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Amerika
Karl Rossman has been banished by his parents to America, following a family scandal. There, with unquenchable optimism, he throws himself into the strange experiences that lie before him as he slowly makes his way into the interior of the great continent.
Although Kafka's first novel (begun in 1911 and never finished), can be read as a menacing allegory of modern life, it is also infused with a quite un-Kafkaesque blitheness and sunniness, brought to life in this lyrical translation that returns to the original manuscript of the book.
243 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1927
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About the author
Franz Kafka
3,281 books38.9k followersFranz Kafka was a German-speaking writer from Prague whose work became one of the foundations of modern literature, even though he published only a small part of his writing during his lifetime. Born into a middle-class Jewish family in Prague, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Kafka grew up amid German, Czech, and Jewish cultural influences that shaped his sense of displacement and linguistic precision. His difficult relationship with his authoritarian father left a lasting mark, fostering feelings of guilt, anxiety, and inadequacy that became central themes in his fiction and personal writings.
Kafka studied law at the German University in Prague, earning a doctorate in 1906. He chose law for practical reasons rather than personal inclination, a compromise that troubled him throughout his life. After university, he worked for several insurance institutions, most notably the Workers Accident Insurance Institute for the Kingdom of Bohemia. His duties included assessing industrial accidents and drafting legal reports, work he carried out competently and responsibly. Nevertheless, Kafka regarded his professional life as an obstacle to his true vocation, and most of his writing was done at night or during periods of illness and leave. Kafka began publishing short prose pieces in his early adulthood, later collected in volumes such as Contemplation and A Country Doctor. These works attracted little attention at the time but already displayed the hallmarks of his mature style, including precise language, emotional restraint, and the application of calm logic to deeply unsettling situations. His major novels The Trial, The Castle, and Amerika were left unfinished and unpublished during his lifetime. They depict protagonists trapped within opaque systems of authority, facing accusations, rules, or hierarchies that remain unexplained and unreachable. Themes of alienation, guilt, bureaucracy, law, and punishment run throughout Kafka’s work. His characters often respond to absurd or terrifying circumstances with obedience or resignation, reflecting his own conflicted relationship with authority and obligation. Kafka’s prose avoids overt symbolism, yet his narratives function as powerful metaphors through structure, repetition, and tone. Ordinary environments gradually become nightmarish without losing their internal coherence. Kafka’s personal life was marked by emotional conflict, chronic self-doubt, and recurring illness. He formed intense but troubled romantic relationships, including engagements that he repeatedly broke off, fearing that marriage would interfere with his writing. His extensive correspondence and diaries reveal a relentless self-critic, deeply concerned with morality, spirituality, and the demands of artistic integrity. In his later years, Kafka’s health deteriorated due to tuberculosis, forcing him to withdraw from work and spend long periods in sanatoriums. Despite his illness, he continued writing when possible. He died young, leaving behind a large body of unpublished manuscripts. Before his death, he instructed his close friend Max Brod to destroy all of his remaining work. Brod ignored this request and instead edited and published Kafka’s novels, stories, and diaries, ensuring his posthumous reputation.
The publication of Kafka’s work after his death established him as one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century. The term Kafkaesque entered common usage to describe situations marked by oppressive bureaucracy, absurd logic, and existential anxiety. His writing has been interpreted through existential, religious, psychological, and political perspectives, though Kafka himself resisted definitive meanings. His enduring power lies in his ability to articulate modern anxiety with clarity and restraint.
Kafka studied law at the German University in Prague, earning a doctorate in 1906. He chose law for practical reasons rather than personal inclination, a compromise that troubled him throughout his life. After university, he worked for several insurance institutions, most notably the Workers Accident Insurance Institute for the Kingdom of Bohemia. His duties included assessing industrial accidents and drafting legal reports, work he carried out competently and responsibly. Nevertheless, Kafka regarded his professional life as an obstacle to his true vocation, and most of his writing was done at night or during periods of illness and leave. Kafka began publishing short prose pieces in his early adulthood, later collected in volumes such as Contemplation and A Country Doctor. These works attracted little attention at the time but already displayed the hallmarks of his mature style, including precise language, emotional restraint, and the application of calm logic to deeply unsettling situations. His major novels The Trial, The Castle, and Amerika were left unfinished and unpublished during his lifetime. They depict protagonists trapped within opaque systems of authority, facing accusations, rules, or hierarchies that remain unexplained and unreachable. Themes of alienation, guilt, bureaucracy, law, and punishment run throughout Kafka’s work. His characters often respond to absurd or terrifying circumstances with obedience or resignation, reflecting his own conflicted relationship with authority and obligation. Kafka’s prose avoids overt symbolism, yet his narratives function as powerful metaphors through structure, repetition, and tone. Ordinary environments gradually become nightmarish without losing their internal coherence. Kafka’s personal life was marked by emotional conflict, chronic self-doubt, and recurring illness. He formed intense but troubled romantic relationships, including engagements that he repeatedly broke off, fearing that marriage would interfere with his writing. His extensive correspondence and diaries reveal a relentless self-critic, deeply concerned with morality, spirituality, and the demands of artistic integrity. In his later years, Kafka’s health deteriorated due to tuberculosis, forcing him to withdraw from work and spend long periods in sanatoriums. Despite his illness, he continued writing when possible. He died young, leaving behind a large body of unpublished manuscripts. Before his death, he instructed his close friend Max Brod to destroy all of his remaining work. Brod ignored this request and instead edited and published Kafka’s novels, stories, and diaries, ensuring his posthumous reputation.
The publication of Kafka’s work after his death established him as one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century. The term Kafkaesque entered common usage to describe situations marked by oppressive bureaucracy, absurd logic, and existential anxiety. His writing has been interpreted through existential, religious, psychological, and political perspectives, though Kafka himself resisted definitive meanings. His enduring power lies in his ability to articulate modern anxiety with clarity and restraint.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 2,058 reviews
July 6, 2025
Franz Kafka just watches, he doesn’t comment…
And Karl Rossmann encounters many a character on his way but they all seem to be no more than soulless puppets… But nonetheless all those marionettes on the strings of fate try to manipulate him and use him in their own purpose. And whatever he does, appears to be wrong and works against him.
In the soulless world one can only exist turning slowly into naught and gradually disappearing into nothingness.
As the seventeen-year-old Karl Rossmann, who had been sent to America by his unfortunate parents because a maid had seduced him and had a child by him, sailed slowly into New York harbour, he suddenly saw the Statue of Liberty, which had already been in view for some time, as though in an intenser sunlight. The sword in her hand seemed only just to have been raised aloft, and the unchained winds blew about her form.
And Karl Rossmann encounters many a character on his way but they all seem to be no more than soulless puppets… But nonetheless all those marionettes on the strings of fate try to manipulate him and use him in their own purpose. And whatever he does, appears to be wrong and works against him.
He couldn’t tell the whole story here, and even if it had been possible, it still seemed hopeless to try and avert a threatened injustice by telling of one already suffered.
In the soulless world one can only exist turning slowly into naught and gradually disappearing into nothingness.
March 13, 2023
This is a book that will remove our misconceptions that we can write a novel about an experience or a place only if we had a similar experience in the past. Kafka is a person who never visited America in his entire life. But he marvelously writes about the intricate details about America through this story of young immigrant Karl Rossmann in America. If you haven't read any books by Kafka yet and plans to read one soon, this will be an ideal choice. It is written in a simple language that almost everybody can understand, unlike some of his complicated works later. This is incontrovertibly literary fiction at its best.
“It's impossible to defend oneself in the absence of goodwill.”
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March 14, 2022
"-Entonces, está usted libre -dijo.
-Sí; libre estoy -dijo Karl, y nada le pareció de menor importancia que eso."
Jorge Luis Borges afirmaba que los personajes de Kafka eran “Profesionales de la derrota.”
En cierto modo, podemos asegurar eso cuando encuadramos a tres personajes tan particulares como K. de "El Castillo", Joseph K. de "El Proceso" y Karl Rossmann, protagonista de "El desaparecido" en ese rótulo, todo confirma que este genio nunca se equivocaba y en cierta medida, los podemos ver como personajes alter ego con características autobiográficas del mismo Kafka.
El nombre que Kafka eligió para esta novela fue "El desaparecido" ("Der Verschollene") y no "Amerika" como Max Brod la publicara póstumamente.
