I think, in a sense, the real horror in this book was the isolation from Gregor’s family rather than the fact that he turned into a bug. The horror of the selfishness of your loved ones that you are no longer able to provide, the empty sorrows, the unrequited feeling of missing them and not getting back the same.
In the 80-pages of this book, I felt my empathy for someone reach its maximum level, and made me reflect on myself: how would I react if it ever happened to someone in my own family? In a way, I also could not blame the family through their adjustment period, but the fact that the love for Gregor was slowly fading from their lives? That I could not take.
Great translation, it would definitely make me want to read more of Kafka’s work.