Amerika: The Missing Person: A New Translation, Based on the Restored Text

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Amerika: The Missing Person: A New Translation, Based on the Restored Text

by Franz Kafka, Mark Harman (Translator)

3.71 of 5 stars 3.71 · rating details · 7,527 ratings · 290 reviews

Franz Kafka's diaries and letters suggest that his fascination with America grew out of a desire to break away from his native Prague, even if only in his imagination. Kafka died before he could finish what he like to call his "American novel,: but he clearly entitled it Der Verschollene ("The Missing Person") in a letter to his fiancee, Felice Bauer, in 1912. Kafka began...more

Hardcover, 299 pages

Published November 18th 2008 by Schocken (first published 1927)

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Sep 09, 2008 Chak rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: angst-ridden hipsters who aren't worth the trouble to punch

Recommended to Chak by: my husband... THANKS!

Shelves: fiction

Life is too short. Don't walk - RUN - away from this book. Masochist that I am, I got more than two-thirds through the book and finally could not stand it anymore. Amerika is about this 16 year old boy named Karl who gets exiled to America by his German parents after impregnating a household servant. Just as he was bewildered and passive during the aforementioned fornication (the maid overtly seduced him), Karl remained so for the rest of the book (at least what I read). Repeatedly, and without...more

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Jun 01, 2009 Bogdan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: central-europe

I really liked this style of Kafka, some sort of naturalism or realism. Comparing with the other short novels and some fragments from "The Trial", this novel is totally different. I really enjoyed it, and I liked the innocence of Karl Rossman, the main character. It is pretty bad that Kafka did not manage to finish the book and that some chapters at the end are not quite polished. The last chapter, "Oklahoma Theater", resembled a little bit with Pinocchio, and the main character has the mix betw...more

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Mar 17, 2009 Wyatt rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Much like the protagonist in Roth's recent Indignation, one can't help but sympathize with and occasionally relate to Kafka's young tragic hero Carl, who, despite his efforts and good intentions is misread, slandered, and otherwise abused and molested while trying to make his way up in the world--held at bay of course by the lack of objectivity and empathy of people in power. In this case, the power mongers are rather lowly themselves: the cooks and waiters at the hotel where Carl finds himself...more

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Mar 26, 2013 Ken rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is the first work of Kafka that I have read. Unlike most books, it actually seized my attention and kept me on the hook, so to speak. Karl is naïve, fragile and optimistic. However, he is not easily deterred, and through many encounters of adversity Karl shows a strong sense of fortitude. I found myself on a rollercoaster ride that left me feeling queasy, excited and perplexed all at the same time by the sudden turn of events. I began to feel emotionally charged, and intertwined with Karl’...more This is the first work of Kafka that I have read. Unlike most books, it actually seized my attention and kept me on the hook, so to speak. Karl is naïve, fragile and optimistic. However, he is not easily deterred, and through many encounters of adversity Karl shows a strong sense of fortitude. I found myself on a rollercoaster ride that left me feeling queasy, excited and perplexed all at the same time by the sudden turn of events. I began to feel emotionally charged, and intertwined with Karl’s character. Moreover, Kafka’s view of Karl became all too familiar and suddenly the words became reality for me. It seems as if one bad choice that Karl made had a domino effect on all his other endeavors.
Often in life we find ourselves being misplaced and mishandled by people, circumstances and choices that we make, which in any case is merely the nature of the beast that is called life. Certainly there were some jaw-dropping moments. For example, when the letter was read to Karl informing him of his uncle disassociating himself from Karl. Who could have seen that bombshell being dropped? However, it was an example of the harsh realities of life that one must face. In any case, what started off as hope and well-wishing soon turned into sympathy, anxiety and sorrow. I could not help but sympathize with Karl.
I learned a lot from Karl’s character. I did not see someone who was bitter, but I saw an individual who was better from his experience. Rather than give up, he stayed on a quest to reach his goals. Even in the present state of the economy today, you find many individuals in hot pursuit of what they set out to do despite the uphill challenge they face. For example, jobs are few and far in between, and like the head waiter in the story, people can be really vindictive and spiteful, but you have those who are determined at all costs to succeed. Kafka’s writing indicates that he was not oblivious to the struggle of life, unlike his counterpart Karl, who seemed mesmerized by the culture of Westerner’s and their lust for the American dream.

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Mar 06, 2013 Stacy Palacios rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I have not read much from Kafka, but up to what I have heard from other people he is a good author. However, in my opinion America was not his best work. I do have to admit that this might be because he did not even finish the book in the first place and was not meant to be published. It’s very well written, I will give Kafka credit for that; but it is still not my favorite. I did not like how Kafka could not make up his mind on whether if Karl was sixteen or seventeen. I think the story would h...more I have not read much from Kafka, but up to what I have heard from other people he is a good author. However, in my opinion America was not his best work. I do have to admit that this might be because he did not even finish the book in the first place and was not meant to be published. It’s very well written, I will give Kafka credit for that; but it is still not my favorite. I did not like how Kafka could not make up his mind on whether if Karl was sixteen or seventeen. I think the story would have been more interesting if Kafka would have put more thought and story into Karl’s uncle instead of just being mentioned every now and then. I thought it was pretty pointless to even write about all the drama that happened in the ship when Karl finally arrived to America. However, the thing that I hated most of all was Karl’s character.

