's not hungry at

[00:59:59] all. Exactly.

[01:00:00] Exactly. And so so in a really

[01:00:03] sort of nice as you say is

[01:00:04] sort of a nice

[01:00:06] description of Greta

[01:00:08] becoming his caretaker.

[01:00:10] Right. Like she's

[01:00:12] she's the one who is very

[01:00:14] vigilant about not letting

[01:00:16] his mother see

[01:00:18] his physical appearance because

[01:00:19] of how upset it will be.

[01:00:21] But she she waits until

[01:00:23] everybody's out of the house,

[01:00:24] maids out of the house and then

[01:00:25] she'll go leave him some food.

[01:00:27] At first, she leaves him what he

[01:00:29] used to like as a human, but he

[01:00:30] doesn't touch it. It's milk with

[01:00:31] bread in it.

[01:00:32] And he's like, I know

[01:00:33] he knows he used to like it, but

[01:00:34] he's just important.

[01:00:36] Makes me think about the

[01:00:37] phenomenology of an insect.

[01:00:39] Like he's just so she starts

[01:00:41] doing little experiments.

[01:00:43] Leaving leaving certain

[01:00:45] kinds of food out and seeing

[01:00:47] what he will eat.

[01:00:48] The insect taste is too

[01:00:50] complex to

[01:00:52] be captured by a controlled

[01:00:54] experiment.

[01:00:56] I actually think that's so

[01:00:58] sweet.

[01:00:59] And really, it's probably

[01:01:00] the peak of sweetness in this

[01:01:02] otherwise kind of despairing

[01:01:04] story. But like, yeah,

[01:01:06] like that she got

[01:01:08] and he was he was so hoping

[01:01:09] that she would understand that

[01:01:11] he didn't like the milk.

[01:01:13] And she did almost right away.

[01:01:14] And then she brought him all this

[01:01:16] stuff to see what he would like.

[01:01:18] And that's really nice.

[01:01:20] Yeah, there is a moment where

[01:01:21] he's still jarred into remind

[01:01:23] being reminded that he's still

[01:01:26] like abhorrent to the

[01:01:28] eyes of his sister when

[01:01:30] she walks in and she jumps

[01:01:33] back and he's he thought

[01:01:35] that she had gotten used to

[01:01:35] it, but he's just reminded.

[01:01:37] No.

[01:01:38] Yeah, actually, she's just been

[01:01:39] good at not

[01:01:40] like not see.

[01:01:41] And then there's this really

[01:01:43] sad passage where

[01:01:45] he he knowing that

[01:01:48] he spends four hours of labor.

[01:01:51] I have that highlighted too.

[01:01:52] It's so sad.

[01:01:54] It's so sad, four hours with

[01:01:55] those little insect hands to put

[01:01:57] the sheet just so that nobody

[01:01:59] can see him.

[01:02:01] And he's yeah, that's just

[01:02:03] it's it's out of

[01:02:04] consideration for her and

[01:02:06] for them.

[01:02:07] He's covering himself because

[01:02:09] they're so.

[01:02:10] Look at me.

[01:02:11] And maybe this is one of the first

[01:02:13] kind of indications

[01:02:15] that because one way of

[01:02:17] seeing the allegory is of an old

[01:02:18] person.

[01:02:19] And maybe this is what gets to me

[01:02:21] too, is having

[01:02:24] you know, my dad was very old

[01:02:25] before he died and somebody who's

[01:02:27] dying is

[01:02:29] is all shame

[01:02:30] between. Yeah.

[01:02:32] The kind of shame at their

[01:02:34] appearance and people

[01:02:36] are just like will often, I

[01:02:38] think, express a kind of involuntary

[01:02:40] disgust.

[01:02:42] And that's terrible.

[01:02:44] And then to feel like you're the

[01:02:45] cause of that.

[01:02:46] And it's not your fault, but

[01:02:48] you're still the cause of it is

[01:02:50] a really tragic thing

[01:02:52] that is just part of life.

[01:02:55] Yeah. Got it.

[01:02:57] I'm getting sad.

[01:02:58] Gregor, I guess here is where

[01:03:00] Gregor is

[01:03:02] continues to transform.

[01:03:04] This is when he starts realizing

[01:03:05] that he likes hanging from

[01:03:06] the ceiling.

[01:03:08] Yeah.

[01:03:09] Another nice moment.

[01:03:10] Yeah. And I hadn't really thought

[01:03:12] about that until again, I read this

[01:03:14] a long, long time ago.

[01:03:15] But but you know,

[01:03:16] he's he's realizing that he can

[01:03:18] he does. He's not confined to the

[01:03:20] floor. He can walk up the walls

[01:03:21] and be on the ceiling.

[01:03:22] And he describes the

[01:03:24] the hanging on the ceiling

[01:03:25] is completely different from lying on

[01:03:27] the floor. One quote, one

[01:03:28] could breathe the more freely

[01:03:30] there. A gentle swaying motion

[01:03:32] rocked the body.

[01:03:33] And in the almost happy absent

[01:03:34] mindedness, Gregor experienced

[01:03:36] it might happen to his own

[01:03:37] astonishment that he would let go

[01:03:38] and crash to the floor.

[01:03:40] Yeah. And which is again,

[01:03:42] kind of comic but also sort of sad.

[01:03:45] But the you know,

[01:03:46] again, it's in contrast not only

[01:03:48] to his earlier life as a

[01:03:50] bug, but his the sense

[01:03:52] he had of his earlier life as a

[01:03:54] human where he never had a chance

[01:03:56] to breathe. He was always worried

[01:03:58] about performing well,

[01:04:00] selling the products and making

[01:04:02] his general manager happy

[01:04:04] enough so that he could pay off

[01:04:06] his father's debts.

[01:04:07] And that's right. And his mother

[01:04:08] even laments that he would never

[01:04:09] had fun like you would just

[01:04:11] yeah, like not go out and not

[01:04:13] actually enjoy life.

[01:04:14] And here he's like getting a

[01:04:15] little respite.

[01:04:17] Yeah. And just getting to sway

[01:04:19] and it's a really nice kind of

[01:04:21] I get it just stuff.

[01:04:22] I'm free from all of life's

[01:04:24] pressures.

[01:04:25] And that honestly is how I like

[01:04:27] to remember Gregor.

[01:04:28] It is. Yes.

[01:04:30] And then credit. But unfortunately,

[01:04:32] he crashes down.

[01:04:33] You've caused.

[01:04:34] And then so his sister then

[01:04:36] thinks, OK, this is what he likes.

[01:04:38] That makes sense and

[01:04:39] and wants to move the furniture

[01:04:42] out of the room so that he has an

[01:04:44] easier time getting up the

[01:04:46] walls and she by the way,

[01:04:48] she notices not because he crawls

[01:04:49] around in her presence.

[01:04:51] She notices little trails.

[01:04:52] Yeah. Yeah.

[01:04:53] At first, he's all for that.

[01:04:56] And then the mother comes in

[01:04:57] to help her because she can't do

[01:04:59] it all on her own.

[01:05:01] And the mother just react

[01:05:02] has a strong reaction against it

[01:05:04] for an interesting reason because

[01:05:07] it's removing his connections to

[01:05:09] humanity, to being a human being.

[01:05:11] This is what you would do if it was

[01:05:13] a bug, if you're talking about a

[01:05:15] bug, but not what you are doing

[01:05:17] if you thought, you know, like

[01:05:19] that this person is retaining ties

[01:05:21] to being a human.

[01:05:23] And this is the first kind of

[01:05:24] moment where you see

[01:05:27] that Gregor, her sister is not

[01:05:29] the saint that you might have

[01:05:31] thought she was up until this

[01:05:34] point. She gets kind of stubborn

[01:05:35] about it.

[01:05:36] Yeah. I don't know if we're going to

[01:05:38] end up disagreeing about this.

[01:05:39] Like, I totally can relate to the

[01:05:42] sister's transformation here.

[01:05:44] She thinks she's an expert and

[01:05:46] understandably. I think it's

[01:05:47] ambiguous. I don't know if we're

[01:05:48] going to disagree or not.

