A review by earwicker
Amerika by Franz Kafka

3.0

Karl Rossman arrives in America without a dream exactly, but he does have a box containing his precious few possessions, which he promptly loses, and recovers, while making some unreliable friends and having some very mundane adventures. Kafka had never visited America, but it seems he was fascinated by the "American Dream," which he apparently found somewhat ridiculous, or at least comical. The story is very episodic, jumbled together, and finally, unfinished. And yet it has its moments of brilliance. The last chapter -- The Theater of Oklahoma piece -- which dangles at the end like an nearly unrelated short story, is wonderfully weird. I wish this had been the start of the novel, and that it went on from there... but we're lucky to have any Kafka novels at all, so this will have to do.