Amerika
by Franz Kafka
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Book Summary Information
Author: Franz KafkaTranslator: Willa Muir
Translator: Edwin Muir
Foreword: E. L. Doctorow
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1996-07-02
ISBN: 0805210644
Number of pages: 336
Publisher: Schocken
Book Reviews of Amerika
Book Review: "Lite" reading, by Kafkaesque standards.
Summary: 5 Stars
Kafka's image of a foreboding land in which "no one has sympathy for anyone" and in which the statue of liberty carries a sword instead of a torch is amazingly perceptive for a writer who never set foot on the American continent. The novel's theme is unjust accusation and the willingness of others to believe the worst without knowing or caring about the facts. _Amerika_ is especially pertinent to today's America of trial TV, Dr. Laura Schlesinger and Jerry Springer -- in which the armchair sport of sanctimoniously plucking motes from the eyes of others has become a national passtime. Maybe Kafka had an insight into the future direction of American culture, or maybe we've always been this way. Despite all this, _Amerika_ is Kafka's most upbeat work, and it ends on a fanciful, optimistic note. Beware, though: it is also Kafka's least complete work and the last chapter completely changes scene and situation without any explanation. Even given this fault, however, the book is well worth the read. Kafka does get a lot of things wrong about American culture, but he gets the important themes right and even some of the details (like our obsession with pointlessly saying "hello" over and over on every chance meeting). _Amerika_ might well be the Kafka novel for those who don't like Kafka -- a kind of Kafka lite. To those familiar with the gloominess of the Penal Colony or the Castle or the Trial, _Amerika_ will seem like PG Wodehouse by comparison.
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