[01:05:50] But she thinks that she knows

[01:05:52] Gregor better than her mom does,

[01:05:54] which is true.

[01:05:56] And you know, this is so much

[01:05:58] like the

[01:06:00] you know, the family members who

[01:06:01] end up being the primary

[01:06:03] caretakers of the elderly.

[01:06:05] Yeah.

[01:06:06] They have a sense of entitlement

[01:06:08] about how they should be treated.

[01:06:10] And I think an earned one like I'm

[01:06:12] not saying that is a disparaging

[01:06:14] way. But when somebody

[01:06:16] else tries to come in and tell them

[01:06:18] what you should do with grandpa or

[01:06:19] whatever, no, like, you

[01:06:21] don't know. You're not here with

[01:06:22] him every day.

[01:06:23] I have to clean the fucking diapers.

[01:06:25] You know, I have to like bring

[01:06:27] him water with a straw every day.

[01:06:29] I have to sit here with him while he

[01:06:30] takes a nap.

[01:06:31] And the actual person that you're

[01:06:33] supposed to care about just kind of

[01:06:34] gets forgotten in those disputes.

[01:06:37] Exactly.

[01:06:38] Exactly. That's absolutely right.

[01:06:40] And the way Kafka describes it,

[01:06:42] first, she's, you know, he definitely

[01:06:44] says it's reasonable

[01:06:46] enough that she thinks she knows

[01:06:48] more about Gregor than the mom.

[01:06:50] But then he also says,

[01:06:53] but perhaps the fanciful imagination

[01:06:55] of a girl of her age played a role

[01:06:57] as well, a sensibility always

[01:06:59] seeking its own gratification

[01:07:01] and one which Greta now

[01:07:04] allowed to persuade

[01:07:06] her to render Gregor's

[01:07:08] situation even more horrific

[01:07:10] than before. So as to be

[01:07:12] able to do even more for him

[01:07:14] than she had hitherto for

[01:07:16] a room in which Gregor held

[01:07:18] sole dominion over empty

[01:07:20] walls was a place where no

[01:07:21] another than Greta would

[01:07:23] ever dare set foot.

[01:07:25] So it eludes from

[01:07:27] Gregor's perspective and almost

[01:07:30] all of this is from Gregor's

[01:07:31] perspective.

[01:07:32] It eludes to a possible ulterior

[01:07:35] motive that like you say, she

[01:07:36] wants to feel like she's

[01:07:39] the person and nobody else gets

[01:07:41] to have a say and nobody else

[01:07:43] even gets to interact with him.

[01:07:46] And partly that's out of concern

[01:07:48] for him. But sometimes that gets

[01:07:50] lost.

[01:07:51] Yeah. And, you know, you can

[01:07:53] see her perspective.

[01:07:54] She's like, you aren't there

[01:07:56] every day to like feed him.

[01:07:58] And you're not the one who sees

[01:08:00] that he's been walking all up

[01:08:02] and down all the walls. Right.

[01:08:03] Right. And perhaps

[01:08:05] with some difficulty, right,

[01:08:07] because because of what's in the

[01:08:08] room. So I can see why

[01:08:10] she would have a bit of a

[01:08:11] righteous indignation.

[01:08:13] So there's there's the

[01:08:14] accuracy of it.

[01:08:15] And then there's just the

[01:08:16] resentment that she seems to

[01:08:17] have toward her mom.

[01:08:20] Yeah. And there's no way for

[01:08:21] her to really know that it

[01:08:23] happens that she's wrong about

[01:08:24] this. Like she happens to be

[01:08:26] wrong. She was right, but she

[01:08:28] happens to be wrong now.

[01:08:30] Right. And because the

[01:08:31] experiments on what Gregor

[01:08:33] wants gave her a false sense.

[01:08:36] Exactly. The illusion of fucking

[01:08:38] objectivity.

[01:08:39] So and then there is again

[01:08:41] this really just this great

[01:08:43] image of him just clinging to

[01:08:45] that photo of

[01:08:48] the woman in furs.

[01:08:49] Now it's it's in that picture

[01:08:51] frame that the mother talked

[01:08:53] about in part one that he,

[01:08:55] instead of going out with his

[01:08:56] friends, that he would just

[01:08:57] make with his woodworking.

[01:08:59] He's clinging to it on

[01:09:01] the wall, covering his

[01:09:03] like the body.

[01:09:05] And then that's when the

[01:09:07] mother comes in and

[01:09:09] she screams and does

[01:09:11] her fainting thing.

[01:09:14] I don't know if she's the

[01:09:15] most unsympathetic, but

[01:09:17] she's definitely the most

[01:09:19] strong character.

[01:09:23] This is no Marvel movie.

[01:09:25] This is she screams, runs out

[01:09:28] of the woman room and then

[01:09:30] Greta shakes his her fist

[01:09:32] at him like Gregor, what the

[01:09:34] way and addresses him for

[01:09:35] the first time. What's wrong

[01:09:37] with you? Then the mother is

[01:09:38] just weeping.

[01:09:39] And this is the second time

[01:09:41] that Gregor comes out of his

[01:09:43] room to try to comfort

[01:09:44] his mother. He feels like

[01:09:46] he should. That's what a

[01:09:47] human being does.

[01:09:48] Mother is upset. A human being

[01:09:50] comforts his mother.

[01:09:52] Yeah. Yeah.

[01:09:53] But in this circumstance, not

[01:09:55] necessarily the right thing

[01:09:57] to do. Right.

[01:09:59] So then the doorbell rings

[01:10:02] and dad's on dad's home.

[01:10:05] And now the dread is just

[01:10:07] the dread of where this is

[01:10:09] again, the dread of

[01:10:11] somebody who's very familiar

[01:10:13] with a father who would come

[01:10:14] home and put a whooping

[01:10:15] to him. Yeah.

[01:10:16] Shit, I used to be afraid of that.

[01:10:19] So now at Gregor

[01:10:21] is seeing his father, a

[01:10:23] changed man, right?

[01:10:24] Where he was like just

[01:10:25] usually just his father's

[01:10:27] come home and lazy.

[01:10:28] His father's come home, comes

[01:10:30] home. Usually his father would

[01:10:31] be not even combing his hair

[01:10:33] staying in his pajamas, sitting

[01:10:35] on the couch all day.

[01:10:37] Now he was standing properly

[01:10:38] erect. This quote dressed in

[01:10:40] a smart blue uniform with

[01:10:41] gold buttons of the sort worn

[01:10:43] by porters and banking

[01:10:44] establishments above the

[01:10:45] jacket's tail.

[01:10:46] Tall, stiff collar, his powerful

[01:10:48] double chin unfurled beneath

[01:10:50] bushy eyebrows as black eyes

[01:10:51] peered out acutely and

[01:10:52] attentively. His once disheveled

[01:10:54] white hair had been painstakingly

[01:10:55] combed and parted until it

[01:10:56] gleamed.

[01:10:57] His father has actually like now

[01:10:59] but you know become a

[01:11:01] functional member of society

[01:11:02] and you're probably

[01:11:03] thought about it maybe villain.

[01:11:06] Germanic kind of

[01:11:08] powerful double chin.

[01:11:09] I hope someday I'm described

[01:11:11] as having a powerful

[01:11:13] So just set the scene though

[01:11:14] also the father comes home.

[01:11:16] He's in this uniform.

[01:11:18] The mother is sobbing

[01:11:20] and weeping and the

[01:11:22] the daughter is trying to

[01:11:24] comfort her and Gregor is out

[01:11:25] of his room and then the dad

[01:11:27] comes home looking like

[01:11:29] this and Gregor is kind of

[01:11:30] shocked to see he had

[01:11:32] been this diminished man.

[01:11:34] Yeah. And then

[01:11:36] this is what he looks like

[01:11:37] now again sort of

[01:11:39] like you could have been doing

[01:11:40] this the whole time, motherfucker.

[01:11:41] Exactly.

[01:11:44] But but that's not the way

[01:11:45] it's more scared

[01:11:47] that he sees him.

[01:11:48] Well, and when he describes it,

[01:11:50] you know, this actually shocked

[01:11:52] me a little bit.

[01:11:54] He's describing the uniform.

[01:11:56] Yeah. And then he just.

