NAKED METAMORPHOSIS:

Kafka’s Shakespearean Tragedy

written by Eric Mays

published by Eraserhead Press

(2009)

ISBN-10: 1933929901

ISBN-13: 978-1933929903

First review by Garrett Cook

09.28.2009

Yes, I am a member of the Bizarro community. Yes, my next book is being put out by Eraserhead Press. Yes, Bizarro writers tend to have good things to say about Bizarro books. But, there is a reason for this. And it is almost the exact opposite of what naysayers might assume. Bizarro presses have strong output and direct involvement from Bizarro authors. And we’re not quite popular enough to allow crap to happen. If somebody reads one bad Bizarro book, there’s a chance they’ll think Bizarro fiction is bad. So, we’re proud of our standards, we’re proud of our standards, our community and our peers.

Eraserhead, run by popular Bizarro author Carlton Mellick III and his wife Rose O’ Keefe, has made a very bold choice with Eric Mays’ Naked Metamorphosis , the kind of choice that comes as a surprise and a relief. For one of the biggest arbiters of Bizarro taste to take this risk is quite admirable, as this book will not conform to people’s definition of Bizarro. It is one of those instances of quiet Bizarro, taking more of its influences from classic literature and pure, Kafkaesque absurdism rather than from cult cinema, comics or genre fiction. In this respect, Naked Metamorphosis is very distinctive.

Naked Metamorphosis tells the story of Hamlet from Horatio’s perspective. Horatio is an ideal existential and Bizarro hero, a person whose purpose on Earth is to gain answers and order from a chaotic world. Bizarro heroes have the choice of raging against the madness around them or becoming part of it, embracing the chaos and inviting it into their lives. Horatio fights hard for his sanity, which is taxed by the weird behavior of the rest of the play’s cast (especially constant irritant Hamlet) and encounters with Puck, a being generally accepted as an embodiment of the world’s chaos. On account of this chaos, Horatio needs a Horatio of his own, courtier Osric. An often hilarious tale of one man’s quest for sense in a world that refuses to provide any. Stoppardian, whimsical and subtle in its transgressions, this is a book for Shakespeare buffs and Bizarro readers looking for a lighter more literary brand of Bizarro. If you’re a Bizarro fan and somebody says Bizarro is brainless, filthy and lame, give them a copy of this.

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Second review by Adam Armstrong

11.8.2009

Something is really rotten in Hamlet’s state of mind.

Everyone is dead, except for Hamlet and Horatio. But that isn’t right and Horatio is aware of it. Hamlet is drinking and drugging and thinks that he is turning into a cockroach. Horatio uses a flashback to bring this twisted telling of Shakespeare up to date. The king is dead and it looks like Claudius may not be the killer. First there is no ghost and then everyone sees the ghost, or maybe not. Ophelia loves taters and Gertrude is evil. Horatio is trying to figure out why everything is not going right and why he remembers Nazis. Finally Horatio is given a chance to ask the god, Kafka.

Funny and, near the end, thought provoking. I’m a big fan of both Hamlet and The Metamorphosis so it was a little hard to get into the story at first. It wasn’t until the flashback before I really started to enjoy what I was reading. Mays lays down plenty of puns for us to pick up on such as the war on the terror against the ghost and the bail out to fix all of the problems.

Bizarre and a fun little read, pick it up: 4.5 out of 5