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