He was way too trusting (in my personal opinion); he could not make decisions by himself and the thing that really frustrated me the most was the fact that Karl never stood up for himself (even when he knew he should). He basically let mostly everyone make a fool out of him! I seriously just wanted to be able to jump in the story and slap his face until it turned purple, that way he can say he got beat up by a girl TWICE! Not only is he a fool for letting people step over him, but he is also very childish. He is, by my definition, a spoiled teenager who has not been on his own and has always had what he wanted when he wanted it. Aside from being a spoiled brat he is also idiotic. Why in the world would he ever go with two complete strangers to some town when he has a train ticket to go to San Francisco? This was by far the most idiotic decision he had ever made in the whole book.

My point simply being that I mostly hated Karl’s character. I did however like how humble Karl was, he did not think of himself as superior over other people. He was not arrogant or self-centered; he was just extremely trusting and childish. Aside from him I did not really have a problem with the rest of the book. I did like the details and the flow of the story. Majority of the time I wondered, if Kafka did not want this book to be published then why did he even write it in the first place? Or why tell other people about the book? The thing that really intrigued me the most, how did he come up with a girl who knew ju-jitsu at that time? This was just a random thought.
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Feb 20, 2013 Derek rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

“Nightmarish” and “dreamlike” are words that get thrown around an awful lot when describing Kafka’s work, even though in “Metamorphosis,” his most famous work, he states explicitly that “it was no dream.” But not unjustly is Kafka described this way, and I’d venture to guess that he worked to achieve this tone knowingly. Amerika, one of his earlier, unfinished pieces (published posthumously) has the shape of real life--there are moments when Kafka’s gift for economical description rings especial...more “Nightmarish” and “dreamlike” are words that get thrown around an awful lot when describing Kafka’s work, even though in “Metamorphosis,” his most famous work, he states explicitly that “it was no dream.” But not unjustly is Kafka described this way, and I’d venture to guess that he worked to achieve this tone knowingly. Amerika, one of his earlier, unfinished pieces (published posthumously) has the shape of real life--there are moments when Kafka’s gift for economical description rings especially true and the reader feels he is living in this world--but it is not real. It is episodic, picaresque, funny, scary: kind of a bildungsroman as seen through a kaleidoscope.

Since the novel is unfinished, it’s not particularly helpful to an author working on crafting his own novel-length narrative. Since Kafka’s vision of America (informed only by reading and conversation; he’d never visited the country before Amerika was written) is so singular, it’s not particularly helpful to an author working to provide a turn-of-the-century portrait of the country. But it’s useful because it demonstrates so ably the principle of “hurting the hero”; Karl Rossmann, the novel’s protagonist, is a newly arrived German immigrant who seems to find no place in his adoptive country. Wisely, Kafka puts him in the care of a wealthy uncle before he’s even disembarked from the boat that brought him here, but it’s not long before that is taken away from him. It’s wise because it makes fraught almost everything that follows. If anything good happens to Rossmann (and it does, on occasion), it’s due to someone else’s influence, someone who takes an interest in him. And when something bad happens (his money is taken, or he’s beaten up, or chased by the police), it’s due to someone else’s influence too. This might sound like I’m making the case for a protagonist without agency, but that’s not it, exactly. Our sympathies naturally fall to Rossmann, and we experience along with him the unfairness of living in the world with almost no connections or benefactors. For reasons I can’t quite explain, I’m drawn to stories like this: the plight of the Joads in The Grapes of Wrath, or the immensely readable but still quite affecting David Copperfield. There’s something reassuring about seeing characters push their way through the mire, even if that takes the form of a “dreamlike” narrative. We connect regardless.

Is it an accurate picture of America? I’m not certain. It certainly feels true to Kafka’s visions that are explored more successfully in later, finished works. But there’s something special about Amerika: its draftiness, maybe, or that we’re reading something as unpolished from such a master. From a practical perspective, it’s interesting to see an author explore a time in American history that interests me as well, even if (or perhaps especially because) he approaches it in such a differing fashion from myself.(less)

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Jan 29, 2013 Latoya Faraday rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