[01:11:59] Describes the giant dimensions

[01:12:01] of his boot soles.

[01:12:02] Yeah. Right. In this super

[01:12:04] threatening menacing way.

[01:12:05] So he raises foot unusually

[01:12:07] high Gregor marveled

[01:12:08] the gigantic dimensions of his

[01:12:10] boot soles.

[01:12:11] But he did not lose any time

[01:12:13] over them, having learned on the

[01:12:14] very first day of his new life

[01:12:15] that his father considered only

[01:12:16] the utmost severity

[01:12:17] appropriate for him.

[01:12:19] So he knew he was going to get a

[01:12:20] smack down.

[01:12:21] Yeah. So this is very much

[01:12:23] indicates that there

[01:12:24] was abuse in his

[01:12:26] past.

[01:12:27] Yeah.

[01:12:28] And this is just horrible.

[01:12:30] Again, like he's trying

[01:12:32] to get back into his room

[01:12:35] but can't and

[01:12:36] the father just starts throwing

[01:12:38] apples at him.

[01:12:40] Yeah. And it's weirdly

[01:12:42] like, I don't know if we want to

[01:12:43] spend too much time on the biblical

[01:12:46] illusions.

[01:12:47] But there are.

[01:12:49] Yeah. And this is definitely one of

[01:12:51] them. Yeah.

[01:12:52] What were your thoughts?

[01:12:53] I'm not sure what to make of them.

[01:12:55] It's a

[01:12:57] little too

[01:12:58] you know, a little too on the

[01:12:59] nose for me.

[01:13:02] Well,

[01:13:03] I mean, Apple,

[01:13:05] but it doesn't tell you what to

[01:13:06] think about the app.

[01:13:08] No, it doesn't.

[01:13:09] Knowledge of the human

[01:13:11] like tragedy

[01:13:12] rotting in his back or

[01:13:14] something. I don't know.

[01:13:16] Like, I think there's a lot of

[01:13:18] biblical and other illusions

[01:13:21] but no obvious

[01:13:24] way of understanding them.

[01:13:26] Like you could think of it as a

[01:13:27] Christ allegory, but it's not.

[01:13:29] It doesn't.

[01:13:30] It's not.

[01:13:31] It doesn't.

[01:13:31] It's unclear what what he's

[01:13:33] trying to say.

[01:13:34] It's both on the nose with

[01:13:36] this with the apple and the

[01:13:37] heavenly father.

[01:13:38] And obscurely

[01:13:39] like like

[01:13:41] under specified like what exactly

[01:13:43] like what does it even mean?

[01:13:44] Like the Bible.

[01:13:46] I almost prefer to read it as

[01:13:47] non biblical because I don't know

[01:13:49] what it would mean.

[01:13:52] You know, I agree.

[01:13:53] I don't get it's a really good

[01:13:55] story in that it resists

[01:13:56] any straightforward

[01:13:58] kind of explanation

[01:14:00] in those terms.

[01:14:02] And that's why I think it's

[01:14:04] so great.

[01:14:05] Right.

[01:14:06] So sure enough, his father beats

[01:14:07] the shit out of him and he does

[01:14:09] so by hurling apples

[01:14:11] his way, as we said.

[01:14:13] And one of those

[01:14:15] apples actually manages to

[01:14:17] lodge itself into his back.

[01:14:19] So there's some exoskeleton

[01:14:22] involved and there's some some

[01:14:23] spot in between that armor,

[01:14:25] that body armor that has

[01:14:27] lodged in. And this is where

[01:14:28] like, you know, you would just

[01:14:30] say, well, fucking somebody take

[01:14:32] it out then.

[01:14:33] But no, nobody's going to touch

[01:14:34] him like that would be like

[01:14:36] they're barely capable of looking

[01:14:38] at him, let alone touching him.

[01:14:40] Like he's basically like now,

[01:14:41] like Lucy Casey says, like, no,

[01:14:43] that's just the rest of your life.

[01:14:45] Like now you're just going to have

[01:14:46] an apple lodged in your back.

[01:14:48] Well, but that's like, I mean,

[01:14:50] just to end the scene,

[01:14:51] like there's no nobody

[01:14:53] is trying to help them at this

[01:14:55] point.

[01:14:56] He's getting pelted with apples.

[01:14:58] He manages to go in.

[01:15:01] The father is like going to kill

[01:15:03] him. It seems like.

[01:15:04] And then it ends with the sister

[01:15:06] pleading for his life.

[01:15:08] That's right. And there is a

[01:15:09] there is a point in which the

[01:15:11] sister says,

[01:15:13] Gregor has what does she

[01:15:15] say has gotten out?

[01:15:17] Yeah.

[01:15:19] That I think I was reading somewhere

[01:15:22] it's an unnecessarily

[01:15:25] connoting that something bad

[01:15:27] is happening from him getting out,

[01:15:28] not just that he's not in his

[01:15:29] room, but that he's escaped.

[01:15:31] And that that indicates that

[01:15:32] something that he's doing

[01:15:33] something bad, which which

[01:15:35] leads to that immediate reaction

[01:15:36] by the father who's like, I told

[01:15:38] you so.

[01:15:39] You know, and when he's saying

[01:15:40] that, I told you so it's like

[01:15:42] you can imagine the father taking

[01:15:43] stripping his belt off of his waist

[01:15:45] we're getting ready to beat down.

[01:15:46] Well, it's almost like the sister

[01:15:48] wants to punish Gregor because

[01:15:50] they made the mother faint again

[01:15:51] and you've made the.

[01:15:52] And so the sister probably

[01:15:54] says that kind of knowing, oh

[01:15:56] good, he's going to get an ass

[01:15:57] whipping and he deserves it.

[01:15:59] But then when it goes too

[01:16:01] far, she doesn't want him to be

[01:16:02] killed. I mean, you can imagine

[01:16:04] this again is a domestic

[01:16:06] situation with the sister

[01:16:08] at first maybe taking

[01:16:10] advantage of the fact that the

[01:16:12] father is is

[01:16:14] you know, like maybe she has

[01:16:15] resentments and issues of her

[01:16:17] own. But then she doesn't

[01:16:19] really want him to

[01:16:21] hurt Gregor.

[01:16:22] And so she stops him, at least

[01:16:24] at this point.

[01:16:25] She does.

[01:16:26] Yeah. And you know, another

[01:16:28] interesting thing about the sister

[01:16:30] that you find out just

[01:16:31] almost as an offhand remark

[01:16:33] that they considered her kind of a

[01:16:35] useless child.

[01:16:36] And so she took pride in

[01:16:39] here's one thing I can do.

[01:16:40] I can take care of Gregor and none

[01:16:42] of you can do it.

[01:16:43] And I can do it.

[01:16:44] And so like she's actually

[01:16:47] gaining a identity

[01:16:48] and some worth,

[01:16:50] some like value to the family

[01:16:52] by doing this.

[01:16:53] Yeah. Yep.

[01:16:54] She's she's showed her value.

[01:16:56] Oh, you know what we forgot

[01:16:58] to mention that

[01:17:00] you get also

[01:17:02] a little glimpse into their

[01:17:04] finances, which weren't as bad

[01:17:07] as

[01:17:08] as they thought.

[01:17:10] And in fact, the father had been

[01:17:12] saving up some money.

[01:17:13] So you wonder, wait a minute,

[01:17:16] if he was saving up all this money,

[01:17:17] why was Gregor working this

[01:17:19] soul crushing job

[01:17:22] if he had saved this money?

[01:17:24] Now it's not like they had a lot

[01:17:25] of money.

[01:17:26] No, but Gregor didn't know

[01:17:28] about it. And he says he didn't

[01:17:29] ask. They never talked about it.

[01:17:31] I understood it to be that the money

[01:17:34] that Gregor was bringing them

[01:17:36] every month, that his father was able

[01:17:38] to set aside some of that.

[01:17:40] So that it was actually from the job.

[01:17:42] So so I think you said this before,

[01:17:44] but but he's his dad's

[01:17:46] indebted to the boss and Gregor

[01:17:48] in Gregor's estimation, he's already

[01:17:50] been working for five years

[01:17:52] and his estimation maybe he can get

[01:17:54] out from under the debt after five

[01:17:56] years.

