Customer Reviews

Amerika

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As everybody already pointed out Kafka wrote this novel without ever having been to America. Allegedly his characterisation of the country is more akin to the oppressive situation in Prague, but I think you can make an argument that he stumbled on a theme of American culture that isn't often explored, or rather best described by Kafka, the whole idea of claustrophobia within a land of wide open spaces. The young immigrant protagonist, Karl, seems to follow the 'right' path that is expected of him and yet finds himself unable to advance and trapped in horrible social situations. The story is set in an America that is so slightly off-kilter as to be surreal (it's not America, it's Amerika) and with that sense of Kafkaesque dread (like the Statue of Liberty with the sword in her hand instead of the torch - a symbol of war and violence instead of freedom and enlightenment, or that neverending labyrinth of a suburban mansion that is bigger than could ever be possible) but in a way Kafka's commentary on an America he never visited is one of the most shockingly accurate depictions you'll read. It's unfinished but I kind of liked that; it was endearingly rough around the edges and that made it even more surreal. Some people have mentioned that the last chapter is an optimistic one but I really found that the carnival-like atmosphere to be menacing and the uncertainty of Karl's future in a Wide Open Country was more a feeling of unnamed dread than optimism, but you know, it is Kafka.

"Amerika" looks like it was written by someone who not only had never been to America but did not even care to know what it's really like. But Kafka's style is all about transforming the real into the surreal, tainting reality and disturbing our sense of order and structure. Even in the book's very first paragraph, when a ship carrying the protagonist, Karl Rossmann, approaches New York, the Statue of Liberty is depicted as holding in her raised hand not a torch symbolizing a beacon to welcome immigrants, but a sword, ominously threatening aggression. Similarly, when later in the book New York and Boston are described as being separated by the Hudson River, one wonders whether Kafka was sincerely ignorant of American geography or deliberately distorting it to create a dreamlike effect.

Karl, a German-speaking teenager from Prague, has been sent to America by his parents to evade charges of paternity by a maidservant he has impregnated. He is to learn English and complete his education while living with his uncle Jakob, owner of a shipping business. Soon he is invited to the mansion of one of uncle's friends, where he is assaulted by this man's daughter and loses himself within the enormous house's labyrinth of dark corridors. This is a typical Kafka touch -- enshrouding a normal situation with an eerie atmosphere and a sense of foreboding.

After Karl is expelled by his uncle over an unintended act of disrespect, he takes to the road and hooks up with two rough drifters named Delamarche and Robinson. They proceed to bully and steal from him and eventually cause him to lose his job as a hotel elevator operator, and, when all three end up living in an apartment with an imperious fat woman named Brunelda, Karl even becomes their prisoner and slave. These situations of helplessness and unfairness are evidence of more of Kafka's stylistic attributes -- paranoia and persecution fantasy -- which are employed to more morbid effect in "The Trial."

Like much of Kafka's work, "Amerika" is uncompleted, and we are left with a potentially intriguing fragment in which Karl, having somehow escaped his state of captivity, gets a job with a roadshow organization called the Theatre of Oklahoma, which promises (but ultimately cheats us out of) further bizarre adventures into the heartland of America. Kafka seems to imagine American showmanship as a perverse form of public spectacle; his portrayal of a street parade for the election of a judge, which Karl watches rapturously from Brunelda's balcony, is a narrative tour de force of human chaos.

The book's subtitle, "The Man Who Disappeared," expresses an idea that many Europeans may have had about America -- that emigration there was a final and irrevocable abandonment of cultural roots. But Kafka was not like many Europeans, let alone many people, and his theme can be interpreted more accurately as a descent into hell, a severance of all family ties (Karl lamentably loses his only photograph of his parents) and an immersion into the unknown. We can only hope that Karl, having sailed across the Atlantic like the dead being ferried by Charon across the river Styx, will be lucky enough to avoid the left-hand path towards his own personal Tartarus.

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.

Kafka never set foot in America, Yes, it's true. He writes however quite valiantly about the American lifestyle of the era in a manner that suggests that he had been there. As far as importance, this novel might not rank high up there in terms of the Kafka canon, but it is perfect for those who have just started. If you've never read Kafka, read this book first, and then move on to anything else-- you will literally feel yourself falling off a literary cliff. There are reocurring instances where the main character precariously falls into the most atrocious situations, of which he has no control. Trust me, you'll be hitting yourself over the head, this is a fairly comical book, and only a pit stop for other things to come.

Kafka drives the reader crazy by this epic narration about the adventures of Karl, an adolescent sent to America at the beginning of XX century. While escaping from a stupid love affair Karl is to meet his uncle who will receive him at home and will push him into the secrets of accounting.
Thanks to one of Kafka's eternal "malentendus" Karl is sent to the immigrant's arena and he has to live on his own. Almost penniless, his sole possessions are his battered trunk and an old photography of his parents.
One can't but feel empathy and tenderness for young Karl. Fired by his uncle who was supposed to protect him, Karl has to cope with two drunkards (an Irish and a French) who attempt by all means to abuse of his innocence by promising him a job in the west coast.
Karl then finds a humble place at a big hotel. He is in charge of one of the numerous elevators and works almost sixteen hours a day just to be dismissed due to a new misunderstanding.
At times hilariously, the novel describes the situation of many Europeans who might have dreamed of America as an oasis to later realize they were just joined as a little part of an enormous and unspeakable machine.