После прочтения незавершенного романа Кафки "Америка (Пропавший без вести)" у меня оставалось мало интереса к творчеству этого писателя и, тем не менее, он захватил все мое внимание. Он умудрился так четко описать Америку, никогда там не бывав, я порой, ощущала запахи и царившую атмосферу тех времен, спотыкалась вместе с главным героем, который обитал во враждебной среде и затянул меня в эти путы на несколько мгновений. Очень интересно, как Кафка предполагал завершить этот роман. Несмотря на то,...more После прочтения незавершенного романа Кафки "Америка (Пропавший без вести)" у меня оставалось мало интереса к творчеству этого писателя и, тем не менее, он захватил все мое внимание. Он умудрился так четко описать Америку, никогда там не бывав, я порой, ощущала запахи и царившую атмосферу тех времен, спотыкалась вместе с главным героем, который обитал во враждебной среде и затянул меня в эти путы на несколько мгновений. Очень интересно, как Кафка предполагал завершить этот роман. Несмотря на то, что он внезапно обрывается, мне кажется, что это произведение довольно завершенное. Главного героя принимают в Оклахомский театр и поезд уносит его в неизвестность. И тут, наконец, повеяло ноткой оптимизма в мрачном мире автора. Это заставило меня перейти на его новеллы. Запомнились "Сон", "Голодарь", "Мост", "Коршун", "В исправительной колонии". Не поняла "Сельский врач" и "Нора".
Новелла "Сон" воспринялась и впиталась лишь потому, что сюжет был схож с моими ночными видениями, я обратилась в героя, видевшего свой сон и прошлась с ним по этим воспоминаниям.
Новелла "Голодарь" четко встряла. Финал был неочевиден и заставил сопереживать происходящей безвыходности главного персонажа-голодаря.
Новелла "Коршун" - краткий, на пол страницы рассказ, оставляющий за собой лишь мрачную тень и отвращение, при этом не теряя своей привлекательности для размышлений.
Новелла "В исправительной колонии" вызвала массу возмущения, груду отвращения и лишь горсть неприятия. Здесь четко наблюдается протест автора существующим режимам "аппарата расправы" или "зверской казни". Кафка выставляет на суд беспощадной сатиры абсурд систематизированной жестокости, который обращается лицом к ее создателю и карает, стремглав разрушая ее упорядоченность. В этом произведении я увидела пророческие отголоски мною обожаемого Рэя Брэдбери.

Новелла "Нора" вывела из себя своей монотонностью. Я не поняла смысла в долгих и томительных описаниях размышлений зверя, загнанного самим собой в нору, из норы, далее следует описание им страха перед незримым врагом. В этом, при желании, можно уследить параллель с человеком и его экзистенциальными рассуждениями о месте в этой жизни, ее назначении и т.п. Скучно и бессмысленно, как и его новелла "Отчет для академии", где обезьяна объясняется, как и почему она переняла человеческий облик и стала ровней, после ее поимки, среднестатистическому европейцу.
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Aug 31, 2012 Jamie rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: adventure, classics, historical-fiction, german, immigration, america

I liked the book. I listened to it rather than reading it though, and my husband will tell you that sometimes I miss things when I only listen to something. "Amerika: The Missing Person"

The summary on the books page says that Karl was exiled from Germany by his family and sent to America because he had impregnated a servant girl. I did not get this angle at all. When he first comes over he meets up with his Uncle, and I thought the Uncle explained why he had lost contact with the family (due to...more I liked the book. I listened to it rather than reading it though, and my husband will tell you that sometimes I miss things when I only listen to something. "Amerika: The Missing Person"

The summary on the books page says that Karl was exiled from Germany by his family and sent to America because he had impregnated a servant girl. I did not get this angle at all. When he first comes over he meets up with his Uncle, and I thought the Uncle explained why he had lost contact with the family (due to a sexual encounter). There is a time in the book when Karl is thinking about writing to his parents and remembers a fight he had with them right before leaving, in which he promised never to write. But then there's the part with Brunhilda, who is supposed to be a very beautiful, albeit voluptuous woman, and Karl doesn't seem to really notice or care. His interactions with most of the girls, Teresa, the girl in New York and Brunhilda suggested to me more innocence in him than would've been there if he really had impregnated someone. He definitely seems attracted to girls/women, but he acts too young around them, as if his hormones are never roused by them. I mean he comes to America and is too young to really do any work except be an elevator boy, at first- and I picture them being relatively young.

Then there's the title: "Amerika: The Missing Person". I never quite got the missing person part. It seems like Karl goes from misfortune to misfortune, and tries to make the best of each case. There's always something he does, but it never seems to be entirely his fault and based on a miscommunication, or a partial truth. Through it all though I found it very interesting.

I am sad that Kafka never finished the book. I liked the writing style better than his short stories, but he never finished. The fragments leave an incomplete story. In the last fragment, it talks about applying for another job. Here he gives his name as "Negro", a nickname he received at a previous job which was never actually written. My best guess as to the title is how Karl's life led him to leave Karl behind and become someone else entirely. To become known as "Negro" and therefore Karl is lost and missing, even to himself, out of necessity of surviving and making the most of his life.

Anyways, I enjoyed it. The chapters were longer, but as long as you don't mind stopping in the middle of a chapter it was still a very good story.(less)

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Jul 04, 2012 Pat rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

There's something I've noticed about pre 1900 European adolescent protagonists (Karl, anyone in Dickens, Jude The Obscure) that I just fucking loathe.

Partly it's the total lack of agency, any random sketchbag who floats across their transom holds them completely in thrall. Delamarche and Robinson start out by making Karl sell his own clothes (he's has a prepaid train ticket to San Fran to look for work and has a pocket full of money, but instead he takes their advice to sell the clothes off his...more There's something I've noticed about pre 1900 European adolescent protagonists (Karl, anyone in Dickens, Jude The Obscure) that I just fucking loathe.