Hay algo esperanzador en esta novela la que Kafka llamaba "la novela infinita" y que no sucede en las otras dos, y es que más allá de que también está inconclusa (aunque a mí entender "El Proceso" es una novela terminada), el personaje de Karl no está envuelto en una serie de situaciones, en su lucha para alcanzar su propio “sueño americano”, que lo complican de forma negativa, sino que casi sin quererlo es él mismo el que condiciona su destino, en parte por su relación con personajes tan negativos como Robinson y Dellamarche y también como la mala decisión en en el tramo inicial de la novela que lo saca de su precaria “zona de confort”.
En el capítulo “El Fogonero”, el único terminado y muy importante para entender el desarrollo de la trama de la novela, nos encontramos ya con un Karl que tiene la gran oportunidad de forjar un futuro gracias a su rico tío, el senador Jakob.
Increíblemente y como sucede con los personajes kafkianos, su destino se enturbia rápidamente y ya está planteado el dilema: la mala decisión, los factores externos y la innata capacidad del personaje para quedar atrapado en ellas instalan el conflicto y algo que diferencia a Karl de los otros personajes es que en esta novela, se respira cierto aire de ingenuidad adolescente con características no tan sombrías y agobiantes como las de El Proceso ni chocantes o de “no invitado” como en "El Castillo".
Podemos decir que se nota que es la primera novela de Kafka (la segunda que escribió fue "El Proceso" y la última "El Castillo". ¡Yo las leí exactamente en orden inverso!), por eso uno puede tomar la novela con menos cinrcunspección que las otras dos.
De todos modos, se percibe el desamparo en el que se encuentra Karl, sólo, como inmigrante en un país tan vasto como los Estados Unidos. En comparación con los personajes principales de sus otras dos novelas, K. y Joseph K. luchan (y chocan) en cierto modo contra un sistema adverso. Karl intenta superarse y mejorar, buscando muchas veces en forma errónea su propio bienestar, algo que experimentó el mismo Kafka en su vida personal.
También encontramos otro rasgo autobiográfico en la relación de Karl con las mujeres, siempre inconexo, irrealizable, utópico. Sucede con Klara al comienzo de la novela, con Therese en el Hotel Occidental y con la malvada Brunelda, cuando está a merced de su despotismo secundado por Robinson y Dellamarche. Caso especial el de Robinson, este irlandés que pareciera simbolizar una de esas contigencias inevitables que surgen en la vida y que nos ponen a prueba, sea para mal o para bien. Está comprobado que Kafka jugó un poco a escribir "El desaparecido" inspirándose en "David Copperfield" de Charles Dickens, de quien se declaraba ferviente admirador junto con Goethe y otros célebres escritores.
El albacea, biógrafo y amigo de Kafka, Max Brod definió a "El desaparecido", "El Proceso" y "El Castillo" como la “Trilogía de la Soledad”, ¡y vaya que lo es!, puesto se trata de individuos que buscan permanentemente su lugar en la sociedad, pero para ello deben luchar contra demasiadas adversidades impuestas por el autor, fiel a su estilo tan particular en lo narrativo y argumental.
Incluso aquí, los pasos de Karl se impregnan de esa futilidad con la que deberán lidiar los personajes de "El proceso" y "El castillo": "Avanzaba despacio, y, por eso el camino le parecía doblemente largo."
Hay una frase que dice Karl Rossmann a mitad de la novela, luego del incidente en el Hotel Occidental que le cuesta su despido y creo que tiene implicancia directa con lo que sufrirá Joseph K. en El Proceso: “Es imposible defenderse cuando no hay buena voluntad de por medio."
Creo que en esta frase se resume mucho de lo que leemos en la obra kafkiana. Y es que a veces, quiera uno o no, nos sucede lo mismo que a sus personajes: la vida nos dice que no siempre tenemos el control, y por eso mismo nos pone a prueba en los momentos más inoportunos.
September 24, 2025
That's a hilarious novel and a ridiculous situation that Kafka gives us with America. Karl is the king of losers who throws himself headfirst into any new adventure that can push him further into misery and poverty. He befriends people who want to screw him up, and his choices are always the wrong ones. This work effectively describes the situation, allowing readers to understand that Karl should not take this direction. It is annoying that he crashes each time he goes there! Karl was a very nettling character for me, proof that Kafka succeeded in his description of a ridiculous failure. Additionally, I found this book relatively easy to read; I had not previously managed to read any of Kafka's other works.
December 25, 2017
Often I opt to know as little as possible about the novels I read before starting them which includes not reading the back cover synopsis. So I didn’t know this was an unfinished novel when I started. I hadn’t read any Kafka since my teens when I can’t say he was ever a favourite of mine. My feeling about him was further sullied after reading his letters to Milena, a girl he neurotically and rather cruelly strung along who eventually was to die in the Nazi death camps. Those letters are fascinating as an indictement of the way males can distort a female in the imagination to spin out some private fantasy with little thought to the real woman involved.
Not surprisingly Kafka’s America is a bizarre place - he never set foot in America in his lifetime. For one thing initiative, the will to work, impeccable manners are punished rather than rewarded. Kafka’s Karl is a hapless good-natured innocent who will be taken advantage of at every turn. He’s every bully’s dream victim. Authority, as ever, is an irrational and cruel entity. Nothing is to be expected of it but persecution. Officialdom makes little sense as subordinates often overrule bosses. In Kafka’s world perhaps only women can be relied upon to show uncorrupted humanity. Kafka’s heroes are never men’s men. To put it harshly they are often girl’s blouses. Though Kafka is writing about a recognisably real world here the surreal is never far away, often present in his choice of fastidious detail. He’s a master at bringing to life the shadow life of daily reality.
It’s an episodic novel and there’s a sense Kafka is making it up as he goes along, which maybe explains why he never finished it - he wasn’t working to a plan. Towards the end it begins getting a little repetitive and increasingly more surreal. The pattern of Karl’s innocence getting him into trouble but also finally saving him, or at least providing the opportunity to live another day, has been repeated several times. It’s surprising that a writer as brilliantly unpredictable as Kafka becomes a little predictable in his unpredictability – if that makes sense. A missing chapter doesn’t help in the waning of one’s interest. That said I found much to admire before it becomes clear that he loses his impetus. Shame he didn’t finish it.
Not surprisingly Kafka’s America is a bizarre place - he never set foot in America in his lifetime. For one thing initiative, the will to work, impeccable manners are punished rather than rewarded. Kafka’s Karl is a hapless good-natured innocent who will be taken advantage of at every turn. He’s every bully’s dream victim. Authority, as ever, is an irrational and cruel entity. Nothing is to be expected of it but persecution. Officialdom makes little sense as subordinates often overrule bosses. In Kafka’s world perhaps only women can be relied upon to show uncorrupted humanity. Kafka’s heroes are never men’s men. To put it harshly they are often girl’s blouses. Though Kafka is writing about a recognisably real world here the surreal is never far away, often present in his choice of fastidious detail. He’s a master at bringing to life the shadow life of daily reality.
It’s an episodic novel and there’s a sense Kafka is making it up as he goes along, which maybe explains why he never finished it - he wasn’t working to a plan. Towards the end it begins getting a little repetitive and increasingly more surreal. The pattern of Karl’s innocence getting him into trouble but also finally saving him, or at least providing the opportunity to live another day, has been repeated several times. It’s surprising that a writer as brilliantly unpredictable as Kafka becomes a little predictable in his unpredictability – if that makes sense. A missing chapter doesn’t help in the waning of one’s interest. That said I found much to admire before it becomes clear that he loses his impetus. Shame he didn’t finish it.
