Amerika: The Man Who Disappeared: The New Translation by Michael Hofmann

Rating:
Summary: Good, fun read
Review: Not as famous has his other books, but a brilliant piece of imagination that creates a story about a young man who has disgraced himself and is packed off to America by his family. (even though the author never actually went there).

There are plenty of absurd events and events that are straight out of a bad dream.

The hero of the book battles on through an America that has thousands of people living out the American dream, crowding at counters and taking advantage of him, as well as helping him out.

Rating:
Summary: What could have been America
Review: The story is a dreamy voyage into a land that could have been America, that would have liked to be America, but (as one realizes from reading this work) turned out to be totally different. It isn't a "a brilliant piece of imagination" as an earlier post said, and it isn't earth-shattering. But it is memorable and unique among novels, in that it is a journey into a world that would be our own world, isn't our own world, and yet has something mysteriously in common with it.

It is also unique among Kafka's work in that it isn't as dreary as the rest. In the course of the dissapointments Karl encounters, there is always an air of optimism and cheer, as a breath of fresh air - the story contains adventure and hope within its melanchoy realities. To those looking for an escape from the dreariness that prevails around them - something Kafka definitely needed and must have found in writing Amerika - this story will be a wonderful gift.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointed
Review: 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.