Partly it's the total lack of agency, any random sketchbag who floats across their transom holds them completely in thrall. Delamarche and Robinson start out by making Karl sell his own clothes (he's has a prepaid train ticket to San Fran to look for work and has a pocket full of money, but instead he takes their advice to sell the clothes off his back so he'll have something to live on while he hoboes it to Upstate New York), treat him like shit, make him pay for everything, rob him, threaten him with a beating, and when they turn up next he takes such good care of stinking drunk Robinson (who only came to hit him up for a loan - Karl hates them, remember) he predictably loses his job, falls back in with them, and pretty much resigns himself to being their slave before the completed chapters run out. Even Kafka has the sense to have Karl think to himself several times all he has to do at any time is just walk away without a word of explanation, but he never does, no matter how bad it gets. I guess he does have that dramatic scene where he tries to knock down the door and gets the shit beat out of him for his trouble, rather than, I dunno, waiting until they send him out on an errand as was made explicitly clear they would and just going. Kafka gets a slight pass because his whole thing is the world is confusing and out to get you and there's nothing you can do, although The Trial makes that case way more convincingly.

Partly it's the lunatic family politics. Again, it's Kafka, so you can't really pick stuff apart, but they all have scenes where the protagonist goes against his guardian's "wishes" and the supposed loving, supposed adult throws an infantile tantrum that sets up a significant part of the conflict for the rest of the book. Karl accepts his uncle's friend's emphatic invitation to his home over his uncle's mildly expressed reservation about how late and inconvenient it is, and is thus disowned and banished by letter delivered by third party. De Tocqueville had a whole section about how Americans don't feel the need to be petty tyrants over their families, so maybe that's just a Kafkaesque exaggeration of how things actually were/are for Euros, but I can't stand it, it just rings false.

Partly it's the weird flimsiness of all the characters. No matter what the social standing, everyone acts like a Fancy Lad from Cabin Boy. Karl's always being just completely overwhelmed by stress, overwork, or just mild inconvenience and practically fainting dead away. Then there's the ridiculously poor decision making. I have only a poor grasp of the social import of dressing properly back then, but even I know how bad an idea it is to abandon your only suit jacket and walk around in just a button-down shirt like some sort of fucking bum. I also know it's bad to abandon it when doing so involves running away from a man who's just falsely accused you of stealing and is searching it, and you don't have any of your possessions with you to run with, because he's treating you more coarsely than you think you deserve. Which leads to the disgustingly hierarchical way everyone in Europe (and probably America then to some extent) thought of people. Karl asks explicitly for the cheapest room in the shitty boardinghouse after getting banished, and is just so mad they put him in the servant's quarters. It's not like he doesn't have a pile of money, and could just ask for a better room. He's better people, so he shouldn't have to ask.

But what it mostly is is that all of Kafka's books are constructed entirely from (and the others to a greater or lesser extent use as main plot points) "tragical farce". A bunch of dumb misunderstandings and bad decisions lead inexorably to the destruction of the protagonist, despite his being completely able to stop, explain, insist on his rights, or come clean at any point. I have friends who like farce, and that's fine, and maybe I'm too hard headed and pragmatic, but I think it's the just tiresome and lame. It works when you're dealing with a big faceless incomprehensible bureaucracy, because that's what bureaucracy is. Not so much when you're dealing with a variety of individuals, with personal connections to the protagonist.(less)

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Sep 17, 2011 David Williamson rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: great-fiction

Karl Rossman seems to have what K and Joseph K. did not have, innocence and good faith. I did not find Amerika as brilliant as the trial or the castle, but it is Kafka (albeit a slightly more upbeat Kafka). Karl Rossman's battle, or rather his being dragged through random circumstance and unknown customs leads to some kind of acceptance (although it is unfinished, it does imply an optimistic ending for Karl) in an unfamiliar world (an America Kafka has imagined, as he never visited the country)....more

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Aug 03, 2011 Matthew rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Kafka is a fantastic writer, and I did like the story of Karl ... but there were a lot of parts to this one that dragged on and on. I quickly grew tired of Karl's failure to succeed, and his inability to stand up for himself.

That being said, there is a lot of literary value in Amerika, and it is something that I am glad to have read. I especially like Kafka's take on American society, especially since he never made it to America at all. Little wonders like the desk that could open to any size an...more

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May 20, 2011 Patty rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Wow - I wish I would have realized from the beginning that Kafka did not finish this book! Yet, at the same time, it is an engaging and fast-moving read.

