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Product Description
Product Description
In America Karl Rossmann is 'packed off to American by his parents' to experience Oedipal and cultural isolation. Here, ordinary immigrants are also strange, and 'America' is never quite as real as it should be. Kafka, a Czech writing in German, never acutally visited America; so, as Max Brod commented, 'the innocence of his fantasy gives this book if advanture its peculiar colour.'
Both Joseph K in The Trial and K in The Castle are victims of anonymous governing forces beyond their control. Both are atomised, estranged and rootless citizens decieved by authoritarian power. Whereas Joseph K is relentlessly hunted down for a crime that remains nameless, K ceaselessly attempts to enter the castle and so belong somewhere. Together these novels may be read as powerful allegories of totalitarian government in whatever guise it appears today.
About the Author
Franz Kafka (1883-1924) was born into a Jewish family in Prague. In 1906 he received a doctorate in jurisprudence, and for many years he worked a tedious job as a civil service lawyer investigating claims at the state Worker's Accident Insurance Institute. He never married, and published only a few slim volumes of stories during his lifetime. Meditation, a collection of sketches, appeared in 1912; The Stoker: A Fragment in 1913; The Metamorphosis in 1915; The Judgement in 1916; In the Penal Colony in 1919; and A Country Doctor in 1920. Only a few of his friends knew that Kafka was also at work on the great novels that were published after his death from tuberculosis: America, The Trial, and The Castle.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
I've always thought that Kafka is poorly served by the support of many of his greatest fans, like D H Lawrence and Joseph Heller.
His work is appreciated by me as dark, ironical - deliberately overdone depictions of neurotics and obsessives : Kafka as a sort of literary Woody Allen, rather than something reaching towards existentialist profundity (in the mode of Camus.)(Yes, I know Woody Allen writes books!)
Perhaps many of his readers would reject my view, but where does the authority of the 'critic' here, who describes his work as 'overrated drivel' come from? At 51, I hesitate to find a remark within my experience for which I have more contempt. His remark is opinion, not criticism (might I suggest Kafka will remain better admired and remembered than he is?) I regret the wasted seconds I spent reading and responding to his 'drivel'.
These books are FUNNY!
His work is appreciated by me as dark, ironical - deliberately overdone depictions of neurotics and obsessives : Kafka as a sort of literary Woody Allen, rather than something reaching towards existentialist profundity (in the mode of Camus.)(Yes, I know Woody Allen writes books!)
Perhaps many of his readers would reject my view, but where does the authority of the 'critic' here, who describes his work as 'overrated drivel' come from? At 51, I hesitate to find a remark within my experience for which I have more contempt. His remark is opinion, not criticism (might I suggest Kafka will remain better admired and remembered than he is?) I regret the wasted seconds I spent reading and responding to his 'drivel'.
These books are FUNNY!
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Kafka is surely the greatest writer of fiction in the 20th Century. Quite a claim, I know, given that the last century produced Thomas Mann, George Orwell, Graham Greene, Salman Rushdie, Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, Thomas Keneally and a host of others. All these writers are brilliant and insightful, but Kafka during his short life showed the absurdity of human pretensions. "The Trial" and "The Castle" show the way that totalitarian regimes will protect themselves at all costs. Indeed, anyone who has ever rang a customer care Call Centre will immediately be able to identify with "The Castle", as will any one who has attempted to get information out of any bureaucracy. "The Trial" is perhaps his greatest - and certainly his darkest - work. We don't know what the crime is nor do we know if he is innocent or guilty, but we don't need to know because the point of the novel is that once a person finds themselves inside a criminal "justice" system - particularly but not exclusively in totalitarian regimes - it can be difficult to find a way out.
It is amazing that these novels were written before the Nazi Holocaust, before we knew the truth of the Stalinist regime, and before the crimes committed by Pol Pot, Mao, Amin and the Americans in Vietnam.
It is amazing that these novels were written before the Nazi Holocaust, before we knew the truth of the Stalinist regime, and before the crimes committed by Pol Pot, Mao, Amin and the Americans in Vietnam.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
A bizarre lack of insight from people taking it upon themselves to review such an interesting author. A literary masterpiece 'The Castle' may not be, but sometimes one reads to obtain slightly more than pure aesthetic gratification.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Superb
Nobody should miss this collection of three of Kafka's greatest novels. As already mentioned in these reviews, Kafka can be very funny, or horrifyingly bizarre, depending upon... Read more
Published 9 months ago by Mr. Raymond L. Hall
Disappointing.
Having readhis Complete Short Stories I thought I'd be in for a treat with this compendium - after all, it's Kafka, but longer, right?
Wrong. Read more
Wrong. Read more
Published on 21 Jun 2009 by Christopher Fraser
great ;)
I bought this book because i didn't read all the novel of Kafka.
The book is great, if you like such type of writing. Read more
The book is great, if you like such type of writing. Read more
Published on 9 Jun 2009 by Magdalena Kilarska
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