David Kepesh, a 38-year-old literature professor, narrates from a hospital bed after his body has transformed into a giant female breast; he recounts the onset of the transformation, sessions with his psychiatrist Dr. Klinger and nurse Miss Clark, and visits from his father, girlfriend Claire, and colleague Arthur Schonbrunn, while wrestling with whether his fate is a hallucination and whether it was inspired by the Kafka and Gogol stories he taught.
Books mentioned in The Breast (7)
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka: “"Since my father knows nothing of books, I told him how Gregor Samsa awakens in the Kafka story to discover that he has become an enormous beetle" / "teaching Gogol and Kafka every year—teaching 'The Nose' and 'Metamorphosis.'"”
The Nose by Nikolai Gogol: “I summarized for him 'The Nose,' recounting how Gogol's hero awakens one morning missing his nose, how he sets out to look for it in St. Petersburg”
Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift: “the power over my imagination of Kafka or Gogol? Or of Swift? I'm thinking of Gulliver's Travels, another book I've taught for years.”
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky: “My life's drama, as exciting in the early years of therapy as The Brothers Karamazov, has all the appeal now of some tenth-grade reader...”
The Necklace by Guy de Maupassant: “...beginning with 'The Necklace' and running through to 'The Luck of Roaring Camp.'”
The Luck of Roaring Camp by Bret Harte: “...beginning with 'The Necklace' and running through to 'The Luck of Roaring Camp.'”
Archaic Torso of Apollo by Rainer Maria Rilke: “"And now to conclude the hour with the poem by Rainer Maria Rilke entitled 'Archaic Torso of Apollo' written in Paris in 1908," followed by the poem quoted in full in the narrative.”