October 28, 2025
The incomplete first novel, like the other two by Franz Kafka which makes for a fuzzy story to follow let alone perceive, we are grateful, nevertheless. In as much as any gifted writer's book though fragmented is a priceless treasure ...Amerika...original name, "The Missing Person" a better more descriptive title still, published posthumously in 1927 ostensibly about Karl Rossmann. A German boy of fifteen, native of Prague in the Austrian Hungarian Empire before the WW1 collapse, who needs to get out of town fast for hanky- panky with a frisky maid twenty years his senior. Don't need to paint a picture of the many repercussions. Karl's unamused parents send him to his remote uncle in America Mr. Jakob not a nice guy but very influential New Yorker. Naturally things go arise if not, the story with be quite boring, humans are fickle creatures, even family members become estranged and rich relatives with numerous unpleasant quirks reveal ugly sides quickly enough. The rather heartless uncle after a few months of seemingly kind yet cold treatment, becomes jealous of a friend's, Mr. Pollunder invitation to the boy to visit him for a day or two at his home, the unstable daughter Klara is a bit insane still, and Jakob uninvited the kid away... soon on the dusty roads with a couple of lazy bums ...makes him a hobo, sounds better, Robinson from Ireland and Frenchman Delamarche it doesn't matter both are lowlifes. The result of the huge abundance of refugees from Europe's turmoil's, immigrants fleeing from whatever. Later getting a job in an upstate New York luxury hotel, the old chief cook, a female likes Mr. Rossmann yet two months later forced to leave again, certainly however not all his fault, nevertheless he has a propensity for trouble. Now another episode Karl becomes a virtual slave taking care of a fat lady Brunelda getting quite fatter every minute while the two Messieurs Robinson, Delamarche look on, and the latter is her ardent lover. The unkempt dusty apartment grows full of rubbish, a packrat paradise and the constant harsh word from her strident tongue brings no joy. It's hard to judge a book not finished, one thinks of the possibilities, however a blank pierce of paper is...blank. And dreams unreal... Mr. Kafka was a marvelous writer his weakness like numerous people in every walk of life, he never believes in his abilities...think of the loss to the world...quite sad.
April 12, 2021
Ako čovjek ide uz vjetar, koji se kovitla u krugu, ne može ni za trenutak otvoriti oči, vjetar mu stalno snijegom zasipa lice, može trčati ali neće stići dalje, to je nešto očajno. Dijete je tu, naravno, u boljem položaju od odraslih, ono se probija ispod vjetra, pa čak pomalo i uživa u svemu.
Kadšto ni sam ne znam koliko ljupkost može biti prijemčiva, zamotana u neko ruho, a opet ponegdje izvire i nagovještava da je prisutna kako se čitalac ne bi mnogo uzburkao i razočarao. Ona je tu da ublaži njegove strasti i napore, da mu svojim poljupcima održava rumenilo i vedrinu na licu. Kafka nije eksplicitan na obzorju njegove Amerike, nego više svog junaka nijansira kroz vrtloge ukrasa neke svoje slikovitosti. Ni jedno polje ove knjige ne teži nekoj načetoj harmoniji. Junaci kao da pletu mrežu koja će ih okrenuti i jedne protiv drugih i protiv sebe.
Ne radi se o tome da je ovo očajničko i opskurno djelo, njegov Karl Rosman je u naboju nade i on krči put ka njenom ostvarenju, ali ona i dalje samo tanano treperi. Neaktivnost koja podrazumijeva posmatranje jednog radnog njujorškog dana može da se preporuči turistima, ali onaj koji tu ostaje, za njega znači čamotinju i propast. Pisac je upravo to i činio, čupao je svog junaka ne bi li ovaj upao u puko posmatranje. Što se i uočava na samom početku kada se Karl useljava kod ujaka, kada mu ovaj kupuje klavir i plaća mu časove engleskog jezika i jahanje konja. Ovo zvuči pomalo poetično s obzirom na kakve džombe će Karl nailaziti dok bude radio neke druge poslove. Kafka zapravo predočava koliko je poslovni prostor u Americi jedan džin koji žvaće čovjeka naživo. On nam pokazuje fresku američkog života i možda sve ono što je svojstveno toj zemlji.
December 9, 2024
The least Kafkaesque novel by Kafka—maybe that’s why it is more overlooked than his other works. Instead of the claustrophobic feel of helplessness, there is actually a sense of hope and comedic relief in the adventures of our hero, an innocent immigrant in 1920s America, as he pursues the american dream. Given that the outcome isn’t all that different despite the lighter tone—our hero becomes poorer instead of richer—perhaps it’s better to laugh than to despair over a system you can’t change.
February 8, 2025
Kafka 'Lite'
'Amerika' is not quite Kafka we all love and are used to. This is due to its realism, social commentary and humour. On the other hand, the account of young Karl Rossmann's odyssey in 'Amerika' (which somehow does not feel like America) generated a sense of growing unease in me like other Kafka's texts.
In spite of the realism the existential dread and and a feeling of hopelessness pervade Kafka's first unfinished novel. Karl's helplessness and ready acceptance of his absurd and sad fate really touched me. Especially when it is clear that this story in which the misfortunes keep befalling Karl endlessly, would not have a happy ending.
'So then you’re free?' 'Yes, I’m free,’ said Karl, and nothing seemed more worthless than his freedom.'
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'He was aware that he was losing himself, was losing himself completely in this vast country.'
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
'He looked sadly down at the street, as though it were his own bottomless sadness.'
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
'Karl leaned against the railing beside his lift, slowly eating his apple, from which a strong sweet aroma rose from the very first bite, and looked down the lift-shaft, which was surrounded by the large windows of the storerooms, behind which great bunches of bananas glimmered faintly in the
dark.'
'Amerika' is not quite Kafka we all love and are used to. This is due to its realism, social commentary and humour. On the other hand, the account of young Karl Rossmann's odyssey in 'Amerika' (which somehow does not feel like America) generated a sense of growing unease in me like other Kafka's texts.
In spite of the realism the existential dread and and a feeling of hopelessness pervade Kafka's first unfinished novel. Karl's helplessness and ready acceptance of his absurd and sad fate really touched me. Especially when it is clear that this story in which the misfortunes keep befalling Karl endlessly, would not have a happy ending.
'So then you’re free?' 'Yes, I’m free,’ said Karl, and nothing seemed more worthless than his freedom.'
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
'He was aware that he was losing himself, was losing himself completely in this vast country.'
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
'He looked sadly down at the street, as though it were his own bottomless sadness.'
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
'Karl leaned against the railing beside his lift, slowly eating his apple, from which a strong sweet aroma rose from the very first bite, and looked down the lift-shaft, which was surrounded by the large windows of the storerooms, behind which great bunches of bananas glimmered faintly in the
dark.'
March 7, 2022
رواية لفرانز كافكا غير مكتملة في بعض فصولها, نشرها صديقه ماكس برود بعد وفاته
حكاية شاب ألماني صغير يهاجر لأمريكا, ويتنقل فيها من مكان لمكان ومن عمل لآخر
غريب في عالم واسع يتعرف على شخصيات مختلفة ويتورط في مشكلات كثيرة
وفي النهاية نتركه في القطار يسعى للوصول إلى مسرح أوكلاهوما في تجربة جديدة
يتتبع كافكا مصير الانسان في دروب ومتاهات الحياة بين الأمل والوهم
سرد جميل وسلس ومُثقل أحيانا بالتفاصيل والوصف
حكاية شاب ألماني صغير يهاجر لأمريكا, ويتنقل فيها من مكان لمكان ومن عمل لآخر
غريب في عالم واسع يتعرف على شخصيات مختلفة ويتورط في مشكلات كثيرة
وفي النهاية نتركه في القطار يسعى للوصول إلى مسرح أوكلاهوما في تجربة جديدة
يتتبع كافكا مصير الانسان في دروب ومتاهات الحياة بين الأمل والوهم
سرد جميل وسلس ومُثقل أحيانا بالتفاصيل والوصف
October 1, 2017
جایی که حسن نیت در کار نباشد، محال است بتوانی از خودت دفاع کنی
بنظرم آمریکا را می توان چکامه شادی کافکا نامید، آنهم در تقابل با کارهایی مثل مسخ و محاکمه و قصر که فضای پیچیده و تاریکی دارند. اما در این اثر، با همهی دردسرهایی که برای شخصیت اول داستان پیش می آید، میتوان روزنه امید و بهروزی را هم حس کرد... در صحنه هایی چنان هیجانی بود که ریتم "مرگ قسطی" سلین برام تداعی میشد؛ مخمصه پشت مخمصه و نفس گیر
حیف و هزار حسرت که کافکا این کتاب را هم به پایان نرساند...
بنظرم آمریکا را می توان چکامه شادی کافکا نامید، آنهم در تقابل با کارهایی مثل مسخ و محاکمه و قصر که فضای پیچیده و تاریکی دارند. اما در این اثر، با همهی دردسرهایی که برای شخصیت اول داستان پیش می آید، میتوان روزنه امید و بهروزی را هم حس کرد... در صحنه هایی چنان هیجانی بود که ریتم "مرگ قسطی" سلین برام تداعی میشد؛ مخمصه پشت مخمصه و نفس گیر
حیف و هزار حسرت که کافکا این کتاب را هم به پایان نرساند...
