Metamorphosis

Looking on oneself as something alien, forgetting the sight, remembering the gaze, wrote Kafka, perhaps presaging his most famous tale, in which a workaday traveling salesman wakes one day to find he is now a huge dung beetle. Kafka expertly portrays the vagaries of the human heart--all of its sad glory and tinny selfishness--in a recording that the gifted Martin Jarvis elevates to an audio classic, employing his storytelling skills and knowing inflections in a lively and charming narration occasionally punctuated by scratchy, whimsical violins. Jarvis has firmly established himself as a source of finely nuanced theater of the mind. This unforgettable audio movie is vivid and disturbing, shot through with black humor. D.J.B. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine

Everyone knows the opening of Kafka's great story, with Gregor Samsa awakening as a giant insect, but not so many have read it all the way through. Benedict Cumberbatch's narration should increase its familiarity. He doesn't make the story any less weird and disturbing--no one could do that and be faithful to the text--but he does emphasize the paradoxical humanity of Gregor's dilemma. There is really only one fully developed character, Gregor, but Cumberbatch humanizes the others to the extent that can be done. The music between sections is brief but aptly creepy, adding to a truly memorable performance of one of the classics of twentieth-century literature. D.M.H. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine