A true story to Bug you?
Lance
March 9, 2008
Op-Ed Contributor
A Bug’s Life. Really.
By MARK LEYNER
IN a scandal that’s sending shock waves through both the publishing
industry and academia, the author Franz Kafka has been revealed to be
a fraud.
“‘The Metamorphosis’ — purported to be the fictional account of a man
who turns into a large cockroach — is actually non-fiction,” according
to a statement released by Mr. Kafka’s editor, who spoke only on the
condition that he be identified as E.
“The story is true. Kafka simply wrote a completely verifiable,
journalistic account of a neighbor by the name of Gregor Samsa who,
because of some bizarre medical condition, turned into a ‘monstrous
vermin.’ Kafka assured us that he’d made the whole thing up. We now
know that to be completely false. The account is 100 percent true.”
In the wake of recent revelations concerning Margaret B. Jones’s
memoir “Love and Consequences” and Misha Defonseca’s “Misha: A Mémoire
of the Holocaust Years,” the disclosure that Mr. Kafka’s work was
based on reality has embarrassed editors and scholars.
“I’ve been teaching ‘The Metamorphosis’ for years, said a professor of
literature at Princeton, who insisted that he be identified as P.
“I’ve called it one of the most sublime pieces of literature ever
written. Elias Canetti called it ‘one of the few great and perfect
poetic works written during this century.’ To find out that it’s
actually true is devastating.”
The actual condition of Kafka’s neighbor, a Prague salesman who didn’t
return our calls or e-mail messages requesting comment, is known as
entomological dysplasia, and is somewhat rare. It results in the
development over time of a hard carapace, a segmented body and
antennas.
In a telephone interview, Mr. Kafka was contrite and tearful. “I know
what I did was wrong,” he said. “I’m very alienated from myself, but
that’s no excuse to lie. I took someone’s life and selfishly turned it
into an enigmatic literary parable.”
“I’m not sure how this happened,” said Mr. Kafka’s brother, B., of
Oxnard, Calif. “My brother is weird, but he doesn’t have that good an
imagination. A man who becomes a big bug ... my brother couldn’t make
that up if his life depended on it. As soon as I read ‘The
Metamorphosis’ I knew it was true. Don’t they fact-check fiction?”
Mr. Kafka’s publishers are now reviewing all his works of fiction —
stories about singing mice, “hunger artists” and men on trial for
crimes they’re not aware of having committed — to determine whether
they too are true.
“We were duped,” said E., Mr. Kafka’s editor. “The whole story is
pure, unadulterated non-fiction. This guy’s a complete con man.”
Mark Leyner is a novelist and screenwriter.