Samsa in Love-- From Dreams to Reality

Murakami's new short story, 'Samsa in Love', recently has been translated and published in the New Yorker and that has caught my attention.

I chanced to read this at the campus lounge on a Friday evening while waiting for a friend.

This short story, like any other, is gripping, mysterious, and a real casual page-turner.

Supposedly it's about a man who wakes up on an impulse and finds out that he is Gregor Samsa, the protagonist in Frank Kafka's 'Metamorphosis'.

The concept is pretty much the same from Metamorphosis, except that in Murakami's novel the protagonist wakes up to find himself as Samsa instead of a venomous insect.

Samsa, in Samsa in Love, is seen as dreary and has not the slightest iota of what happened during his extended sleep session. He finds himself in awe, as he sluggishly gets accustomed to his surroundings.

While reading this it reminded me a little bit of Plato's Allegory of the Cave in how the prisoners see the real world after escaping from the cave with artificial, minimal light. Once they escape, they are now accustomed to that real world with real, natural light from the sun, and, their memories of the conditions in the cave, in due time, fade away from their recollective memory. 

Going back to the short story, Samsa wakes up and sees himself in the real world and escapes from his dream world. He has no idea where he was, why he was there, where everyone was. But the more he aimlessly goes about his duties, he gets used to living in this mysterious, rather lifeless world. 

Two gem quotes I thought were worth noting:

"'Everything is blowing up around us, but there are still those who care about a broken lock, and others who are dutiful enough to try to fix it. . . . But maybe that’s the way it should be. Maybe working on the little things as dutifully and honestly as we can is how we stay sane when the world is falling apart.'" 

"'If you think of someone enough, you're sure to meet them again.'"

Overall this is worth reading if you've got the time. Whether you're taking a break from studying, got a gap between your classes, working, or just waiting for someone, like me, go ahead and take the time to thump over this little piece.