A lively novel with a very sixties feel to it. Gregor is a student in East Berlin when we first meet him in 1959, bored with his law studies and vainly trying to hawk ideas for stories to editors and TV producers. We follow him through his marriage to his student girlfriend Lola and his breakthrough as a successful screenwriter and novelist, with many misadventures and comic incidents along the way, but the real point of the story seems to be Gregor's increasing discontent with life as the spark of originality he started out with is snuffed out by his growing technical fluency and his chameleon-like ability to adapt his work to what the market wants and what the authorities are prepared to accept. He doesn't exactly wake up in bed and discover that he has turned into a giant cockroach, but the effect is much the same. ( )