It amazes me how Kafka has caught the American spirit so well. Since the end of World War II, Ameirican culture has become increasng hedonistic at the expense of other nations and even our own poor. But that spirit is reflected especially so in the 1990's where we seem to have forgotten what it means to look out for one another, and have lost the meaning of true hospitality and human empathy. Perhaps, Tom Brokaw in his new book, The Greatest Generation, is right; not since our grandparents has the nation cared for it's own in such an unselfish manner. That sense of caring seems to have been lost to us today.

There is an excellent review of this book on 'The Amazon site' by AJ Feinsinger that captures the story of this work, and much of its strangeness.
I am only adding a few impressions of my own.
First I concur with the observation that this is a book written by a person who has never been in America. I remember reading it years ago, and how it seemed to me the very opposite of everything America stands for.
America in my mind then, was brightness and optimism , a new hope and a new dream. It was moving Westward, and pioneering. It was clear and simple and beautiful
Kafka's 'Amerika' is complicated and mind- ridden. It is filled with paradoxes and absurdities, with strange cruel meetings .The atmosphere of nightmare and difficulty that pervades Kafka's work was felt by me then as in absolute contradiction to the American spirit.
Of the novels , 'The Castle ' 'The Trial' and this one I find this one the least satisfying, the most incoherent. It is very much a super- incomplete work. 'Incompleteness' is of course part of Kafka's legacy and gift .But here it seems often as if there simply has not been enough time given to the text.
I am in any case a reader of Kafka's diaries, parables, stories, shorter works more than I am of his novels which I find somehow tiresome.
This is to my mind the least satisfactory of all of Kafka's work.
And yet as Kafka reveals to us our own contradictions, paradoxes and fears in a way no one else can- this work too has its meaning and instruction.

The book starts with the seen of Karl Rossmann, a sixteen years old boy from Germany, standing on the liner entering the harbour of New York. He was forced to leave Europe by his parents because a servant girl seduced him and got herself with child by him. America does not look at first sight as a friendly place: the Statue of Liberty, for instance, is depicted with a sword in her hand instead of a torch. The book then tells the adventures of Karl, the people he meets, the places he visits and the jobs he finds. The atmospheres vary from the classical dreamy nightmarish set of other Kafka's books to a realistic set which, in some way, is even stranger and more disquieting. Everything can be seen as real, especially if the reader considers that the point of view is the one of a sixteen years old finding himself alone in an unknown country where a language, that he must learn, is spoken.

Unfortunately, the book is unfinished. The first six chapters are complete. Between the seven and the eight chapter there is a gap, the eight chapter, which was supposed to be the last one, is unfinished. Therefore, I suggest to readers who never read Kafka to start from some other book such as "the trial", "the metamorphosis" or the other short stories. Readers, who are familiar with other works by Kafka, will find in this book a lighter mood.

Without ever having visited America, the German-speaking Czech author, Franz Kafka, wrote a novel based on research which included an autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, travel brochures, and the stories of Europeans who had traveled to America and returned to Europe. The result was the novel, Amerika, his unique and often very unrealistic interpretation of life in America. Amerika follows an almost sixteen-year-old boy through a series of experiences and adventures. Due to misbehavior at home, Karl Rossmann is sent by his parents to New York to live with his uncle in America . Kafka's skewed view of America is immediately demonstrated as Karl is greeted by the statue of liberty holding a raised sword. Karl meets many people and discovers a life quite different than any he has ever known in Europe. Karl meets his uncle and finds himself in the midst of people who are well-off in society. Later, on his own, he discovers a different side of American life. From houses the size of castles, to unfair treatment by his employer, to an out-of-control political rally, Karl is constantly surprised by America as he experiences many bizarre occurrences. Because Kafka did not finish Amerika, the reader is left disappointed in not knowing what happens to Karl, but also hopeful for Karl's future. This book is an interesting portrayal of America from the point of view of an early twentieth-century European who had never visited America. This makes the book intriguing.

"Amerika" was the first book by Franz Kafka that I read, and it was definitely a treat.

Poor Karl Rossman, shipped off to America by his parents for having a child with a maid, has his first adventure on the boat in New York's harbor. Helping a stoker who feels he's being treated unfairly, he (Karl) happens to find his Uncle Jacob on the boat. The very Uncle Jacob who was waiting for his arrival!

So it's the cushy life for Karl right? Weeeell, not exactly. It starts out that way but eventually Karl ends up on his own.

"Amerika" has more humor in it than Kafka's other novels and it may have you chuckling and cheering for Karl on his journey. It did me.

What happens to Karl and how exactly does he end up in Oklahoma? You're going to have to read the book to find that out. Oh, and make sure to notice all the "cramped" situations Karl gets stuck in. Very amusing!