September 3, 2025
دوستم قرار بود راجع به تجربهای که از نظر همسرش بوی خیانت میداد فیلمی بسازد. همسرش (که او نیز دوست من است) بابت این تجربه با او مشاجراتی داشت و سپس قهر کرد. دوستم برایش پیشنهاد جالبی داشت: بیاید سر صحنه، و همین قهر را جلوی دوربین بازی کند. روز بعد وقتی آشتی کردند دوستم پذیرفت در نقش خودش وارد فیلم شود. ابتدا دوستم میخواست برای او دیالوگ بنویسد، اما من ازش خواستم چنین نکند. گفتم بگذار مثل سلامسینمای مخملباف بداهه بازی کند. رفت و بازی کرد. بعد فیلمبرداری طی تماس تلفنی بهم گفت آنجا که بود با خودش فکر میکرد که جایش آنجا نیست. میگفت من را چه به سینما؟ من برای او هم از سلامسینما نقلقول آوردم: اگه سینما قرار باشه زندگی رو بگه، پس جا برای همه هست.
جملاتی از ص ۲۴۴ آمریکا مرا به یاد اینها انداخت: کارل پلاکارد را برای بار دوم نخواند، ولی یک بار دیگر دنبال این جمله چشم گرداند: مقدم همه را گرامی میداریم.
- گُ گُ گُربهنره روباه مکار!
به طور کلی پیرنگ کتاب شبیه پینوکیو بود. کلا پینوکیو آنقدر کتاب شبیه دارد که میتواند یک ژانر ادبی باشد تا یک اثر (درست مانند شاهنامه). اما بهخصوص در این رمان ویلسون و دولامارش خیلی شبیه به گربهنره و روباهمکار بودند. این ترکیب ناب که توأمان که زیر پای کسی را خالی میکنی بهش اطمینانخاطر بده.
یاد دیالوگی از همان دوست سینماگرم افتادم که به دوستی که گیر آدم بدجنسی افتاده بود گفت: تو نباید گربهنره و روباهمکار باشی، بلکه باید گربهنره و روباهمکارِ گربهنره و روباهمکار باشی.
- چه خبر از موراکامی؟ به نظر میآید کافکادرکرانه او نیز در ژانر پینوکیو باشد! راستی! اسم قهرمان رمانش هم کافکا است! باید ربطی داشته باشد!
بله. دارد. اتفاقا وقتی کافکادرکرانه را میخواندم برایم سؤال بود بیشتر تحتتأثیر کدام کتاب کافکا است، و حالا به جواب سؤالم رسیدم (واقعا لازم است اسمش را هم بگویم؟). اما میتوان گفت قهرمان رمان کافکا، یعنی کارل، پسر زاغی ندارد. او تقریبا خیلی تنها ست.
راستی حالا که تا اینجا آمدیم، ناتوردشت هم در همین ژانر نوشته شده. درکل میتوان ژانرش را اینطوری تعریف کرد: هانسلوگرتل منهای گرتل.
- چرا ناباکوف؟
چون در مورد مسخ چنین میگفت که گرگور زامزا بال داشت، اما هرگز پرواز نکرد. در ص ۴۶ آمریکا میخوانیم: دایی از یاد نبرد که به کارل توصیه کند دستگاه را حتیالامکان به کار نیندازد، و برای تأکید بر توصیهاش مدعی شد مکانیسم دستگاه خیلی حساس است، راحت خراب میشود، و بازسازی آن خیلی پرخرج است. فهمیدن اینکه این حرفها بهانهای بیش نیست خیلی سخت نبود، اگرچه از طرف دیگر کارل باید میپذیرفت که دستگاه را به آسانی میشد قفل کرد، ولی دایی چنین کاری نکرد.
تنها شخصیتهای رمانهای کافکا با وجود بازبودن در دیزی همچنان حیای گربه را حفظ میکنند.
- زندگی پنهان والترمیتی
در تست امبیتیآی یکی از شاخصههای شخصیتشناسی را Turbulent میدانند. چنین اشخاصی حساسیت بالایی دارند و در برابر استرس شکنندهترند. برای نیل به خواستهها خیلی خودشان را تحت فشار میگذارند، و مدتزمان زیادی صرف تجزیهوتحلیل وقایع اطراف و حوادث آینده میکنند. ویژگی اصلی کارل همین تربیولنتبودن او ست. همین باعث میشود رمان دو روایت موازی داشته باشد: یک. آنچه رخ میدهد و دو. آنچه کارل فکر میکند ممکن است رخ دهد یا ترجیح میدهد رخ دهد یا میترسد که نکند رخ دهد یا خشمگین میشود اگر رخ دهد.
درست مثل روایت داستانکوتاه والترمیتی (به قلم جیمز تربر) که یک دنیای موازی خیالی وجود دارد که قهرمان مدام در آن غرق میشود.
- یأس انقلابی
ازجمله اشخاصی که فکر میکنم با نقدهای مارکس به کاپیتالیسم موافق بود اما راهحل او را مناسب نمیدید، کافکا ست: چون معتقد است ریشهٔ شر درون انسانها ست (گیرم نه همهاشان)، و اگر کاپیتالیسم حذف شود آنها را دیگری برای ظلم در اختیار خواهند گرفت، همانطور که پیش از کاپیتالیسم هم داشتند. راهحل او؟ به نظر میرسد تسلیم. موتیف تکرارشوندهٔ اکثر آثار کافکا همین تسلیم در برابر ظلم است. برای مثال در ص ۲۸۲ میخوانیم: همه از قدرت خود استفاده میکردند و به زیردستهایشان ناسزا میگفتند. ولی اگر به آنها عادت میکردی، با ضربههای منظم ساعت فرقی نداشت.
جملاتی از ص ۲۴۴ آمریکا مرا به یاد اینها انداخت: کارل پلاکارد را برای بار دوم نخواند، ولی یک بار دیگر دنبال این جمله چشم گرداند: مقدم همه را گرامی میداریم.
- گُ گُ گُربهنره روباه مکار!
به طور کلی پیرنگ کتاب شبیه پینوکیو بود. کلا پینوکیو آنقدر کتاب شبیه دارد که میتواند یک ژانر ادبی باشد تا یک اثر (درست مانند شاهنامه). اما بهخصوص در این رمان ویلسون و دولامارش خیلی شبیه به گربهنره و روباهمکار بودند. این ترکیب ناب که توأمان که زیر پای کسی را خالی میکنی بهش اطمینانخاطر بده.
یاد دیالوگی از همان دوست سینماگرم افتادم که به دوستی که گیر آدم بدجنسی افتاده بود گفت: تو نباید گربهنره و روباهمکار باشی، بلکه باید گربهنره و روباهمکارِ گربهنره و روباهمکار باشی.
- چه خبر از موراکامی؟ به نظر میآید کافکادرکرانه او نیز در ژانر پینوکیو باشد! راستی! اسم قهرمان رمانش هم کافکا است! باید ربطی داشته باشد!
بله. دارد. اتفاقا وقتی کافکادرکرانه را میخواندم برایم سؤال بود بیشتر تحتتأثیر کدام کتاب کافکا است، و حالا به جواب سؤالم رسیدم (واقعا لازم است اسمش را هم بگویم؟). اما میتوان گفت قهرمان رمان کافکا، یعنی کارل، پسر زاغی ندارد. او تقریبا خیلی تنها ست.
راستی حالا که تا اینجا آمدیم، ناتوردشت هم در همین ژانر نوشته شده. درکل میتوان ژانرش را اینطوری تعریف کرد: هانسلوگرتل منهای گرتل.
- چرا ناباکوف؟
چون در مورد مسخ چنین میگفت که گرگور زامزا بال داشت، اما هرگز پرواز نکرد. در ص ۴۶ آمریکا میخوانیم: دایی از یاد نبرد که به کارل توصیه کند دستگاه را حتیالامکان به کار نیندازد، و برای تأکید بر توصیهاش مدعی شد مکانیسم دستگاه خیلی حساس است، راحت خراب میشود، و بازسازی آن خیلی پرخرج است. فهمیدن اینکه این حرفها بهانهای بیش نیست خیلی سخت نبود، اگرچه از طرف دیگر کارل باید میپذیرفت که دستگاه را به آسانی میشد قفل کرد، ولی دایی چنین کاری نکرد.