[01:17:57] I thought it was

[01:17:59] he had been under the impression

[01:18:00] that his father had retained nothing

[01:18:02] at all of his former firms holdings

[01:18:04] or at least his father had never said

[01:18:06] anything to the contrary.

[01:18:08] And admittedly Gregor had never

[01:18:10] asked him about this.

[01:18:11] And so yeah, so I think you're right.

[01:18:14] He was the father's firm's holdings.

[01:18:15] Yeah, you're right because he

[01:18:17] yeah, he lost the business five

[01:18:18] years ago. And that's why Gregor

[01:18:19] started working.

[01:18:20] And then he talks about these lovely

[01:18:23] times.

[01:18:24] I think this is a key passage.

[01:18:26] All had grown accustomed to this

[01:18:27] arrangement of Gregor working

[01:18:29] and not just the family, but

[01:18:31] Gregor as well.

[01:18:32] They gratefully accepted the money

[01:18:34] and he was happy to provide it.

[01:18:36] But the exchange no longer felt

[01:18:38] particularly warm.

[01:18:40] At first it was like, oh, you're

[01:18:41] saving us, Gregor.

[01:18:42] But now it didn't.

[01:18:44] Only Gregor's sister had remained

[01:18:46] close to him all this time.

[01:18:47] And it was his secret plan to send

[01:18:49] her off to study at

[01:18:51] the conservatory next year.

[01:18:53] Unlike Gregor, she dearly loved

[01:18:54] music and could play the violin

[01:18:56] quite movingly.

[01:18:58] If anybody who is listening

[01:19:00] has had family members that you

[01:19:01] support in that way,

[01:19:04] that's all too familiar a feeling

[01:19:06] where after a while they just come

[01:19:07] to expend it.

[01:19:08] Expect it. Yeah.

[01:19:10] We don't feel that about our

[01:19:11] patrons.

[01:19:14] And maybe for the first time

[01:19:17] you get a sense that maybe Gregor

[01:19:19] is doing something that they don't

[01:19:21] necessarily want him to do.

[01:19:23] But the comfortable lives that

[01:19:25] they're going that they lead

[01:19:27] kind of the temptation of that

[01:19:29] of that comfortable life leads

[01:19:31] them to accept it.

[01:19:33] But maybe Gregor just wants

[01:19:35] to see himself as a savior

[01:19:38] and that's not necessarily

[01:19:40] what they want.

[01:19:41] Certainly not what they need.

[01:19:43] That's interesting because I

[01:19:44] never thought that Gregor wanted

[01:19:46] this.

[01:19:47] And I took it that his surprise

[01:19:48] at seeing the money.

[01:19:49] I was championing him for not

[01:19:51] being like a bitter fuck,

[01:19:53] you had money this whole time

[01:19:54] and I'm busting my ass.

[01:19:55] Right. Like like I

[01:19:58] thought that he would

[01:20:00] have reacted with more bitterness

[01:20:02] at the knowledge, but he seems to

[01:20:04] be like happy for his family.

[01:20:06] Yes. He does kind of mention

[01:20:08] well, maybe I could have left

[01:20:10] the firm earlier if I had known

[01:20:12] about this. But you're right.

[01:20:13] He does seem overall fairly

[01:20:15] happy. No, my point is more

[01:20:17] that his original motives

[01:20:19] might not have been as pure as

[01:20:21] we have thought up till now.

[01:20:23] Yeah.

[01:20:25] I take it you're like even if it's

[01:20:26] not an explicit motivation, there

[01:20:28] is there is a sense of satisfaction

[01:20:30] in two things, one being

[01:20:33] the one with

[01:20:35] the power. Right?

[01:20:36] Yeah. And two,

[01:20:38] there is there is unfortunately some

[01:20:40] satisfaction in playing the victim.

[01:20:42] Right. Yeah. And again, when

[01:20:44] when you find out at the end that

[01:20:46] they kind of flourish

[01:20:48] without him even there.

[01:20:50] It's terrible.

[01:20:51] You know, that that that aspect of

[01:20:53] it, I think gets gets heightened.

[01:20:55] Now, you don't know this at this point,

[01:20:57] but you do know that he didn't even

[01:20:59] ask his father if he needed him to

[01:21:01] do you have any money?

[01:21:02] Do I really need to do this?

[01:21:04] Do I? He just did it.

[01:21:05] They never talked about it.

[01:21:06] They're not close, as you say.

[01:21:08] So now on to Section 3,

[01:21:11] this opens up with a month has gone

[01:21:12] by

[01:21:14] and that apple has just been lodged

[01:21:17] in Gregor's back.

[01:21:19] He's ailing, right?

[01:21:21] It's causing pain.

[01:21:22] This is one of the things I remember.

[01:21:24] Like you remember certain images

[01:21:26] and this was definitely one of them,

[01:21:28] this this apple in his flesh just

[01:21:31] rotting. Yeah.

[01:21:32] And no one he says no.

[01:21:33] Yeah. No one dared to remove it.

[01:21:36] But it seems ever minded his father

[01:21:38] that Gregor, despite his current

[01:21:39] lamentable repulsive form, was a

[01:21:40] member of the family who should not

[01:21:42] be treated like an enemy.

[01:21:43] It's like they have some guilt

[01:21:44] clearly over over how

[01:21:46] the events transpired.

[01:21:48] But Gregor is is wounded.

[01:21:50] He's lost his mobility.

[01:21:52] He's sick.

[01:21:52] He's bad.

[01:21:53] Turns out he's dying.

[01:21:56] The father's villainy has peaked,

[01:21:58] like at this point he becomes

[01:22:00] much more considerate of Gregor.

[01:22:04] Again, it starts the new part

[01:22:05] after the horrifying

[01:22:07] just pandemonium, the just

[01:22:10] turmoil you have

[01:22:13] somewhat peaceful even though

[01:22:15] everything's degrading.

[01:22:17] Yeah. And seems that the family

[01:22:19] has just resigned itself to this

[01:22:21] kind of miserable existence, right?

[01:22:23] That their conversations are no

[01:22:24] longer is animated.

[01:22:27] You know, they're

[01:22:29] they're there seems like they're

[01:22:31] just all depressed about their

[01:22:32] state in life, right?

[01:22:34] Yeah, much more than in part two.

[01:22:36] It's like in part two, they're

[01:22:37] trying to they're talking about it,

[01:22:39] trying to figure out what to do.

[01:22:41] Now they're just like the father

[01:22:43] just comes home at night and is

[01:22:45] tired, falls asleep in his chair

[01:22:48] and they have to take in lodgers.

[01:22:50] They have this new charwoman

[01:22:53] charwoman.

[01:22:54] Yeah, I had to look that up.

[01:22:57] She's very much like a caretaker

[01:22:58] for the elderly, too.

[01:22:59] Like she's not disgusted at all.

[01:23:02] Yeah, exactly.

[01:23:03] These people like they do

[01:23:06] shally. I remember when my dad

[01:23:07] likes that this person would just

[01:23:10] help my dad shower, you know,

[01:23:12] when he didn't shower anymore.

[01:23:14] Seriously, God bless those people.

[01:23:16] They're saints like but they have

[01:23:18] this kind of rough sensibility.

[01:23:20] It's like they don't get disgusted,

[01:23:22] but they also aren't all that emotional either.

[01:23:25] Yeah, you can't be too sensitive

[01:23:27] or else you're not doing right.

[01:23:31] And even though it's not explicitly

[01:23:32] stated, you get the sense that

[01:23:33] before they might have had some hope

[01:23:35] for a cure, like something's going

[01:23:37] to happen, right?

[01:23:38] But now they're like, no,

[01:23:39] this is just how it is.

[01:23:41] And then you also get this

[01:23:42] sense from Gregor's perspective.

[01:23:44] And again, this reminded me of

[01:23:47] when you're old, you kind of alternate

[01:23:49] between feeling guilty about

[01:23:51] what you're putting your

[01:23:53] people who are taking care of you

[01:23:55] through and a kind of resentment

[01:23:57] and anger that they're not doing enough.