That said, it offers some great insight of some of the immigrant experience. You see the main character, Karl, have to struggle through some tough situations in a new land. He is thrust into many situations where he has to trust complete strangers, which is hit-or-miss, just as it is in real-life. Because he has no almost no familial connection...more

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Mar 09, 2011 Tony rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction-mainstream

Kafka, Franz. AMERIKA. (THE MAN WHO DISAPPEARED). (Ger. vers. 1927; this translation 1996). ***. This was Kafka’s first novel, but the last to be published. As far as one can tell with Kafka, he never edited it for publication, with the usual unfinished ending. It actually starts off as if there will be a story and/or a plot, but soon fizzles out to the author’s usual disoriented meandering into a variety of styles and incidents that are only loosely – if at all – interconnected. My belief has n...more

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Jan 24, 2011 James rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, mitteleuropa

Franz Kafka broke off writing his first novel, Amerika, on January 24, 1913. Though one of the most famous stay-at-homes in literature, Kafka liked to read travel books. His absurdist Amerika begins with young Karl viewing the Statue of Liberty and feeling "the free winds of heaven” on his face. The United States that Kafka depicts is more based upon myth than any real experience of the place. Certain odd details reveal one Continental impression of this land at a time when so many Eastern Europ...more

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Nov 11, 2010 Joselito Honestly and Brilliantly rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

My copy has a Preface written by one Klaus Mann in August 1940. It describes Franz Kafka's life, his very sad life. He had poor health, worked in a gloomy office, never made enough money and with a solitary romance that was "doomed to dreary frustration." He never enjoyed any spectacular success as an author. His works became famous only after he died. Drats.

AMERIKA was supposed to be Kafka's light, funny and optimistic novel. It tells the story of Karl Rossman, a poor boy of sixteen who had bee...more

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May 24, 2009 Stephen rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

As E.L. Doctorow says in a very perceptive introduction to this volume, "Kafka would always have difficulty with the longer form of the novel" (xix). This difficulty is in evidence here. I am a great fan of both Kafka's "The Castle" and "The Trial," wherein the sheer power of the psychological and, I would say, religious themes compensate richly for a somewhat clunky presentation. But in this case the compensation is not so clear. Karl Rossmann, the young "hero" of "Amerika," is sent by his fami...more

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Jan 01, 2013 Chad Post rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A couple years ago, some trickster posted the first page of David Foster Wallace's INFINITE JEST to a Yahoo group looking for advice about "his" new novel. Not surprisingly, the um, yahoos, didn't recognize the source text and populated the message board with all sorts of terrible advice about the lack of action and the fact that he "knows what to do--just dump it and start over!"

Obviously, this provided a shitton of laughs for the literati, for those who respect DFW's writing and know that the...more

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Nov 27, 2012 D M rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, reviewed

While much of what I've read of Kafka is close to as good a literature as I am able to appreciate, I had a hard time with "Amerika." I don't know if that's because it was never finished. It seemed like pointless and not particularly funny slapstick to me at times, sort of the equivalent of George Grosz art, but more like if Grosz caricatured irrelevant people and situations in his immaculate style, rather than the usual archetypal creatures. Perhaps this is harsh, and perhaps Kafka is simply mor...more

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Mar 11, 2013 Jessica Barrier rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

In Kafka’s Amerika, he writes of a young man named Karl. He writes of his struggles growing up and coming of age during a rough period in his life. Kafka gives us a glimpse into a period in time where it is different than today. His book has a lot of suspenseful plots where it keeps you guessing what will happen next. It has a lot of sexual innuendos but it does not go any further than that. I think what Karl needs is someone in his life that will help him to be happy and stay away from trouble....more

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Mar 01, 2011 Jason rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: reviewed, german

Like much of Kafka's oeuvre, Amerika is all but filled with maniacally hostile figures of authority and the hopelessness of a (too) forthright protagonist attempting to stave off their machinations as soon as the slightest show of weakness is made. Then those who have stood by the protagonist are made to suffer on the sidelines as they are witness to his repeated falls. The Lift-boy sequence is quite reminiscent of the entire journey of the Land Surveyor in The Castle.

Somehow the seeming fortune...more

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Dec 15, 2012 RK-ique rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

Reading Kafka can be very frustrating. His central characters are always indecisive, easily swayed and somewhat naïve. In The Trial, The Castle and The Metamorphosis, this can be excused somewhat by the lack of context for the character. They simply cannot get enough control of the situation to be able to make a firm decision. In Amerika, however, Karl Rossman seems incapable of learning from experience and making a firm decision. Even when he seems to make a good decision, he eventually gives i...more

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Jan 31, 2012 Russell Olson rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: modern-classic-fiction, patalit

Kafka's ability to turn the banal and mundane into a fantastical dream world is incomparable. The mintue you delve into his own brand of sentence and grammar you are pulled away from the familiar and into its distorted mirror image. The "k" in "Amerika," is without a doubt Kafka's signature. This Amerika is the self-absorbed, work driven and character obsessed America, not the "with liberty and justice for all," America. The opening paragraph clues you in immediately, the Lady Liberty of Amerika...more

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Mar 09, 2012 Daniel Jon added it · review of another edition

So. Another K. gets swallowed up in a bewildering landscape of rules, pitfalls, traps, illogicality and hilarity. This time, it is some form of Americ(k)a, rather than the Trial's bureaucracy or the social maze of the Castle, that renders this particular K. so helpless, though it's clear, from Kafka's original title, 'The Man Who Disappeared', that this is perhaps intended as a portrait of an individual, probably Kafka himself at the time of writing, rather than a social critique of a continent,...more So. Another K. gets swallowed up in a bewildering landscape of rules, pitfalls, traps, illogicality and hilarity. This time, it is some form of Americ(k)a, rather than the Trial's bureaucracy or the social maze of the Castle, that renders this particular K. so helpless, though it's clear, from Kafka's original title, 'The Man Who Disappeared', that this is perhaps intended as a portrait of an individual, probably Kafka himself at the time of writing, rather than a social critique of a continent, and a continent that was to become, like the overwhelming bureaucracy of his later works, a 'diabolical power' in the decades following his death.