تنها شخصیتهای رمانهای کافکا با وجود بازبودن در دیزی همچنان حیای گربه را حفظ میکنند.
- زندگی پنهان والترمیتی
در تست امبیتیآی یکی از شاخصههای شخصیتشناسی را Turbulent میدانند. چنین اشخاصی حساسیت بالایی دارند و در برابر استرس شکنندهترند. برای نیل به خواستهها خیلی خودشان را تحت فشار میگذارند، و مدتزمان زیادی صرف تجزیهوتحلیل وقایع اطراف و حوادث آینده میکنند. ویژگی اصلی کارل همین تربیولنتبودن او ست. همین باعث میشود رمان دو روایت موازی داشته باشد: یک. آنچه رخ میدهد و دو. آنچه کارل فکر میکند ممکن است رخ دهد یا ترجیح میدهد رخ دهد یا میترسد که نکند رخ دهد یا خشمگین میشود اگر رخ دهد.
درست مثل روایت داستانکوتاه والترمیتی (به قلم جیمز تربر) که یک دنیای موازی خیالی وجود دارد که قهرمان مدام در آن غرق میشود.
- یأس انقلابی
ازجمله اشخاصی که فکر میکنم با نقدهای مارکس به کاپیتالیسم موافق بود اما راهحل او را مناسب نمیدید، کافکا ست: چون معتقد است ریشهٔ شر درون انسانها ست (گیرم نه همهاشان)، و اگر کاپیتالیسم حذف شود آنها را دیگری برای ظلم در اختیار خواهند گرفت، همانطور که پیش از کاپیتالیسم هم داشتند. راهحل او؟ به نظر میرسد تسلیم. موتیف تکرارشوندهٔ اکثر آثار کافکا همین تسلیم در برابر ظلم است. برای مثال در ص ۲۸۲ میخوانیم: همه از قدرت خود استفاده میکردند و به زیردستهایشان ناسزا میگفتند. ولی اگر به آنها عادت میکردی، با ضربههای منظم ساعت فرقی نداشت.
August 2, 2023
Franz Kafka’s Amerika, initially titled Der Verschollene (The One Who Disappeared), achieved posthumous publication in 1927, edited by Max Brod. Only the opening vignette, “The Stoker” (“Der Heizer”), was published independently as a short piece during Kafka’s lifetime.
The story is about an anti-hero tangled up in an anti-Bildungsroman. From the start, Karl Rossmann, a European immigrant entering the United States through New York Harbor, is utterly lost. To him, San Francisco is on the east coast, and New York is connected to Boston by a mere bridge over the Hudson. From there, Karl is tossed around in increasingly weird and repetitive circumstances: he falls prey to strange women who have a thinly veiled sexual interest in him, struggles with aggressive bosses and convoluted business procedures, befriends other young employees like him, and gets by from day to day, rarely holding a job for long.
In part because of the unfinished and fragmented nature of the text, Amerika feels like an open and unfinished Gestalt, a picaresque novel, a quest without a goal, an episodic Odyssey without any Ithaca or Penelope. On the whole, Karl is a Joseph-like figure: a nomad, a nobody, an exile, a pariah, a Jew, a “Negro” (the name he gives himself in the last fragment of the novel), subjected to a cycle of transient salvations and humiliating rejections, pushing him toward society’s outskirts. Ultimately, the tale stops for reasons known only to its author, leaving us with a question: could Karl find genuine freedom or descend into an abyss of degradation?
Contrary to Kafka’s traditionally claustrophobic settings, this novel is unusually vibrant, tightly composed, and filled with direct speech and weird descriptions of gestures. It was penned at the peak of immigration from Eastern Europe and layered with the nuances of the contemporary world of the early 20th century. And despite its fragmentary structure, it remains a testament to Kafka’s exceptional storytelling skills and his ability to challenge readers with an intricately woven narrative that effortlessly merges reality and metaphor.
Many years later, Philip Roth would imagine how an older Kafka, having survived tuberculosis and escaping Nazi Germany, could have followed the steps of his creation: “just a Jew lucky enough to have escaped with his life, in his possession a suitcase containing some clothes, some family photos, some Prague mementos, and the manuscripts, still unpublished and in pieces, of Amerika, The Trial, The Castle, and (stranger things happen) three more fragmented novels, no less remarkable than the bizarre masterworks that he keeps to himself out of oedipal timidity, perfectionist madness, and insatiable longings for solitude and spiritual purity.” (From Roth’s essay “‘I Always Wanted You to Admire My Fasting’; or, Looking at Kafka.”)
The story is about an anti-hero tangled up in an anti-Bildungsroman. From the start, Karl Rossmann, a European immigrant entering the United States through New York Harbor, is utterly lost. To him, San Francisco is on the east coast, and New York is connected to Boston by a mere bridge over the Hudson. From there, Karl is tossed around in increasingly weird and repetitive circumstances: he falls prey to strange women who have a thinly veiled sexual interest in him, struggles with aggressive bosses and convoluted business procedures, befriends other young employees like him, and gets by from day to day, rarely holding a job for long.
In part because of the unfinished and fragmented nature of the text, Amerika feels like an open and unfinished Gestalt, a picaresque novel, a quest without a goal, an episodic Odyssey without any Ithaca or Penelope. On the whole, Karl is a Joseph-like figure: a nomad, a nobody, an exile, a pariah, a Jew, a “Negro” (the name he gives himself in the last fragment of the novel), subjected to a cycle of transient salvations and humiliating rejections, pushing him toward society’s outskirts. Ultimately, the tale stops for reasons known only to its author, leaving us with a question: could Karl find genuine freedom or descend into an abyss of degradation?
Contrary to Kafka’s traditionally claustrophobic settings, this novel is unusually vibrant, tightly composed, and filled with direct speech and weird descriptions of gestures. It was penned at the peak of immigration from Eastern Europe and layered with the nuances of the contemporary world of the early 20th century. And despite its fragmentary structure, it remains a testament to Kafka’s exceptional storytelling skills and his ability to challenge readers with an intricately woven narrative that effortlessly merges reality and metaphor.
Many years later, Philip Roth would imagine how an older Kafka, having survived tuberculosis and escaping Nazi Germany, could have followed the steps of his creation: “just a Jew lucky enough to have escaped with his life, in his possession a suitcase containing some clothes, some family photos, some Prague mementos, and the manuscripts, still unpublished and in pieces, of Amerika, The Trial, The Castle, and (stranger things happen) three more fragmented novels, no less remarkable than the bizarre masterworks that he keeps to himself out of oedipal timidity, perfectionist madness, and insatiable longings for solitude and spiritual purity.” (From Roth’s essay “‘I Always Wanted You to Admire My Fasting’; or, Looking at Kafka.”)
July 19, 2023
На первый взгляд, роман "Америка" Кафки выглядит сказкой, где герой преодолевает препятствия и, наконец, он достигает успеха.
Но, мне кажется, Кафка не так уж прост писать сказки с хэппи-эндом. Автор никогда не был в Америке, жизнь, которую он описывает, не похожа на американскую, героев там больше с европейскими корнями, чем американцев, и даже Статуя Свободы с мечом, а не с факелом.
Скорее всего, это символ, типа Эльдорадо, а меч символизирует борьбу, которую нужно предпринять, чтобы дойти до цели.
Роман недописан, но мы видим, что жизнь героя налаживается, он устраивается в Большой Оклахомский театр техническим работником - скорее всего разнорабочим, поскольку вербовщики проверяли его бицепсы. Это ли предел мечтаний? Пожалуй, нет. Жизнь
Карла тяжела. Его жизнь - это череда взлетов, как правило, через счастливый случай, и падений, тоже как правило, через предательства. Карла постоянно предают. Сначала родители отправляют его без средств к существованию за океан - что это, если не предательство? Потом дядя Якоб, разрывает с ним отношения просто за то, что он без разрешения поехал в загородный дом Полландера. Там тоже - настоящий театр абсурда с бесконечными коридорами, из которых самому не выбраться. Его многократно предают Робинсон и Деламарш, лифтёр, которого он попросил подменить. Все его предают, но он каждый раз начинает с нуля, с самого отчаянного положения, ему почти постоянно улыбается судьба (поэтому создаётся впечатление сказки), и снова, и снова предательским ударом он кубарем летит вниз. Почти, как Сизифов путь в гору.
