I was really disappointed by this book, I found it very dry and un-Kafka. I'm not sure if I had a bad translation (it was the Kafka library edition) but I'm fairly sure that translation issues cannot account for my boredom in reading this book. It reminded my somewhat of the Great Gatsby (which I also did not enjoy). If you want to get into Kafka, I'd suggest his short stories or The Trial. ( )

Not Kafka's best work ( )

An absurdist look at a country that he never visited in his life. An extremely funny and strange look at life. An immigrant just wanting to make a life for himself, but his naivety and inexperience makes him make poor choices often with funny results. Definitely worth reading, a real pity that it was unfinished, the gaps really left a lot to be explained so it felt really only like a fragment (which it is). Still absolutely essential to read for anyone who likes Kafka. ( )

I temper this review with the admission that I've never been a big fan of Kafka. That having been said, Michael Hofmann's translation of Amerika (The Man Who Disappeared) breathes a certain degree of life into the tale, yet I was still left wondering what all the fuss is about.

It's worth mentioning up-front that those readers expecting the depressing, borderline-nihilistic Kafka of, say, The Metamorphosis or The Trial will be pleasantly surprised upon reading Amerika. The coming of age of young Karl Rossmann, a European transplant trying to make it in America, plays out far more like a slapstick comedy than an allegorical melodrama, his adventures through New York and various other points of interest often coming off as both sad and funny. There's a certain poignancy to the plot that is a brisk, exciting change.

Somehow, though, the novel fails to engross. Part of it, I think, is Kafka's tendency to write in extraordinarily long paragraphs, which slows down the pacing of a book that just barely breaks 200 pages. In addition, though the first chapter is fairly breakneck and amusing, the next two chapters fail to excite much. As such, we are pleased when Karl's adventures in the Hotel Occidental strike up more interest, but the up-and-down nature of the plot tends to be tiresome.

So too is the overwhelming sense of dread that seems to invade the book. While Karl's various misunderstandings are often amusing, there's too great a sense of his hopelessness, of the ease with which people will take advantage of him, and that his fate seems so helpless and so out of his own hands seems contradictory to the fate he's presented with in the fragments that close this translation.

Ultimately, I feel like Kafka may have been trying to do too much with this book -- which may explain the reason why it was never finished -- but while there's plenty to be excited about here, I can't quite give it an unconditional recommendation. Though, if you have a softer heart towards Kafka, it's doubtful you'll want to miss this one.

The least known of Kafka's novels, this is also the only of the three novels where K becomes Karl - a more likeable and positive character than K, but still one obstinately determined to frustrate readers as his life is wrenched from his control. Kafka apparently never went to America, so while there are many geographic discrepancies, the backdrop for Karl's descent into disaster after disaster is a thick mix of Eastern European hotels and servants, and dreamt of American vistas and policemen.

In my view, the Trial is the best of the novels - summing up Kafka's views of our impotence in the (modern) world most completely and succinctly. It is of course also the only complete novel, and while my version of the Castle stopped mid sentence, this version of Amerika at least has some hints at where Kafka meant the novel to go - maybe. This version too is apparently a brooding translation, less upbeat than many others, as its more based on the original text. This obviously fits in with the rest of Kafka, though the last fragmants do suggest the potential for some kind of positive redemption / escape.

But it still took me ages to get through - because when something bad is about to happen to Karl, and I can see an easy way out for him, he just stays stubborn and down the ladder of society he goes. But there is still something compelling about Kafka's writing, so that even while wanting to give up on the whole book as I just know it isn't going to go anywhere fun, I can't stop thinking about it. The way Karl struggles for control and seems almost unaware or just unpeturbed when it is persistently taken away from him bit by bit is kind of fascinating.

So: interesting, worth reading if you are a fan, read the Trial if not read anything else by him. ( )