[01:24:00] Yeah, so that's that's exactly

[01:24:01] what starts happening to Gregor.

[01:24:03] He starts like anger starts building.

[01:24:05] Yeah, he says sometimes he would

[01:24:07] feel bad at other times.

[01:24:09] He would not he would not be

[01:24:11] at all in a frame of mind

[01:24:12] to look after his family instead.

[01:24:13] He was filled with rage

[01:24:14] to how poorly he was attended to.

[01:24:16] And although he could not imagine

[01:24:18] anything he would have liked to eat,

[01:24:20] he plotted how he might gain

[01:24:21] access to the pantry so as to help

[01:24:23] himself to what, despite his total

[01:24:25] absence of hunger, was his do.

[01:24:28] And that is a yeah, that totally

[01:24:31] it's so perfectly captures something

[01:24:33] again. Yeah. And this it evokes

[01:24:35] aging person.

[01:24:38] You know, my my grandma

[01:24:39] toward the end of her life would

[01:24:40] actually take some delight

[01:24:43] in putting people out after a while.

[01:24:45] Yeah, exactly.

[01:24:46] I remember her throwing it in our face

[01:24:48] when she's like, see, you thought

[01:24:49] I was going to die, but I didn't.

[01:24:51] Yeah, exactly.

[01:24:52] Because you're pissed off at some

[01:24:54] and totally irrationally sometimes

[01:24:57] because you start to feel like

[01:25:00] before the family was maybe

[01:25:02] a little resentful that they were

[01:25:04] the kind of parasitic elements

[01:25:06] of the family. Now Gregor is

[01:25:08] starting to feel that.

[01:25:09] And meanwhile, the sister has taken

[01:25:12] not taking good care of his room.

[01:25:14] And she's just getting tired of it.

[01:25:16] She's yeah, she's growing.

[01:25:18] She's grown weary of caring for Gregor

[01:25:20] as she's as she's she'd previously

[01:25:22] done. So his room's a mess.

[01:25:24] It's dirty.

[01:25:25] Yeah. At first, she was trying to

[01:25:27] move out all the furniture.

[01:25:28] Now they're just putting shit in there.

[01:25:31] And so he has less and less room to

[01:25:33] move. And she was not

[01:25:35] cleaning it. And when the mother

[01:25:36] tries to clean it, she throws a

[01:25:38] fit. That's right.

[01:25:39] And they're also storing furniture

[01:25:41] because they have those lodgers now.

[01:25:42] And they brought their own furniture

[01:25:44] so they have to just fill his room is

[01:25:45] just now the storage room.

[01:25:47] Those lodgers are also kind of weird

[01:25:50] dreamy.

[01:25:53] I don't know, like some kind of surreal

[01:25:56] nightmare figures, too.

[01:25:58] They're comic, but they're they're

[01:26:00] kind of indistinguishable.

[01:26:02] You get the sense there was one

[01:26:03] leader, but

[01:26:05] yeah. And they're very demanding

[01:26:08] and the family is very differential

[01:26:10] to them for now.

[01:26:12] Meanwhile, Gregor has, I think,

[01:26:15] unwittingly started

[01:26:17] doing a hunger strike.

[01:26:19] Like yeah, he

[01:26:21] just stops eating and it's

[01:26:24] he seems to think that like, well,

[01:26:26] if I if I really wanted to, I would.

[01:26:28] But I just I'm not I'm not hungry.

[01:26:30] Right.

[01:26:32] He's he's just starts wasting away.

[01:26:35] Yeah. And again, very much like

[01:26:38] this is a person who's going to die

[01:26:40] somewhat soon.

[01:26:42] You know, it wasn't like the

[01:26:45] the whole old person

[01:26:47] thing had crossed my mind, but

[01:26:50] it did not

[01:26:52] like now in our discussion, it's

[01:26:54] really, really, really

[01:26:56] about old age.

[01:26:59] They get angry irrationally.

[01:27:01] They but they also feel guilty

[01:27:03] and then they also stop eating.

[01:27:04] Yeah, I read it as something else

[01:27:06] bug it to that.

[01:27:08] Again, I don't think like I want

[01:27:10] to resist

[01:27:12] saying, oh, this is about getting

[01:27:14] on. I don't think it's like that

[01:27:16] at all. But I think he is evoking

[01:27:18] certain aspects of

[01:27:21] our experience and

[01:27:24] but really what it is is a bug

[01:27:27] that is dying.

[01:27:29] It literally made it clear that

[01:27:31] this is a dying bug.

[01:27:32] This is a giant insect that used

[01:27:34] to be a human being that

[01:27:36] is dying.

[01:27:38] There's this also a touching scene

[01:27:40] where his sister is playing violin.

[01:27:42] Well, yeah, I guess this is leading

[01:27:43] to the end.

[01:27:44] This is not that touching.

[01:27:48] Now, the moment, though, is that he

[01:27:49] wants his sister playing

[01:27:52] the violin is moving him.

[01:27:54] You know, he's trying to creep in

[01:27:56] to to this initiate

[01:27:58] the final events, but he's trying

[01:27:59] to hear her playing violin and he

[01:28:01] says, was he a beast that music so

[01:28:03] moved him? He felt as if he were

[01:28:04] being shown the way to that

[01:28:05] unknown nourishment he craved.

[01:28:08] There's something really

[01:28:10] is like a moth to a flame in some

[01:28:11] ways. And the flame here is

[01:28:14] the human community.

[01:28:15] He is trying to

[01:28:17] this is his last gasp attempt

[01:28:19] at remaining human

[01:28:21] and and having people

[01:28:23] recognize him as a human being,

[01:28:26] like a person.

[01:28:27] Yeah. And it leads

[01:28:29] ultimately to his

[01:28:31] death, but he does come out

[01:28:33] there. Yeah. And he has all these

[01:28:34] kind of fantasies of

[01:28:36] he crawls out of his room

[01:28:38] and you know, whenever he leaves

[01:28:40] his room, things don't go well.

[01:28:41] He comes out there and he

[01:28:43] wants to

[01:28:45] to be to just listen

[01:28:47] to her and like he gets these

[01:28:49] fantasies of imprisoning her

[01:28:51] in the room sort of

[01:28:53] but she would stay there of her

[01:28:54] own free will.

[01:28:55] Yeah, exactly.

[01:28:56] It's like a Frankfurt case kind

[01:28:57] of and he would

[01:29:00] keep all the other people out

[01:29:01] and she would just play the violin

[01:29:03] for him. And like that's the

[01:29:05] you know, and I think at a

[01:29:07] very deep level, he knows

[01:29:09] that will never happen.

[01:29:10] But it's so like

[01:29:12] this is the last time that he will

[01:29:14] feel like a part of the family

[01:29:16] and a part of the human family.

[01:29:19] Right. So because

[01:29:21] they see him, the lodgers

[01:29:22] say like if I get we're leaving,

[01:29:24] right? Well, they are like,

[01:29:26] what the hell is that?

[01:29:27] They don't even react.

[01:29:28] It's not like the

[01:29:30] initial shock of like the first

[01:29:32] maid that they had and

[01:29:35] they're like, what the hell?

[01:29:36] Yeah, what is this?

[01:29:36] Like, what are you doing?

[01:29:37] Like how are we?

[01:29:38] It's almost that they didn't tell

[01:29:40] it like how you didn't tell us

[01:29:41] that there was this like we've

[01:29:43] been living with this thing.

[01:29:44] It's like finding out that there's

[01:29:45] asbestos in the walls.

[01:29:47] And it's weird.

[01:29:48] It's like they're not reacting

[01:29:51] in a literal way as

[01:29:54] everybody else has pretty much.

[01:29:56] Yeah. And weirdly, like, like

[01:29:57] and I'm going to stay here and not pay the rent.

[01:30:01] Well, they say they're leaving,

[01:30:02] but they'll sue.

[01:30:03] They're not just going to not pay,

[01:30:05] but they're going to sue them

[01:30:07] is what I took that to be.

[01:30:09] But.

[01:30:12] But so.

[01:30:16] So then.

[01:30:17] So here now, the father

[01:30:19] is actually trying

[01:30:22] more to deal with the lodgers

[01:30:25] not getting that mad at Gregor

[01:30:27] at this point.

