It is the fear of death that drives
me to squeeze the ink out of this pen;
otherwise, I would not be here
writing in a crowded coffee shop.
(It is very unusual for a man to die
in a coffee shop.)
I’ve been coming here to write
as often as I can.
The waitress knows my name.
Sipping coffee,
in the face of death
I bravely shiver.
After reading the opening lines of Ian McEwan’s The Cockroach, I was immediately, and expectedly, reminded of Kafka’s “Metamorphosis.” The initial pages of the book are, broadly put, “Metamorphosis” inverted. However, even though Kafka readers will positively be entertained reading McEwan’s work, the story itself is not Kafkaesque — we do not really feel that we are in one of Kafka’s nightmares. Jim Sams, the main character of The Cockroach, is not ‘struck by the absurd,’ as Albert Camus would have put it. Moreover, the story’s aim is not to answer, “What would happen if a cockroach turns into a man?” That’s merely the first 15 or so pages of the book. After that, The Cockroach crosses the perimeters of “The Metamorphosis” to become something else — a political satire.
There are significant differences between Jim Sams of The Cockroach and Gregor Samsa of “Metamorphosis,” but one of the differences is much more significant than the rest. When Gregor Samsa is metamorphosed into an insect, he is still the same person. He does not adopt the insect’s character, its mind, or its memories. On the other hand, when Jim Sams becomes human, he remembers who he was as a cockroach — he is still himself — but he also has access to the mind and memories of the human body he now pilots. But that’s not all. The story becomes more interesting (and frightening) when we discover that the cockroach who now controls the human body of Britain’s prime minister has a political agenda.
Jim Sams wants to transform Britain into a ‘Reversalist’ country. We are introduced to the concept of ‘Reversalism’ in the second chapter of the book. Concisely, it means reversing the money flow. “At the end of a working week, an employee hands over money to the company for all the hours that she has toiled. But when she goes to the shops, she is generously compensated at retail rates for every item she carries away.” And Jim Sams does everything in his power to achieve that.
Overall, McEwan’s The Cockroach is a good book to read, whether you have read Kafka’s “Metamorphosis” or not. However, I think that the people who will enjoy this book most are the ones who are familiar with things like Donald Trump and his Twitter account, Brexit, the Me Too movement, et cetera.
I woke up with a hangover, late for work. There was nothing to motivate me to get out of bed except water. I was so dehydrated I understood what it means to be thirsty in hell.
I crawled out of bed and went to grab a cold bottle of water from the fridge in the kitchen. There was a Manowar song in my head I couldn’t shake off. One line from “Hail and Kill” on repeat, in a loop.
Blood and death are waiting like a raven in the sky
I was born to die
I took a piss and got dressed. My reflection in the mirror frowned at me as I tried to button my pants; I responded with a nod — never been this fat before.
In the car, I slapped myself twice to ‘wake the fuck up’. I wasn’t sleepy. I was demotivated, bored out, tired of everything and everyone. I did not want to do life anymore. But the routine was waiting for me.
I started the car and turned on the AC but remained in the parking. I punched the steering wheel a few times and then rubbed my temples as I tried to remember the night before.
It’s better to regret things you’ve done than to regret things you haven’t done.
Last night, I met an old friend in a coffee shop by accident. He was there and I was there, so we agreed to go out for drinks immediately and catch up. He had just come back from New York.
“Two years already. Wow,” I said. (We weren’t close friends, so his absence mostly went unnoticed. He posted things on Facebook every now and then, and that’s how I remembered he existed.)
“Yeah, I’ll be here until August or so. If everything goes according to plan, I’ll be back in New York in September to do my Ph.D. So we have a whole year to do things together. Oh, are you performing with the band anytime soon?”
(AB is an unpublished poet with a master’s degree. He is a skinny young man with messy hair. From some angles, his face may remind one of George Orwell. Charismatic, talkative, and loud, he tries to woo or hug or kiss every girl he comes across. AB is also known to be a drunkard. The bartenders on Hamra Street know him well.)
We had a few beers, talked about literature, and tried to define art. At some point, he tried to explain his thesis and how he tried to defend it, but I didn’t follow. The music in the bar was too loud and I wasn’t interested enough to make an effort to hear the words he was blurting out. But in general, we had a good conversation. I always kind of liked his company.
I heard him ask the bartender if he could pay for his drinks tomorrow, but I wasn’t going to let that happen. I waved at the bartender and gestured that I would be the one paying the bill. And I did.
“Thanks, man.”
“You don’t need to thank me. You’re a writer and you’re supposed to be broke,” I said, and we both laughed.
And then, since I already had the book with me and since he had already told me that he planned to read it, I told him a little about Jaroslav Hašek, the author of The Good Soldier Švejk.
“Hašek,” I told AB, “was a real character. Born to be a writer and a vagabond. He was a true bohemian and an anarchist, kind of like you.”
We laughed a little and then went to another bar where we had some whiskey. By that time, I was already a little intoxicated and his girlfriend had joined us, and our ‘literary conversations’ were repressed.