In light of this, you'd be forgiven for thinking, initially, that it really would have made no difference to the novel if it had been set anywhere other than America, if, for instance, it was more like the Castle, or if Kafka had simply located it in and around his home city of Prague, changing only the locations and social structures. Deleuze, however, has stated of the novel that it represents 'a mapping of the labyrinthine structure of the social landscape on the micro-social levels, which produces a consequent sense of claustrophobic entrapment that leads ultimately to a mounting desire to escape'. In this manner, many of the situations and occurrences experienced by Rossman in his Amerika are emblematic of our America itself, from which he must escape or from which he must be banished: Pollunder's labyrinthine house, plunged into darkness and different around every corner; the Hotel Occidental and life-boys dormitory; and, of course, the Theatre of Oklahoma, an 'almost boundless', ever-expanding force where 'everyone can be used'. His depiction of an America undergoing transformation holds an even greater thrall today than it did possibly when he wrote Amerika, a fact more remarkable perhaps because it is, primarily, not a work about the nation itself.

However, like all other Kafka novels, this barely aims towards a programmatic scheme for improvement on an individual or social level; Rossman seems at best ambivalent, and at worst oblivious to the gulfs in American society, though he does acknowledge several such discontinuities between ideological America and the true America throughout the novel, such as the sprawling luxury of Pollunder's country home, as compared to the New York neighbourhoods where families are crammed into single rooms, or the gulf between rich and poor, which he is constantly battling or attempting to overcome. He spends the majority of his time amongst those on the lowest rung of the social ladder, catching fleeting glimpses of the world above. If this a depiction of the immigrant experience and American culture, then it is absurdist, completely different from something like the USA Trilogy of Don Passos, but prevalent in its intentions nonetheless. With Kafka, though, there is never the slightest indication of what can be done; only fleeting moments of escape, or departure from this looming futurity that he senses in everything. In this novel, as all the others, he seems almost able to predict, to understand what the human race is being inexorably led towards; with his three great novels, he depicts, without knowing it, three of the diabolical powers of the 20th century, as they emerged and evolved after his death in 1924. He sat on the cusp of modernity, and managed to get it all down before it had happened. This is why he is so important.

But there is the other side of the novel, that comes out only after one considers Kafka's individual situation in 1913, when 'The Stoker' was first written. Feeling trapped in his day-to-day life, unable to elevate himself above it all in his quest to write, Kafka stated that he was searching for something 'away from here, just away from here'; and where more obvious, more appealing, more vast and perfect, than America. Pre-Trial, pre-Metamorphosis even, this is Kafka before he was what we know today, or what many think they know as 'Kafkaesque', a word woefully over-utilized these days. Perhaps he wished to write himself out of a hole, perhaps he sought to unravel for himself the myth of the terrestrial paradise that had become America in the early 20th century, the 'melting pot' of opportunity, and did it in the only way he understood; through writing. As the novel remains unfinished, and as Hofmann points out in the introduction to my penguin version, it is impossible to estimate what kind of conclusion Kafka foresaw for the novel. There are those who view Amerika as a picaresque adventure through a blossoming nation, ending in certain resolution for Rossman; the idea of America as a place of infinite space and boundless possibility, juxtaposed with Kafka's usual themes, those of claustrophobia, tight-knit paranoia, certainly go against the less than uplifting ending to The Trial, and the pervading sense of futility that renders The Castle so unique. There is an also indication of this possible 'happy' ending from Kafka, who stated:

"Within this almost limitless theatre his young hero was going to find again a profession, a stand-by, even his old home and his parents, as if by some celestial witchery."

However, and this is my personal opinion, there is also the flip-side, the idea that the inklings of discontent throughout were leading, inevitably, to the destruction of Rossman as an individual, to perhaps death, as in the fate of Joseph K. in the Trial, or perhaps towards something worse, some kind of 'disappearance' into the great and unknown architecture of Theatre of Oklahoma, which is, really, just America itself. A major criticism of Kafka is that his characters seem to lack motivation, but this is erroneous; his characters not only represent himself (or those dominating fears within himself), but also they are a collective assemblage of the will to find a 'representation of the world', something inherent within all of us. Many of his characters, at first glance buffeted constantly by the immediate circumstances of the novel and lacking any deep motivational purpose, come to light when you consider them as mimetic wanderers, absorbing the particulars of the social space while also, constantly, unendingly, like a farm animal banging its skull against a wall, attempting to transcend the very thing that they are assimilating themselves into, losing identity, or alternatively, moving ever closer towards discovering that identity that has been lost by the uncontrollable forces, in that 'moment of escape' that so dominates all of Kafka's works. For example, in Amerika, Rossman arrives at the Oklahoma Theatre, and, unwilling to give his own name, instead calls himself, of all things, 'Negro', calling to mind at once the great hypocrisies inherent within American society, but also the idea that Rossman, has, once and for all, fallen prey to this great landmass and has lost even his identity, crushed under the weight of Fitzgerald's 'orgastic future'. His boundless optimism, a trait absent from Kafka's other protagonists, is perhaps stultified forever.

