Kafka's Morning Wood

Lucy’s literature class had been studying Kafka’s Metamorphosis story, and on Friday evening she told me that she’d developed her own idea about it's meaning.

I’ve never heard this mentioned before, she said upon walking into the kitchen wearing a pair of knickers. But it seems so obvious.

Oh yeah I said, and what’s that?

So you’ve got this guy who wakes up one morning. One morning when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams it starts. Troubled dreams. And is there a clue as to the source or cause of these troubled dreams? Why yes, there is. We’re told that on the wall next to the bed he’s hung a framed picture of a woman - a lady fitted out with a fur hat and fur boa. Uh-huh. This means burlesque. And burlesque was basically the porn of the day. So burlesque to troubled dreams, and what next? Oh - there’s been a transformation. And what kind of transformation? Well, and I quote, it’s an everyday transformation that brings no cause for alarm. He’s not fazed by the transformation and he’s still thinking about the practicality of getting his train.

So, she said, in anticipation of concluding. He’s been dreaming of his feather boa lady, and he’s woken up with an everyday thing going on - an everyday thing associated with hardness.

She took a glass from the shelf and the two litre plastic bottle of beer from the fridge. She poured the beer vertically into the glass. It quickly foamed up and spread across the counter.

Do you not see what I’m getting at?

I admitted that I hadn’t yet read it, and she got really pissed off. It was my copy for fuck sake. I was watching way too much football. . . I was, like, watching football all the time and I should be reading more - way more - especially if I wanted to be a writer.

She started drinking her beer.

I told her I would read the story.

Allegory, she said. It's an allegory.

How did you call it. . . haha, oh yeah. . . morning wood. That’s what it’s about. That’s what the transformation to rigidity is. How is it that all those scholars over the centuries have never realised? I guarantee you Kafka was on the train that morning, scribbling ideas and laughing continuously.

I suggested she get in touch with the Kafka museum to offer to do a talk on her discovery of this allegorical meaning. Or better still, I said - you could arrange to do a tour. Lead a tour group with one of those wavy triangle flags, but have a picture of an erect penis on it.

She laughed a lot at this.

Haha yeah, but I think a purple umbrella would be better. She laughed again and stood up to wave around an invisible umbrella. Come on you stragglers, we're going this way. Onwards with the tour. Mind your step on the cobblestones. Can you hear me at the back? Okay gather round, gather round. I have a few words to say about the subtle allusion to jizzing in the book's third act.

I tried to join in.

About the utilisation of bedroom sock, to be hence flung under nearby dresser or cabinet. Or. . . what's a Chesterton? Is that a type of cabinet?

A sofa. But no, that doesn't work. You obviously haven't read it.

So what, I said. Not the right books to read. You're as bad as the scholars if you think that. I mean, I never said you should read that Bohumil Hrabal book about the paper crusher or the one about the author who emigrated to Canada.

I was about to add that I’d read her book about Czech history too, but she'd gone back into my room with her beer to like more photos on the face book website.