[01:30:28] And now the sister becomes

[01:30:31] if you think the villain

[01:30:33] is the person who wants

[01:30:35] to destroy Gregor, it is the sister.

[01:30:39] The father is just trying

[01:30:41] to calm the situation down.

[01:30:43] Right. It's like there's nothing to see here

[01:30:45] like he's trying to push them back.

[01:30:47] Yeah. And now the sister

[01:30:49] say we have to get rid of it.

[01:30:51] Like and it's very clear

[01:30:52] that she's talking about him as an it

[01:30:55] right now.

[01:30:56] And that is I mean, that is thrown

[01:30:58] in your face and the father

[01:31:01] is being more sympathetic to Gregor.

[01:31:03] And she even says with

[01:31:04] there or as he describes it with notable

[01:31:07] compassion, but what can we do?

[01:31:09] And then the sister says something

[01:31:11] which this is where it makes me think

[01:31:13] like at this point she is

[01:31:16] not a sympathetic character.

[01:31:19] She says like if it was really Gregor,

[01:31:22] he would have left essentially telling

[01:31:24] him to kill himself kind of or die.

[01:31:27] She says it would have realized a long

[01:31:29] time ago that it isn't possible for human

[01:31:31] beings to live beside such a creature

[01:31:33] and it would have gone away on its own.

[01:31:35] Just forget the fact that every time

[01:31:37] he tries to leave the room, it's

[01:31:39] shoot back in.

[01:31:40] And then she's shrieking and starting

[01:31:42] again and she's essentially telling them

[01:31:44] that he has to

[01:31:46] he has to go like they don't want

[01:31:48] him anymore. They completely are rejecting

[01:31:51] him now.

[01:31:52] And then there is this passage

[01:31:54] but Gregor was far from wanting to

[01:31:56] frighten anybody above all

[01:31:58] his sister. All he'd done was start

[01:32:00] to turn around to make his way back

[01:32:02] to his room.

[01:32:03] And admittedly this operation would

[01:32:05] have been hard not to notice since

[01:32:07] in his current injured state, he was

[01:32:09] obliged to use his head

[01:32:11] to help with his difficult

[01:32:13] maneuver. He kept raising it up

[01:32:15] and then thumping it against the

[01:32:17] floor.

[01:32:18] Pausing, he glanced around.

[01:32:19] His good intentions seem to have

[01:32:21] been recognized that had only been a

[01:32:23] momentary fright.

[01:32:24] None. Now all of them gazed at him

[01:32:26] sadly and in silence,

[01:32:28] his mother lay in her armchair,

[01:32:30] her extended legs pressed together,

[01:32:32] barely able to keep her eyes open in

[01:32:34] her exhaustion.

[01:32:35] His father and sisters out side by

[01:32:37] side and his sister had draped one

[01:32:39] hand across her father's neck.

[01:32:41] Perhaps I'll be allowed

[01:32:43] to turn around now, Gregor thought

[01:32:45] and resumed his labors.

[01:32:46] He could not entirely suppress

[01:32:48] the wheezing this exertion

[01:32:50] produced and now and then he

[01:32:52] had to rest.

[01:32:53] Otherwise, no one was harassing

[01:32:55] him. He had been left to

[01:32:57] attend to matters on his own.

[01:32:59] So now he takes this long walk

[01:33:01] back to his room.

[01:33:03] This is what got me.

[01:33:04] It's getting me now.

[01:33:06] I had to stop reading.

[01:33:08] It's just so

[01:33:11] so heartbreaking

[01:33:13] just that the realization

[01:33:15] is sinking in for him.

[01:33:17] Yeah. And in that description

[01:33:19] that you just alluded to, he was

[01:33:21] astonished at how great a distance

[01:33:23] separated him from his destination.

[01:33:25] And he didn't understand how weak

[01:33:27] as he was, he had been able to

[01:33:28] traverse the same distance

[01:33:30] just a little while before almost

[01:33:32] without noticing.

[01:33:34] Yeah, he's he's he's doing

[01:33:36] the final walk.

[01:33:37] Yeah. And he had sprung out

[01:33:40] before.

[01:33:41] So I mean, his family's reaction

[01:33:42] gives him energy or it takes

[01:33:44] it away.

[01:33:46] And now he's realizing this.

[01:33:48] This is conclude.

[01:33:50] He's.

[01:33:51] He's no more hope that he's going

[01:33:53] to be integrated into this family.

[01:33:54] He's not even he's not even a thing.

[01:33:57] You know, he's not even the brother

[01:33:58] anymore. Like once his sister

[01:34:00] has given up on him so resolutely

[01:34:02] and then chants up locking him in

[01:34:03] his room.

[01:34:05] It's very much a mirror of that

[01:34:06] opening scene.

[01:34:08] But the sister was

[01:34:10] the one protecting him

[01:34:12] and the father was the one

[01:34:13] threatening him.

[01:34:14] And now it's kind of the opposite

[01:34:16] and the sister is the one

[01:34:18] that slams the door

[01:34:20] and scares them.

[01:34:21] Yeah, and then he has kind of a nice

[01:34:23] death scene, actually.

[01:34:24] Yeah. Yeah.

[01:34:26] Already, he could scarcely feel the

[01:34:28] rotting apple in his back.

[01:34:31] Nor the inflamed area surrounding

[01:34:32] it, but now enveloped in soft dust,

[01:34:34] both now enveloped in soft dust.

[01:34:36] He thought back on his family with

[01:34:37] tenderness and love.

[01:34:39] His opinion that he must by all

[01:34:40] means disappear was possibly even

[01:34:42] more emphatic than that of his

[01:34:43] sister. He remained in this state

[01:34:45] of empty, peaceful reflection until

[01:34:47] the clock tower struck the third

[01:34:49] hour of morning.

[01:34:50] He watched as everything began to

[01:34:52] lighten outside his window.

[01:34:53] Then his head sank all the way to

[01:34:55] the floor without volition and from

[01:34:57] his nostrils, his last breath

[01:34:59] very faintly streamed.

[01:35:01] Got.

[01:35:04] Yeah, I don't know why like a

[01:35:05] bug dying does.

[01:35:08] Our bug.

[01:35:10] And just the rejection,

[01:35:12] the loneliness of it is so

[01:35:15] I know and you feel like,

[01:35:18] hey, this is kind of how we're all

[01:35:20] going to go, man.

[01:35:21] Nobody can come with us.

[01:35:23] You know, like

[01:35:26] this is, you know, I was watching

[01:35:28] Tombstone again the other day

[01:35:31] in the very death scene

[01:35:32] of Doc Holiday.

[01:35:35] He's begging.

[01:35:36] He's in tears.

[01:35:37] He says to Wyatt Earp, he begs

[01:35:39] him if you've ever been my

[01:35:41] friend, please leave now,

[01:35:43] because he knows he's going to

[01:35:44] die.

[01:35:45] And there is some

[01:35:47] some way in which it's a private

[01:35:49] moment, right?

[01:35:52] But I don't know what I don't know

[01:35:53] whether I'd want to be surrounded

[01:35:55] by people I loved or not

[01:35:57] have them have to see that.

[01:36:02] It seems like that's a nice,

[01:36:04] peaceful moment that would have

[01:36:05] been nice if he could share with

[01:36:07] his yeah, with people

[01:36:09] who loved him.

[01:36:10] But he doesn't have those people.

[01:36:11] No. And it's nice that he's

[01:36:13] just remembering the love.

[01:36:15] Yeah, right.

[01:36:16] Because he is his sister's

[01:36:18] no hand for his sister to hold.

[01:36:19] You know, he's become he's

[01:36:21] become something.

[01:36:22] And again, there's no even though

[01:36:24] this is clearly like a death

[01:36:25] scene that evokes people

[01:36:27] dying for us.

[01:36:29] The way it's described again

[01:36:31] reminds me of like an old dog

[01:36:33] just turning around really

[01:36:36] just grateful for being

[01:36:37] able to drag themselves

[01:36:39] back to like, you know what

[01:36:41] I mean? Like yeah, yeah.