The question remains: did Kafka write himself to a place he didn't intend to go, and is this why he abandoned the novel in favour of other pieces? Could he not forge an ending of any sort from the rubble of his prose, the propagating contrasts of his own, strange Amerika. Deleuze states: "Aready in Amerika, he had seen how proliferating series might be a solution; in The Trial and The Castle, he has a complete grasp of this solution. But from now on, there will be no reason for the novel to end.” Just because there seems to be the idea of an 'ending', as opposed to the two other novels, it does not mean than we can believe that any form or resolution, positive or negative, would have been reached. This is Kafka we're talking about.

Finally, there is the idea, skirting around the peripheries of my conscious, that this is never really a PHYSICAL novel at all, that all talk of Kafka's intended 'escape', as imagined as an actual pilgrimage across the social apparatus of America, is utterly fallacious; this Amerika does not represent what it appears at all, a fact first glimpsed in the very first sentence, where the Statue of Liberty is wielding a sword; what is DOES represent, I can't begin to tell you. All I know is that Amerika is the novel that allowed Kafka to become Kafka, without writing this he may have been lost inside his own traps and ruses forever, and that is all that matters.

(less)

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Mar 01, 2011 blake rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: literature-classic

If you know this is Kafka's first novel (even though published last), you can see the signs everywhere. The tone is remarkably uneven, events are more upbeat and energetic, and the absurd encounters he imagines between his characters are not as organic as those found in his later works The Trial and The Castle.

But the similarities are notable as well: the same quasi-incoherent dream quality permeates the entire story, where characters don't behave quite rationally and narrative threads are left...more

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Dec 16, 2012 Mark Sacha added it · review of another edition

Kafka persona Karl Rossman, a European-born adolescent, tracks a degenerative course through an imagined America which, as the author had never seen it himself, reads less as a physical landscape than as a formulation of the America mythos that existed in Central Europe at the time, in combination with what has come to be acknowledged as Kafka's characteristic perceptive tone. As a native Eastern seaboard American and current resident of New York City, from which the novel's action radiates, bot...more Kafka persona Karl Rossman, a European-born adolescent, tracks a degenerative course through an imagined America which, as the author had never seen it himself, reads less as a physical landscape than as a formulation of the America mythos that existed in Central Europe at the time, in combination with what has come to be acknowledged as Kafka's characteristic perceptive tone. As a native Eastern seaboard American and current resident of New York City, from which the novel's action radiates, both the macro- and micro-level visualizations of the region are extremely alien. The experiential and thematic elements, however, are much more familiar.

From the novel's outset, Karl is set on a trajectory against his will, and this fact does not change as he is interchangeably entrapped and rejected by a cast of grotesque authorities. Along the way he is harshly persecuted, often for reasons out of his control when a reason exists at all. He resists, sometimes, but his efforts serve only as cause for further derision. For the most part, the proceedings are less dark and unsettling than in much of Kafka's shorter work, maintaining a lighter comic atmosphere until the final few episodes. For fans of the author's style, this can be disappointing. I wouldn't say that the earlier scenes are weak, since there are some memorable exchanges, but they lack something in effect. Fortunately, the unfinished sections from later in the narrative feature more of the trademark absurdity and ambiguity.

It would be redundant, I think, to argue in defense of this novel based on the presence of "Kafkaesque" traits - much more surprising than the inevitable surfacing of these are the ways in which it is oddly conventional. The story is largely straightforward, and the menace that its hero endures is usually superficial, that is to say, realistically plausible to human experience. On one occasion, a character speaks in a voice that seems to Karl to come from some deeper source, but otherwise it's all relatively grounded. Maybe it's just the influence of the blurb on the back of my copy, which suggests that Karl "maps the inner territory" for the author's later, more desperate protagonists, but it seems to me that The Missing Person is a similar portrayal to other stories of his, one whose unique factor is that it does not lead to a sort of Weltschmerz, but to an acceptance that is in some ways even more disturbing.

