Submitted by Prof. Clark Muenzer (Dept. of German, University of Pittsburgh), Mar 6, 2008 12:08

I was surprised to find no mention in this review of Professor Stanley Corngold's (Princeton University) masterful translation of "Die Verwandlung," which with its notes and critical apparatus has edified scores of undergraduate readers with no access to the German original. Corngold's "monstrous vermin" remains, in my view, the preferred English rendering of Gregor as "Ungeziefer," because it suggests, according to Corngold, something of the middle-high German root, which means "an animal unclean for sacrifice." Furthermore, with "monstrous," the translation also captures that aspect of Gregor Samsa's being that--as monsters always do--resists all classification.

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