Как и в других произведениях Кафки, здесь имеет место движение, которое не ведёт никуда, абсурдная запутанность пути - это прослеживается и доме дяди, и особенно, доме Полландера, и в корабле, когда он идёт за забытым зонтиком. Это Кафкианское мироощущение, и, если в "Процессе" и "Замке" эти непреодолимые препятствия создавались системой - судебной или бюрократической - то здесь, самой жизнью, ненадежными родственниками и товарищами, это экзистенциальная тоска и, одновременно, экспрессионистское ощущение отсутствия выхода. Не будучи эмигрантом, Кафка очень хорошо прочувствовал эмигрантскую судьбу - идти и не сдаваться, жить , несмотря на предательства и то, что тебя никто не ждёт.
И несмотря ни на что, этот роман, все же светлее, чем два других также недописанным романа "Процесс" и " Замок". Карл все же продолжает жить и двигаться.
Но, мне кажется, Кафка не так уж прост писать сказки с хэппи-эндом. Автор никогда не был в Америке, жизнь, которую он описывает, не похожа на американскую, героев там больше с европейскими корнями, чем американцев, и даже Статуя Свободы с мечом, а не с факелом.
Скорее всего, это символ, типа Эльдорадо, а меч символизирует борьбу, которую нужно предпринять, чтобы дойти до цели.
Роман недописан, но мы видим, что жизнь героя налаживается, он устраивается в Большой Оклахомский театр техническим работником - скорее всего разнорабочим, поскольку вербовщики проверяли его бицепсы. Это ли предел мечтаний? Пожалуй, нет. Жизнь
Карла тяжела. Его жизнь - это череда взлетов, как правило, через счастливый случай, и падений, тоже как правило, через предательства. Карла постоянно предают. Сначала родители отправляют его без средств к существованию за океан - что это, если не предательство? Потом дядя Якоб, разрывает с ним отношения просто за то, что он без разрешения поехал в загородный дом Полландера. Там тоже - настоящий театр абсурда с бесконечными коридорами, из которых самому не выбраться. Его многократно предают Робинсон и Деламарш, лифтёр, которого он попросил подменить. Все его предают, но он каждый раз начинает с нуля, с самого отчаянного положения, ему почти постоянно улыбается судьба (поэтому создаётся впечатление сказки), и снова, и снова предательским ударом он кубарем летит вниз. Почти, как Сизифов путь в гору.
Как и в других произведениях Кафки, здесь имеет место движение, которое не ведёт никуда, абсурдная запутанность пути - это прослеживается и доме дяди, и особенно, доме Полландера, и в корабле, когда он идёт за забытым зонтиком. Это Кафкианское мироощущение, и, если в "Процессе" и "Замке" эти непреодолимые препятствия создавались системой - судебной или бюрократической - то здесь, самой жизнью, ненадежными родственниками и товарищами, это экзистенциальная тоска и, одновременно, экспрессионистское ощущение отсутствия выхода. Не будучи эмигрантом, Кафка очень хорошо прочувствовал эмигрантскую судьбу - идти и не сдаваться, жить , несмотря на предательства и то, что тебя никто не ждёт.
И несмотря ни на что, этот роман, все же светлее, чем два других также недописанным романа "Процесс" и " Замок". Карл все же продолжает жить и двигаться.
February 10, 2017
I loved this first novel by Kafka, much more sunny and easier to read than his others (even though the chapter on Brunelda is pretty frightening). This is incomplete - but does not matter much as Kafka's stories are dreamlike and disjointed anyway.
Kafka never visited America. I was thinking today that whatever is happening in America nowadays is much weirder and more surreal than any of his novels.
Kafka never visited America. I was thinking today that whatever is happening in America nowadays is much weirder and more surreal than any of his novels.
January 16, 2016
Ne znam, možda da napravim policu "knjige koje me nisu ubile, a baš su se potrudile"?
Ne radi se o tome da Kafka nije dobar, naprotiv, previše je dobar u onome što pokušava, a to je da vas (mene) natera da se grčite od transfera blama, da vas (mene) glavom nadole uroni u depresivnu epizodu, da ubije životnu radost u vama (meni). Da, znam da je on sam smatrao kako je zapravo humorista. Dobro, važi. Da, jeste pisac neverovatno bizarne mašte, zapletenih tokova misli, upečatljivo groznih paklenih vizija birokratske banalnosti. I u.bi.ja volju za životom.
Ipak, gledajmo na stvar sa vedrije strane. Nije me stvarno i do kraja ubio!... dobro, ako me nije ubio Paviljon br. 6, neće nijedna knjiga nikad. Ali nekako sam mislila da sam manje podložna negativnim književnim uticajima u ovim odmaklim godinama, i gle čuda, varala sam se.
Ne znam. Jej za Kafku?
PS nemam nerava da još i pišem o čemu je Amerika. Jadan Karl Rosman, eto samo to ću reći, jadan on, jadni svi mi.
Ne radi se o tome da Kafka nije dobar, naprotiv, previše je dobar u onome što pokušava, a to je da vas (mene) natera da se grčite od transfera blama, da vas (mene) glavom nadole uroni u depresivnu epizodu, da ubije životnu radost u vama (meni). Da, znam da je on sam smatrao kako je zapravo humorista. Dobro, važi. Da, jeste pisac neverovatno bizarne mašte, zapletenih tokova misli, upečatljivo groznih paklenih vizija birokratske banalnosti. I u.bi.ja volju za životom.
Ipak, gledajmo na stvar sa vedrije strane. Nije me stvarno i do kraja ubio!... dobro, ako me nije ubio Paviljon br. 6, neće nijedna knjiga nikad. Ali nekako sam mislila da sam manje podložna negativnim književnim uticajima u ovim odmaklim godinama, i gle čuda, varala sam se.
Ne znam. Jej za Kafku?
PS nemam nerava da još i pišem o čemu je Amerika. Jadan Karl Rosman, eto samo to ću reći, jadan on, jadni svi mi.
September 20, 2020
Kafka je atmosfera - crne rupe.
Dok u Procesu čitalac (ako pretpostavimo da ne zna baš ništa o romanu) na par mesta mooožda može da udahne i da se ponada da će se desiti nešto što nije apsolutni užas, ovde ni sekunda ne može da se oslobodi strepnje, i to one najpodmuklije - kad sebe terate u veru da će stvar izaći na dobro, a ko beli dan vam je jasno da neće.
I ovo mi deluje još crnje, ali i još bolje napisano nego kad sam čitala prvi put.
Koliko je meni žao ovog čoveka!
Dok u Procesu čitalac (ako pretpostavimo da ne zna baš ništa o romanu) na par mesta mooožda može da udahne i da se ponada da će se desiti nešto što nije apsolutni užas, ovde ni sekunda ne može da se oslobodi strepnje, i to one najpodmuklije - kad sebe terate u veru da će stvar izaći na dobro, a ko beli dan vam je jasno da neće.
I ovo mi deluje još crnje, ali i još bolje napisano nego kad sam čitala prvi put.
Koliko je meni žao ovog čoveka!
March 4, 2011
I had difficulties not feeling like a tool while reading Kafka at work on my breaks. A guy with a beard and thick rimmed glasses read Amerika, just makes me feel like a parody of myself.
Kafka is one of those authors young men latch on to in high school or college and inevitably talk way too much about. I can definitely see the appeal with the themes of alienation and a system that works against the well-meaning individual. But there's something I realized while reading this book:
Kafka would have made fun of them.
More than one critical discussion I've read mentions how the humor of Kafka often didn't translate. Humor is tricky when it comes to older works. To even get the jokes, you have to have some sort of notion that jokes are expected. It's the same way ironic jokes fail is the listener assumes you're an idiot. It's hard to see the humor in a lot of Kafka's work unless someone points out that the man would often read his work with a wry, smart-ass sensibility.
The Trial and the Metamorphisis both could work as dark comedies seen through the right lens.
Amerika serves as a pretty effective Rosetta Stone to understanding this. It's an outright whimsical comedy, full of over-the-top shenanigans and bizarre characters. It could easily produce a film in the style of the Coen Brothers' movies.