Also, the pinko in me gets pretty amped by the inversion of the rags to riches stuff.(less)

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Feb 21, 2009 Eric rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Odd and uneven, as an unfinished novel should be, I suppose. Still puzzling over whether Kafka thought there was bridge from NY to Boston, whether it's a simple error, or if he were making some sort of surreal point about what's possible in Amerika. Some of the passages are stunningly clear and eerily beautiful, like an early one when Karl steps out onto a balcony and sees New York as though refracted through shards of glass. Other passages, with Delamarche, Robinson and others, seem strained an...more

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Jun 30, 2012 Cleo rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I started reading Amerika, one of Kafka’s three great unfinished novels, with this essay by David Foster Wallace in mind. In it he laments the difficulty he has trying to get his students to appreciate the humour of Kafka’s work - a humour which he muses can seem alien in a culture that has learnt to “see jokes as entertainment and entertainment as reassurance.” I promptly forgot all about David Foster Wallace’s opinions as I got lost in the maze of plot - but as I neared the end it came back to...more

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Mar 03, 2012 Jason rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, novel, classic

The first chapter of this unpublished novel is the Kafka short story "The Stoker." The last chapter, a fragment sometimes titled The Theater of Oklahoma, is excellent. And some of the scenes in between are very good, although they add up to a certain amount of aimlessness, possibly because the novel was never finished. Even the aimlessness is well written, frequently humorous, and unique.

Amerika begins with Karl Rossman arriving in New York harbor. The Statute of Liberty is holding a sword, whic...more

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Dec 27, 2012 Tharwat rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

هذه ثاني قراءة لكافكا، كاتب كتب عنه أضعاف أضعاف ما خطه بقلمه من أدب، المأثور عن كافكا هي الكآبة والانغلاقية الزائدة والغموض المبالغ فيه وهذا عاصرته في المسخ، أما هذه الرواية غير المكتملة والتي أطلق عليها صديقه الأشهر ماكس برود هذا الاسم من وحي الرواية ذاتها فتعد تجربة حميمية لأدب كافكا، شيء يمكن الاستمتاع بقرائته والتوغل بين صفحاته بدون أدنى محاولة للتعقيد، بساطة متناهية في الكتابة والوصف.. والترجمة طيبة أيضًا، وأظن أنها جالبة لكل تفاصيل رواية كافكا الأصلية.. قضيت مزيد من الوقت في قراءة هذه الرو...more

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Jan 01, 2011 Nick rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: normal-literature

Ends rather abruptly, but I guess that's the case with a lot of Kafka especially his unfinished work. Far less nightmarish than anything else I've read by Kafka , but retains that ambiguous dream like quality. Depending on your taste, this could either make the story more boring, or easier to follow.

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About Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka (German pronunciation: [ˈfʀants ˈkafka]) was one of the major fiction writers of the 20th century. He was born to a middle-class German-speaking Jewish family in Prague, Bohemia (presently the Czech Republic), Austria–Hungary. His unique body of writing—much of which is incomplete and which was mainly published posthumously—is considered to be among the most influential in Western lite...more Franz Kafka (German pronunciation: [ˈfʀants ˈkafka]) was one of the major fiction writers of the 20th century. He was born to a middle-class German-speaking Jewish family in Prague, Bohemia (presently the Czech Republic), Austria–Hungary. His unique body of writing—much of which is incomplete and which was mainly published posthumously—is considered to be among the most influential in Western literature.

His stories include The Metamorphosis (1912) and In the Penal Colony (1914), while his novels are The Trial (1925), The Castle (1926) and Amerika (1927).

Kafka learned German as his first language, but he was also fluent in Czech. Later, Kafka acquired some knowledge of French language and culture; one of his favorite authors was Flaubert.

Kafka first studied chemistry at the Charles-Ferdinand University of Prague, but switched after two weeks to law. This offered a range of career possibilities, which pleased his father, and required a longer course of study that gave Kafka time to take classes in German studies and art history. At the university, he joined a student club, named Lese- und Redehalle der Deutschen Studenten, which organized literary events, readings and other activities. In the end of his first year of studies, he met Max Brod, who would become a close friend of his throughout his life, together with the journalist Felix Weltsch, who also studied law. Kafka obtained the degree of Doctor of Law on 18 June 1906 and performed an obligatory year of unpaid service as law clerk for the civil and criminal courts.

Kafka's writing attracted little attention until after his death. During his lifetime, he published only a few short stories and never finished any of his novels, unless "The Metamorphosis" is considered a (short) novel. Prior to his death, Kafka wrote to his friend and literary executor Max Brod: "Dearest Max, my last request: Everything I leave behind me ... in the way of diaries, manuscripts, letters (my own and others'), sketches, and so on, [is] to be burned unread." Brod overrode Kafka's wishes, believing that Kafka had given these directions to him specifically because Kafka knew he would not honor them—Brod had told him as much. Brod, in fact, would oversee the publication of most of Kafka's work in his possession, which soon began to attract attention and high critical regard.

Max Brod encountered significant difficulty in compiling Kafka's notebooks into any chronological order as Kafka was known to start writing in the middle of notebooks, from the last towards the first, etc.

All of Kafka's published works, except several letters he wrote in Czech to Milena Jesenská, were written in German.(less)

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“So then you’re free?’
‘Yes, I’m free,’ said Karl, and nothing seemed more worthless than his freedom.” — 13 people liked it

“It's impossible to defend oneself in the absence of goodwill” — 4 people liked it

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title link	preview: Amerika: The Missing Person: A New Translation, Based on the Restored Text
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