David Cronenberg on Kafka's The Metamorphosis ⇒

From David Cronenberg’s introduction to Susan Bernofsky’s translation of Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, republished at The Paris Review:

When The Fly was released in 1986, there was much conjecture that the disease that Brundle had brought on himself was a metaphor for AIDS. Certainly I understood this—AIDS was on everybody’s mind as the vast scope of the disease was gradually being revealed. But for me, Brundle’s disease was more fundamental: in an artificially accelerated manner, he was aging. He was a consciousness that was aware that it was a body that was mortal, and with acute awareness and humor participated in that inevitable transformation that all of us face, if only we live long enough.