An odd sort of internal logic is required to make surreal and weird humor work, a tactic Kafka was the outright master of. The man had a supreme capacity to keep his strange dream-logic fueled worlds glued together. Its part of what makes it captivating for me, I never know what's going to happen next, but it never strays into feeling abitrary.
If you know anyone who never shuts up about the darkness of his work, who throws around the term "Kafkaesque with an excessive frequency, I recommend getting them a copy of this book.
Kafka is one of those authors young men latch on to in high school or college and inevitably talk way too much about. I can definitely see the appeal with the themes of alienation and a system that works against the well-meaning individual. But there's something I realized while reading this book:
Kafka would have made fun of them.
More than one critical discussion I've read mentions how the humor of Kafka often didn't translate. Humor is tricky when it comes to older works. To even get the jokes, you have to have some sort of notion that jokes are expected. It's the same way ironic jokes fail is the listener assumes you're an idiot. It's hard to see the humor in a lot of Kafka's work unless someone points out that the man would often read his work with a wry, smart-ass sensibility.
The Trial and the Metamorphisis both could work as dark comedies seen through the right lens.
Amerika serves as a pretty effective Rosetta Stone to understanding this. It's an outright whimsical comedy, full of over-the-top shenanigans and bizarre characters. It could easily produce a film in the style of the Coen Brothers' movies.
An odd sort of internal logic is required to make surreal and weird humor work, a tactic Kafka was the outright master of. The man had a supreme capacity to keep his strange dream-logic fueled worlds glued together. Its part of what makes it captivating for me, I never know what's going to happen next, but it never strays into feeling abitrary.
If you know anyone who never shuts up about the darkness of his work, who throws around the term "Kafkaesque with an excessive frequency, I recommend getting them a copy of this book.
July 22, 2024
Beket me možda više ubija u pojam, ali Kafka je tu negde. I ne, ne prihvatam teze o humoru kod Kafke. Svaka čast i Delezu i Gatariju i Vuku Petroviću i sili proučavalaca voljnih da pokažu kako je to bitna odlika Kafkinog dela, ali insistiranje na tome navodi na pogrešan trag. Kafka je užas, a kad se nasmejemo tom užasu, postaje samo još veći. Nema rasterećenja, kao što nema ni narativnog razrešenja. Ta sveopšta nezavršivost i ćorsokaci iskazani vrlo preciznim i distanciranim jezikom, ugrožavajući su i čine da kontakt sa tekstom bude borba. Kad god čitam Kafku, to nije zadovoljstvo, nego iskustvo koje se može opisati onom čuvenom formulacijom sačuvanom u prepisci – razbijanje zaleđenog mora u nama. Doduše, najčešće je to, ipak, udaranje maljem u glavu ili mlevenje mesa u mašini, a sve bi, ipak, bilo lakše, pa čak i burleskno (humoristično!) da je postojala makar naznaka mogućih ishoda, da Kafkini junaci nisu vreće za udaranje u magli. Amerika je užas, blistavo napisan užas, a, usudiću se reći, i sjajno preveden. Pa ko hoće da se bori i da se muči bez katarze ili nade, evo mu!
September 7, 2025
قراره از «آمریکا» با نام اصلی «مفقود الاثر» اثر «فرانتس کافکا» حرف بزنیم.
کافکا اون موقع جوان بوده و قلم «مسخ» رو در دست نداشته اما با این حال کتاب یه ویژگی داره که باعث میشه من نگم کتاب مطلقا بدی بود.
•°•در باب اسم و دغدغه اثر
نام اصلی کتاب طبق گفته «ماکس برود» تنها رفیق کافکا ، «مفقود الاثر» هست ؛ اما «ماکس» نام انتخابیش برای این اثر «آمریکاست».
من بنظرم هر دو عنوان درستن. ولی عنوان «ماکس» کمی درست تره.
چرا درست تره؟ میریم سراغ دغدغه نویسنده ؛
«کافکا» بالعکس اکثر نویسندگان وقت خودش که از سر فقر و فلاکت برای حداقل درآمدی ، در روزنامه داستانک هایی منتشر می کردن و این داستانک ها خوندن و نخوندنشون فرقی باهم ندارن ، کار نمی کرد.
تنها امتیاز کتاب «دغدغه نویسنده»ست. این دغدغه چیه؟ پاسخ : «گرفتاری و اسارت انسان در دنیای مدرن»
مسئلهای که در وقت نگارش اثر ، شاید نهایتا دو یا سه سال بوده که شروع شده بوده ولی «کافکا» خوب میفهمه که این اسارت بی پایان و رنج آوره.
خوندن تنها سه فصل از این اثر با خوندن تمام اثر (حتی پایان چرندی که ماکس اضافه کرده به کتاب) هیچ فرقی ندارن. شما چه سه ف��ل بخونی و چه کل اثر رو بخونی فقط و فقط همین برداشت رو می تونی داشته باشی. اما پاسخ سوال اصلیمون : نام کتاب چه ربطی به دغدغه نویسندهش داره؟
کشور آمریکا ، که در این اثر یه شخصیت مستقله ولی مطلقا ساخته نمیشه ، نمادیست از جامعه مدرن و مدرنیته که انسان رو مثل شخصیت اصلی اثر « کارل » مدام از یک نهاد به نهاد دیگه پاس میدن و عمر انسان در همین گیر و دار به بطالت می گذره.
«کافکا» جوان ، اینجا هنوز به عمق نا امیدی و عمق این گرفتاری بی آزادی که در «مسخ» مطرح می کنه نرسیده و به همین علت «آمریکا» کتاب مناسبی برای شروع خوانش «کافکا»ست.
•°• در باب داستان و دیگر عناصر رمان
اثر واقعا داستان خاصی نداره. یک تک خطی ساده که چیز خاصی نمیگه. اوج و فرود نداره. تعلیق نمیسازه و باگ های زیادی داره.
شخصیتی ما در اثر نمیبینیم. همه تیپ هستن و حتی کمتر اسم هستن.
نثر اثر قوی نیست. جذاب نیست ، پیش زمینه برای مخاطبش نمیسازه و هدفش در مرتبه اول سرگرمی مخاطب نیست. به همین خاطر نثر شکست خوردهست. فضایی نمیسازه و انسان رو با یک آکواریوم از دنیای مدرن روبه رو می کنه. دنیایی اسیر بی معنایی ، بی عشق ، حرف ، ساکت و کسل کننده.
در مجموع «آمریکا» اثر «فرانتس کافکا» صرفا برای شروع کافکا و برای شناخت سطح دغدغه های «کافکا» اثر قابل توجهی برای خواندنه ولی برای خواندن ، لذت بردن و سرگرمی به واسطه رمان ، مطلقا ضعیفه.
کافکا اون موقع جوان بوده و قلم «مسخ» رو در دست نداشته اما با این حال کتاب یه ویژگی داره که باعث میشه من نگم کتاب مطلقا بدی بود.
•°•در باب اسم و دغدغه اثر
نام اصلی کتاب طبق گفته «ماکس برود» تنها رفیق کافکا ، «مفقود الاثر» هست ؛ اما «ماکس» نام انتخابیش برای این اثر «آمریکاست».
من بنظرم هر دو عنوان درستن. ولی عنوان «ماکس» کمی درست تره.
چرا درست تره؟ میریم سراغ دغدغه نویسنده ؛
«کافکا» بالعکس اکثر نویسندگان وقت خودش که از سر فقر و فلاکت برای حداقل درآمدی ، در روزنامه داستانک هایی منتشر می کردن و این داستانک ها خوندن و نخوندنشون فرقی باهم ندارن ، کار نمی کرد.
تنها امتیاز کتاب «دغدغه نویسنده»ست. این دغدغه چیه؟ پاسخ : «گرفتاری و اسارت انسان در دنیای مدرن»
مسئلهای که در وقت نگارش اثر ، شاید نهایتا دو یا سه سال بوده که شروع شده بوده ولی «کافکا» خوب میفهمه که این اسارت بی پایان و رنج آوره.
