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Home Repair Book Store > Home Repair books beginning with A
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Amerika: The Man Who Disappeared (New Restored Text Translation) |
Author: Franz Kafka
Published: 2004-05 |
List price: $12.95
Our price: $11.65
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As of: July 04th, 2009 03:10:40 AM
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Customer comments on this selection.
 Kafka in America
The life and times of young Karl Rossman as he comes to America. This book is often said to be un-Kafka like in that it is filled with people, places and lyrical descriptive prose, but -still-the only way I can think of to decribe the reading experience is 'Kafkaesque'! It is still drenched in Kafkas preoccupations;guilt through innocent misunderstanding or the machinations of unknown enemies;the way our lives are dominated and crushed by circumstances outside of our control.
This book is eminently readable,the slightly surreal nature of Karls experiences adding to the picture Kafka builds up of a man being swallowed up by life.
Unfinished,the book concludes somewhat disjointedly with Karl as a servant/slave,but the book includes the wonderful 'Theatre of Oklahoma' allegory-perhaps Kafkas and Europes dream of what America is or was.
ignore the haters--this book is great!
this book is a delight from beginning to end. it's unfinished, but so are all of kafka's novels (and many of his stories). He was a divinely inspired dilettante, not a professional writer; his stuff should be read the way one reads chaotic, fragmented ancient texts like gilgamesh or the book of genesis, as opposed to polished, narratively coherent modern fiction.
Amerika is by far kafka's most cheerful book. it has his usual themes of elusive acceptance alternating with alienation, but it's quite silly and charming. it's full of absurd situations and odd details, such as perpetual strikers picketing in the streets, an impossibly complicated mechanical desk and a pair of straight-out-of-central-casting crooks. it's a wild european projection of what america was about at the dawn of the modern age.
 Basically, It Is Not a Great Kafka Novel, It is Terrible.
This is a new translation by Michael Hofmann along with an introduction by the same person plus extra unpublished fragments of text. Kafka did not like the book and was still doing re-writes when he died. Max Brode edited the final version, and Edwin Muir did the first translation in 1928. Hoffman refers to the books as Kafka's "Cinderella." I think it is the opposite: Kafka's dog, his worst work. One must feel slightly sorry for Hofmann. He does a good job but there is not much of a story here and it ends abruptly with no conclusion - seemingly in the middle of a paragraph.
Much better books are: The Metamorphosis, In The Penal Colony, and Other Stories: The Great Short Works of Franz Kafka" and "The Castle." His other longish novel "The Trial" is a bit disjointed and not as good as "The Castle." None of his novels are long.
Where and how does one start to discuss this incomplete and unsatisfactory novel edited after Kafka's death? It must be his worst - if we can even call it a Kafka novel. By the way, I am not a professor of literature, just a Kafka fan and I have read all of his works, or at least all those available on the market. I have read his short stories including - of course - the brilliant novella "Metamorphosis" and his two other novels: "The Trial" and "The Castle" and I read his collected short stories including "The Stoker."
One is a bit shocked to find that the first and best chapter in "Amerika" is in fact that short story "The Stoker." This chapter is by far the most interesting part of the book. That is a good story that stands on its own. After that we follow a very weak saga in which "K" has a girl friend - a maid - similar to his other two novels and has a series of not very interesting sub-stories. Unlike the other novels "K" has a name: Karl Rossman. Karl spirals down socially and mentally as in "The Castle" and in "The Trial" but more so. He never really gets out on his own and is left in some sort of intermediate zone among some very odd fellow travelers. In fairness to Kafka, perhaps it would have been more interesting and accurate technically if Kafka had finished the work.
There is little here to get excited about. The plot is weak, and it seems to take place in Austria not America. It is neither an American story nor a Kafka story. The police, for example, stop people and ask for their "papers" in the style of a European socialist country, while Kafka places Boston is across the bridge from Manhattan, and the characters use English money, not dollars. The hotel where "K" works seems very European. Obviously, he did very little background research work about America for the novel. There are no references to life in America or to any geographical locations that the reader might relate to. It is about three or four people, not a trip to America. Finally, the story seems to run out of steam after chapter 1.
In summary, the plot is weak, the story is weak, it is full of technical errors, and it is a couple of steps below his other works. It is far from the greatness and brilliance of "Metamorphosis," and it is far below "The Castle" as a novel.
4 stars is a generous rating. If you have read "The Stoker" you can skip this purchase.
Good for the Initiated, but Read Kafka's Other Works First
Kafka never finished this novel--his first--and proceeded to write two of the best novels ever written in any language (The Castle and The Trial). Amerika seems, therefore, not to warrant much attention from the casual reader. Kafka's style, which is unrefined even in Kafka's greatest works, will seem downright coarse, almost as if Kafka never intended for anyone to read the novel. He didn't.
Long narrations, tortuous and confusing descriptive passages, and a dearth of action and plot characterize the novel, and may put off all but the most determined readers. Kafka offsets the novel's flaws, however, by constructing a captivating world for his protagonist, Karl Rossman, to inhabit.
The plot is easy to summarize: Karl Rossman is banished to America, and tries to secure a stable position for himself in his new homeland. Kafka's novel is a meditation on the ironies of liberty, autonomy, and status. He takes us inside Karl's mind to reveal the countless deliberations and reflections that lead to independent decisions, but the decisions never generate the desired outcomes in his new homeland.
Unaccustomed to freedom, Karl makes good, bad, and worse decisions, which direct him to experience the highest and lowest echelons of American society. He lives in a high-rise apartment, stands on a balcony amid skyscrapers, and reflects on the unfathomable network of commerce and traffic teeming below him. Conversely, Karl finds himself relegated to sleep on another high-rise balcony, as the servant of Karl's vagabond acquaintance and his fat mistress.
Somewhere in between, Karl works as an Elevator Attendant in a massive hotel, and continuously moves up and down between floors. Much as in the real present-day America, status is precarious in Kafka's novel. Karl's position rises and falls as quickly as the hotel elevators that he attends to, and he has little or no control over which direction he goes. Karl's destination is determined largely by the whims and preferences of others.
Kafka's brilliant meditations on the ironies of modern life are forward thinking and profound. Readers looking for an introduction to Kafka would be well served to start with the short stories or meditations, and to move along to the novels afterwards. I recommend this novel to anyone seeking a greater understanding of Kafka's works, but only if you've already read and liked his other work.
 Disappointed
This book is not very good, it is fantastical and epic in scope, but not in prose. The writing is very passive, and all the dialogue is inserted within discription, and it is very frustrating to get used to.
The story is also frustrating, I kept wanting to the main character to use his common sense and not get tricked by the evil characters, but he is too naive to do this.
Since Kafka never actually visited America, this book has an air of myth about it, the way people overseas may talked about America at the time. A place with riches and oppurutunites around every corner, but with just as many unjust people waiting to take advantage of you.
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