[01:36:43] And that's also like he's like

[01:36:44] not wanting to put anybody else

[01:36:46] out. Yeah, you know, he

[01:36:48] just wants to go back to his room.

[01:36:51] Just whatever you do, don't name

[01:36:53] your next dog Gregor.

[01:36:55] Oh, God.

[01:36:57] So then the family is

[01:36:59] just like everything's

[01:37:01] great after he dies.

[01:37:03] Like, yeah, they kick the

[01:37:04] lodgers out. It's almost like

[01:37:06] this kind of satisfying because

[01:37:08] the lodgers have been dicks

[01:37:09] and the father is like, get the

[01:37:10] fuck out of my house.

[01:37:11] Yeah. And which he's never had

[01:37:13] the strength to do before.

[01:37:14] They never leave.

[01:37:15] They never left the house that

[01:37:17] we saw and now they all go out

[01:37:19] into the sunshine and their

[01:37:20] writing letters and they're just

[01:37:22] they're free.

[01:37:23] They are free.

[01:37:24] They're liberated.

[01:37:25] This is the relief that sometimes

[01:37:27] comes from. Yeah, you know,

[01:37:29] absolutely. I knew a

[01:37:31] woman whose whose husband

[01:37:34] you know, it took took ill

[01:37:35] die. It took her along.

[01:37:36] It took him a long time to die

[01:37:38] like a good couple years.

[01:37:40] And when he died,

[01:37:42] it's like she started a new life.

[01:37:43] I mean, she was elderly, but

[01:37:44] she had all this energy and she

[01:37:46] was traveling and it was like

[01:37:48] it's a little weird, but of

[01:37:50] course, you know, absolutely.

[01:37:53] But in this case,

[01:37:56] it's not an older

[01:37:57] and elderly person.

[01:37:59] It is a it's, you know, her

[01:38:01] brother, it's their son.

[01:38:04] And so there is something

[01:38:06] there's something about it's

[01:38:07] I'm just something really

[01:38:09] it's interesting that, you know,

[01:38:11] now as many have noted,

[01:38:13] Greta is the one that has

[01:38:15] metamorphicized like she is

[01:38:17] this strong.

[01:38:18] I know it seems really their

[01:38:20] happiness seems unseemly, but I

[01:38:22] can't help but think like it

[01:38:23] seems like a happy ending to

[01:38:24] me. I don't I don't know.

[01:38:26] I wasn't like his death is sad.

[01:38:30] He was a burden, man.

[01:38:31] He's a guy who became a bug

[01:38:33] and was living in their room.

[01:38:35] But he had also sacrificed

[01:38:37] his, you know, yeah.

[01:38:38] But their mourning had to happen

[01:38:40] before. So this is gets to like

[01:38:42] this. I mean, this is not only

[01:38:44] just like some an elderly person,

[01:38:46] but it also I couldn't help

[01:38:47] but read this as somebody

[01:38:49] with severe depression.

[01:38:51] Yeah. You know, in the way

[01:38:53] that that it's hard for a family

[01:38:55] to deal with somebody who's

[01:38:56] suffering that way.

[01:38:58] Yeah.

[01:38:59] That's right. I mean, again,

[01:39:01] and that, you know, Kafka

[01:39:02] suffered from suicidal

[01:39:04] tendencies and anxiety

[01:39:06] and depression and all

[01:39:08] of that. And so, you know,

[01:39:10] yeah, it could be a kind of

[01:39:12] projection of how people would

[01:39:13] feel if he just left

[01:39:16] their life that people.

[01:39:17] Yeah. Remember, remember when

[01:39:19] we were talking to Matt

[01:39:21] knock about suicide, you know,

[01:39:22] and he was talking about how

[01:39:24] sometimes people

[01:39:28] when you ask why how they

[01:39:29] could leave their family like

[01:39:30] their kids or whatever, it's

[01:39:31] like genuinely believe they would

[01:39:32] be better off.

[01:39:33] And this is some sort of a

[01:39:34] like a almost twisted

[01:39:37] fantasy in which the family

[01:39:38] is better off without you.

[01:39:40] But he, yeah, maybe, yes.

[01:39:43] But there's a kind of coldness

[01:39:45] to the way in which they're

[01:39:47] better off.

[01:39:48] You know, there's a kind of

[01:39:49] brutality to it.

[01:39:50] The sort of the the daughter

[01:39:53] just blooming and with all

[01:39:55] this time. This is the next

[01:39:56] day. Like this that

[01:39:59] that makes me think

[01:40:00] it's not it's not a happy

[01:40:02] ending in it or at least

[01:40:05] they're not an ambiguous.

[01:40:06] It's not an unambiguously happy

[01:40:07] ending. And not only that,

[01:40:10] but it also you start to think,

[01:40:12] wait a minute.

[01:40:14] What was the sacrifice for?

[01:40:17] If they're so, you know,

[01:40:19] happy and healthy and

[01:40:21] blooming and just

[01:40:24] then like why did he take

[01:40:26] that job and do that job?

[01:40:28] That mind numbing job forever?

[01:40:31] Like, yeah, that's sort

[01:40:33] of the final irony

[01:40:36] to me of the story is

[01:40:38] they didn't need him in the

[01:40:39] first place.

[01:40:41] Well, you know, just his love

[01:40:43] of that Venus and furs might

[01:40:45] this this is a masochistic

[01:40:46] fantasy.

[01:40:47] It's like a very odd not

[01:40:49] sexually masochistic, obviously.

[01:40:51] But it's like, yeah, I

[01:40:53] sacrificed.

[01:40:54] Not only did they not want

[01:40:56] me when I was a bug, but

[01:40:58] it turns out they would have

[01:40:59] been better off without me

[01:41:00] doing anything in their life.

[01:41:01] Like, yeah, that's

[01:41:03] that's that that reads

[01:41:05] like what a depressed, severely

[01:41:07] depressed person might think

[01:41:08] about their life. Like it's

[01:41:09] like the opposite of

[01:41:11] of that Christmas movie.

[01:41:13] It's a wonderful life.

[01:41:14] It's like it's like a reverse.

[01:41:16] It's a wonderful life.

[01:41:19] Exactly.

[01:41:22] That's interesting.

[01:41:23] Yeah.

[01:41:24] And that's what's and

[01:41:26] you know, the change in point

[01:41:27] of view to now it becomes

[01:41:29] a very kind of more impersonal

[01:41:31] way of describing what's

[01:41:33] going on. And they they don't

[01:41:35] you know, the parents have

[01:41:36] always been called Gregor's mom

[01:41:38] and Gregor's mother, Gregor's

[01:41:39] father. But now it's just

[01:41:41] Mr. and Mrs.

[01:41:42] Samson and Greta.

[01:41:44] And yeah, it's like he's just

[01:41:46] been in his point of view

[01:41:48] has been expunged

[01:41:50] from the text.

[01:41:51] And now it's it's interesting

[01:41:53] that that continues to be

[01:41:55] narrated from seemingly the same

[01:41:57] voice seemingly accept

[01:41:59] these little details

[01:42:00] of right.

[01:42:02] Of how people are referred to

[01:42:04] and

[01:42:06] but yeah, he's definitely dead.

[01:42:08] Like he's this dried up bug

[01:42:11] we have beetles in the house

[01:42:13] and that's what they seem like

[01:42:15] when they're up and dead.

[01:42:17] They just like they're just

[01:42:18] half dusty things like

[01:42:21] you know, they'll crumble if

[01:42:22] they've been there long enough,

[01:42:23] they'll just crumble.

[01:42:24] And that's what the

[01:42:26] the char woman takes care of them

[01:42:28] and they're just cleaning house

[01:42:30] they get rid of the lodgers,

[01:42:31] they get rid of that.

[01:42:32] They're going to get rid of the char

[01:42:33] woman. Everything is

[01:42:36] just starting anew for them.

[01:42:38] It's a new day, a new German day.

[01:42:44] Kafka was a Jew at least.

[01:42:47] This is not well, yeah.

[01:42:49] He's not complete. Yeah, that's

[01:42:50] right. It's it's

[01:42:52] it's also weird how

[01:42:54] Christian this would be coming

[01:42:55] from Kafka.

