America - Franz Kafka

America is a funny book. I can't work out whether it is more interesting for the fact that it is so different from The Trial and The Castle, or whether it just doesn't work that well. The first chapter is actually entitled America, and was first published as a short story in its own right. It details the journey of the hero Karl Grossman on a ship to America after disgracing himself with a servant, and the strange characters he uncovers there. In the rest of the novel, he drifts around the country, never fitting in with the disparate characters he meets having been rejected by his uncle. It is longer than the Trial, but far less cohererent as a ...  Read the complete review