For Then We Should Be Cockroaches

Mind blowing moment at breakfast with the geeklets this morning, one of whom decided to treat a plastic kitchen ladle like a doll and name him Sampson, and the other who is reading Romeo and Juliet and says, “Gregory” every time her sister says “Sampson.”

As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.

If you never read it in high school, that is the famous opening line (albeit translated) from Franz Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis”, where the lead character wakes up to discover he has been transformed into a cockroach.

The lead character’s name is Gregor Samsa.

Gregory.  Sampson.

There’s absolutely no connection, of course, but being geeks we research these things.  I consulted the BORED  (that’s Bardfilm’s Oxford Remote English Dictionary), just to rule it out (because how cool would it be!). Bardfilm, of course, can pull out a book called Kafka’s Names at the drop of a hat.  There we learned that Samsa, while no doubt intending to mirror Kafka’s own name, is also likely a reference to the Buddhist samsara, the repeating cycle of reincarnation before achieving Nirvana.  There’s other possibilities, but I like that one. There’s also no reference to any Romeo and Juliet connections, but did you really expect one?

This is how we spent breakfast in my house.

 

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