[01:42:57] I mean, yeah.

[01:42:59] Yeah. So I mean, if you wanted to

[01:43:01] see it as a Christ

[01:43:02] sacrificing himself

[01:43:04] for his family, then

[01:43:06] then yes. Well, you know, Jews,

[01:43:09] he was a Jew.

[01:43:14] I was going to say something.

[01:43:16] Do you want to talk about like the

[01:43:19] I guess I'm not pulled

[01:43:21] towards Marxist readings.

[01:43:24] There is that element though,

[01:43:26] that he is a he is alienated

[01:43:29] from the product of his labor,

[01:43:31] this whatever he's selling, you barely

[01:43:33] find out. I don't know if you ever

[01:43:34] find out.

[01:43:35] Certainly not.

[01:43:36] There are samples out, but

[01:43:38] I don't think it specifies what the

[01:43:39] samples even are.

[01:43:41] He is clearly

[01:43:44] like a cog in this machine.

[01:43:45] He is used for his labor

[01:43:49] and if his labor isn't

[01:43:51] producing at a high enough rate,

[01:43:52] he'll be let go.

[01:43:54] So there is that element.

[01:43:56] But it's much more.

[01:43:58] I mean, it works on a bunch of levels.

[01:44:00] Like you can ask the question whether

[01:44:02] or not Kafka in his mind had

[01:44:04] had the intended allegory as

[01:44:06] the worker, you know, and

[01:44:09] maybe that's the case.

[01:44:10] But I think as with

[01:44:11] we've said probably many times and

[01:44:13] many people have said like what

[01:44:15] makes a work of art great is that

[01:44:17] there are layers to this shit that

[01:44:18] like

[01:44:20] it speaks to something deep

[01:44:22] and universal about the human

[01:44:23] experience that

[01:44:25] that there might be one interpretation

[01:44:27] that was in Kafka's mind.

[01:44:29] Doesn't change much to me

[01:44:32] about the story.

[01:44:33] The story speaks you

[01:44:35] if you want it to be about, you know,

[01:44:38] about a kid coming out of the closet,

[01:44:40] right? It might speak to something

[01:44:43] to you there, right?

[01:44:44] It doesn't be it could it's

[01:44:46] to me, I favor this as any

[01:44:48] kind of

[01:44:50] of human change

[01:44:51] that other humans have to deal with

[01:44:53] like toward the negative, whether

[01:44:54] it's deterioration from illness

[01:44:56] or some alienation

[01:44:58] from what who you used

[01:45:01] to be and who you who you've become.

[01:45:03] Like it's such a powerful

[01:45:08] to me, it is so this

[01:45:10] most obvious thing I could ever say

[01:45:11] it's so much about the change that

[01:45:13] occurs in a human being and how that

[01:45:14] can affect everybody around them.

[01:45:17] I mean, it's obvious, but it's

[01:45:20] I think what it's ultimately

[01:45:22] about like it's yeah, it's deep.

[01:45:24] I mean, you can even even just like

[01:45:25] shit like coming home from college

[01:45:27] to your friends at home and you've

[01:45:28] changed, you know, it's like

[01:45:30] it resonates so deeply with

[01:45:32] the any experience of being

[01:45:35] rejected by people who

[01:45:37] who you're like, no, no, I'm one of you.

[01:45:38] Right? Like let me come out and listen

[01:45:39] to the violin in my fucking beetle body.

[01:45:42] And with that and with every change

[01:45:44] you get a little distance from the

[01:45:46] person or at least it feels that way

[01:45:48] at first. And all of a sudden

[01:45:49] we're not speaking the same language.

[01:45:51] You know, this just happens all the time.

[01:45:53] And sometimes it happens where it really

[01:45:55] just breaks up the

[01:45:57] the relationship.

[01:45:59] What's what's actually really powerful

[01:46:01] to me in this frustrating

[01:46:03] visceral sense is that

[01:46:06] Gregor can't communicate any of this

[01:46:08] because like that's normally how you

[01:46:09] would get around this, right?

[01:46:11] Exactly. You would talk to somebody

[01:46:12] and be like, you know, even through

[01:46:13] the course of a marriage, of course

[01:46:14] you change and you like

[01:46:16] you have to keep talking about it.

[01:46:18] You have to keep working on that's

[01:46:19] what saves it.

[01:46:20] Is that exactly like you're going out

[01:46:22] tonight, right? Like I remember thinking

[01:46:25] that my non married friends never

[01:46:26] understood why like

[01:46:28] I'd be like, well, I have

[01:46:30] I'm hanging out with my wife tonight

[01:46:31] and they'd be like, but you hang out

[01:46:32] every night. Like no, you have to

[01:46:34] keep working on that shit.

[01:46:36] And yes.

[01:46:37] And so there is that tragedy

[01:46:39] of not being able

[01:46:41] to communicate while at the same

[01:46:43] time hearing people

[01:46:45] communicate about you.

[01:46:47] Right. And that actually

[01:46:50] you're the

[01:46:52] the dog vibes that you kept getting.

[01:46:54] Yes. And what made you the saddest.

[01:46:56] I take it to be like when when I was

[01:46:57] feeling what I think you were feeling,

[01:46:59] that's the tragedy of it.

[01:47:01] It's like they can't tell you

[01:47:03] like they can't there's no way

[01:47:04] like they can't they're

[01:47:06] they just trying to I want to

[01:47:08] listen to the violin like let's

[01:47:09] be let's huddle up in the next

[01:47:10] to the fireplace like

[01:47:12] and their geniuses at

[01:47:14] understanding you often

[01:47:16] but they can't

[01:47:18] sometimes and maybe especially

[01:47:20] when they get old.

[01:47:20] I mean, my dogs are getting old

[01:47:22] and and then you know,

[01:47:24] you start they start to become

[01:47:25] less.

[01:47:26] Hey, I remember when I could take

[01:47:28] my dog for like a five mile hike

[01:47:31] and now they can I can barely get

[01:47:32] them around the, you know,

[01:47:34] three blocks like, you know,

[01:47:36] you know it'd be nice.

[01:47:37] A new dog.

[01:47:38] Like, you know,

[01:47:40] that is the cycle of a dog.

[01:47:43] A char woman to come over

[01:47:44] and like just sweep your dogs

[01:47:46] aside.

[01:47:49] I want to char woman.

[01:47:50] I mean, but you know, like that's

[01:47:52] the thing of that's the power of

[01:47:53] the story. It evokes

[01:47:57] you know, aging relatives,

[01:47:59] dogs, depressed, depression,

[01:48:02] anxiety.

[01:48:04] Yeah, all of it's just like a

[01:48:05] superhero or a story.

[01:48:09] Well, he's not much of a super

[01:48:11] hero.

[01:48:12] He can walk on walls.

[01:48:14] He's like he's like the

[01:48:16] if like if Spider Man

[01:48:19] is created like there's probably

[01:48:20] ninety nine Kafka monsters

[01:48:22] created by mistake,

[01:48:24] your power is you have the form

[01:48:26] of a dung beetle and you can curl

[01:48:28] on the wall.

[01:48:32] A great story, though.

[01:48:34] Really great.

[01:48:35] We tried to do justice.

[01:48:37] Definitely heard me get emotional

[01:48:40] and I feel like we I feel like

[01:48:41] we depressed ourselves.

[01:48:43] I'm definitely depressed.

[01:48:45] I mean, I was I've been depressed

[01:48:46] all day just dealing with the story

[01:48:49] in, you know, I've really done

[01:48:51] not much else.

[01:48:52] And if I'm being honest, I had

[01:48:54] a little bit of a sense of superiority

[01:48:56] that I wasn't feeling as emotional,

[01:48:58] that I was like going to look down

[01:49:00] on you for feeling emotional like now.

[01:49:03] Now I'm feeling it too.

[01:49:05] I want to go. Let's all right.

[01:49:06] Let's go get a fucking drink.

[01:49:07] Yeah, definitely get drunk tonight.

[01:49:09] All right.

[01:49:10] Well, join us next time for

[01:49:12] a more cheerful episode of

[01:49:14] Very Bad Wizards.

[01:49:18] They have me fucking crying.

[01:49:21] It's worth.