Kafka's "The Metamorphosis" vs. Gogol's "The Nose"

:D

The debate has been raging in my mind ever since, and now it must have an answer. :patriot:

you've alreday made me late for work

what, when you were 10?

I must admit I have not read the Gogol, not sure how that happened, so I guess I'll go with Metamorphosis. But I like The Castle better. And you are leaving out Doestoevski.....

That's a big word for a li'l turd!

;)

"I am a sick man. ... I am a spiteful man. I am an unattractive man. I
believe my liver is diseased. However, I know nothing at all about my
disease, and do not know for certain what ails me. I don't consult a doctor
for it, and never have, though I have a respect for medicine and doctors.
Besides, I am extremely superstitious, sufficiently so to respect medicine,
anyway (I am well-educated enough not to be superstitious, but I am
superstitious). No, I refuse to consult a doctor from spite. That you
probably will not understand. Well, I understand it, though. Of course, I
can't explain who it is precisely that I am mortifying in this case by my
spite: I am perfectly well aware that I cannot "pay out" the doctors by not
consulting them; I know better than anyone that by all this I am only
injuring myself and no one else. But still, if I don't consult a doctor it is
from spite. My liver is bad, well--let it get worse!"

Of course, it may help that I read it for the first time while still a teenager. I think teenagers are, in general, uniquely suited to messages of alienation.

:P

Diary of a Madman is one of my favorites.