خوندن تنها سه فصل از این اثر با خوندن تمام اثر (حتی پایان چرندی که ماکس اضافه کرده به کتاب) هیچ فرقی ندارن. شما چه سه ف��ل بخونی و چه کل اثر رو بخونی فقط و فقط همین برداشت رو می تونی داشته باشی. اما پاسخ سوال اصلیمون : نام کتاب چه ربطی به دغدغه نویسندهش داره؟
کشور آمریکا ، که در این اثر یه شخصیت مستقله ولی مطلقا ساخته نمیشه ، نمادیست از جامعه مدرن و مدرنیته که انسان رو مثل شخصیت اصلی اثر « کارل » مدام از یک نهاد به نهاد دیگه پاس میدن و عمر انسان در همین گیر و دار به بطالت می گذره.
«کافکا» جوان ، اینجا هنوز به عمق نا امیدی و عمق این گرفتاری بی آزادی که در «مسخ» مطرح می کنه نرسیده و به همین علت «آمریکا» کتاب مناسبی برای شروع خوانش «کافکا»ست.
•°• در باب داستان و دیگر عناصر رمان
اثر واقعا داستان خاصی نداره. یک تک خطی ساده که چیز خاصی نمیگه. اوج و فرود نداره. تعلیق نمیسازه و باگ های زیادی داره.
شخصیتی ما در اثر نمیبینیم. همه تیپ هستن و حتی کمتر اسم هستن.
نثر اثر قوی نیست. جذاب نیست ، پیش زمینه برای مخاطبش نمیسازه و هدفش در مرتبه اول سرگرمی مخاطب نیست. به همین خاطر نثر شکست خوردهست. فضایی نمیسازه و انسان رو با یک آکواریوم از دنیای مدرن روبه رو می کنه. دنیایی اسیر بی معنایی ، بی عشق ، حرف ، ساکت و کسل کننده.
در مجموع «آمریکا» اثر «فرانتس کافکا» صرفا برای شروع کافکا و برای شناخت سطح دغدغه های «کافکا» اثر قابل توجهی برای خواندنه ولی برای خواندن ، لذت بردن و سرگرمی به واسطه رمان ، مطلقا ضعیفه.
October 16, 2022
This was originally titled The Man Who Disappeared. The first chapter, The Stoker, was published as a short story and often included in the collection The Metamorphosis (see my review HERE).
It opens with a description of a city, country and continent Kafka never saw:
"New York looked at Karl with the hundred thousand windows of its skyscrapers."
The ship, too, has windows (of course), but there are more references to them than one might expect in such a few pages.
Karl is only 16 and has been sent, alone, to escape the shame of being seduced by an older maid who bore his son (sexually assertive women are common in Kafka's works - and there is a very flirty kitchen maid on the ship as well). He travelled steerage, where there is "a glimmer of murky light, long since stale from its use in the decks above", and is due to meet a slightly wealthier uncle in New York.
He disembarks, then remembers he has left something behind, so leaves his trunk on shore, in the care of an acquaintance, and becomes disoriented in the labyrinth of the ship. He is befriended by the ship's stoker who overs vague help, but really wants someone to listen to his grievances. During the voyage, Karl had protected his trunk obsessively, but now he seems not to care, and instead, goes to the captain, to petition for the stoker.
That's just the first chapter. Karl's adventures continue on land, in this strange land.
The usual themes of alienation/rejection, aspiring to please/fit in, being bemused and lost in unfamiliar territory and bureaucracy are there, but it is generally more optimistic and realistic than his other novels, though the final chapter (about the Nature Theatre of Oklahoma) is much more surreal, and doesn't really seem to "fit" with the rest of the novel.
See my Kafka-related bookshelf for other works by and about Kafka: HERE.
It opens with a description of a city, country and continent Kafka never saw:
"New York looked at Karl with the hundred thousand windows of its skyscrapers."
The ship, too, has windows (of course), but there are more references to them than one might expect in such a few pages.
Karl is only 16 and has been sent, alone, to escape the shame of being seduced by an older maid who bore his son (sexually assertive women are common in Kafka's works - and there is a very flirty kitchen maid on the ship as well). He travelled steerage, where there is "a glimmer of murky light, long since stale from its use in the decks above", and is due to meet a slightly wealthier uncle in New York.
He disembarks, then remembers he has left something behind, so leaves his trunk on shore, in the care of an acquaintance, and becomes disoriented in the labyrinth of the ship. He is befriended by the ship's stoker who overs vague help, but really wants someone to listen to his grievances. During the voyage, Karl had protected his trunk obsessively, but now he seems not to care, and instead, goes to the captain, to petition for the stoker.
That's just the first chapter. Karl's adventures continue on land, in this strange land.
The usual themes of alienation/rejection, aspiring to please/fit in, being bemused and lost in unfamiliar territory and bureaucracy are there, but it is generally more optimistic and realistic than his other novels, though the final chapter (about the Nature Theatre of Oklahoma) is much more surreal, and doesn't really seem to "fit" with the rest of the novel.
See my Kafka-related bookshelf for other works by and about Kafka: HERE.
May 1, 2020
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 a 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 seeming to learn from his experiences, Karl was screwed over by fates that even the most lubberly of recreants could have avoided with little to no fancy footwork. I have no idea what Kafka was going for in this book except possibly to fan the flames of existential angst, except his main character never really caught on. I enjoyed The Metamorphosis and The Trial much more.
January 21, 2015
I bought this book over a year ago but decided against reading it once I realised that it was 'unfinished' and I didn't want that for my first Kafka. In retrospect it seems so foolish, but I cannot deny the fact that I'm glad I hadn't read it then because I wasn't filled with the sufficient amount of despair towards the life I lead, to throughly feel this book, to find closure in it's incompleteness.
One is easily horrified by the rare and exceptional abominations of the world, but not by everyday events. In Amerika, you are.
If one were to ignore the details of Karl Rossmann's life, it would be a regular life with all its moments of exhilaration, mundaneness and deep sorrow. It is in the slight exaggeration of details, that Kafka shocks yet enables one to draw parallels to one's own existence.
Sent off to a foreign land following a scandal, in absurd manner and a stream of several other events all marked with a sense of the fantastic. Karl also acts like any other human, rationally sometimes, emotionally at other times and insanely too. However, Karl pays attention to every detail of his life, the ones that you conveniently brush aside. His process of deliberation, his ambivalence and even the flow of nearly discordant thoughts held together on a very thin string are all written down and if you can empathise with him, it becomes apparent how wild and nonsensical your own life is.
It has been said that no two people ever read the same book and I'm glad this experience is all mine.
One is easily horrified by the rare and exceptional abominations of the world, but not by everyday events. In Amerika, you are.
If one were to ignore the details of Karl Rossmann's life, it would be a regular life with all its moments of exhilaration, mundaneness and deep sorrow. It is in the slight exaggeration of details, that Kafka shocks yet enables one to draw parallels to one's own existence.
Sent off to a foreign land following a scandal, in absurd manner and a stream of several other events all marked with a sense of the fantastic. Karl also acts like any other human, rationally sometimes, emotionally at other times and insanely too. However, Karl pays attention to every detail of his life, the ones that you conveniently brush aside. His process of deliberation, his ambivalence and even the flow of nearly discordant thoughts held together on a very thin string are all written down and if you can empathise with him, it becomes apparent how wild and nonsensical your own life is.
It has been said that no two people ever read the same book and I'm glad this experience is all mine.
December 21, 2018
کاش این کتاب ناتمام نمیموند....
شخصیت کارل بشدت دوست داشتنی بود...حیف که نشد بفهمیم سرانجامش چی شد...
اخرین کتاب پائیز 97
شخصیت کارل بشدت دوست داشتنی بود...حیف که نشد بفهمیم سرانجامش چی شد...
اخرین کتاب پائیز 97
February 19, 2023
par puta mi se plakalo od nemoći
April 1, 2013
Well my friend Chak says to run from this book - she recommends it for "angst-ridden hipsters who aren't worth the trouble to punch" - which doesn't describe me - I like to think I am worth the trouble to punch. But I saw it in the store with this adorable Edward Gorey cover (totally uncredited) and knew it would be mine all mine. It smells like an old mausoleum but that's what I get for buying a book from the Eisenhower era.
-----
Wow. Weird, weird, weird. I liked the first third of Amerika quite a bit. First, you have the strangeness of 16-year-old Karl packed off to America because he has been seduced by a 35-year-old servant and gotten her pregnant, and his parents don't want him to have to pay child support or alimony. So he's like some kind of Bohemian ragamuffin with no prospects. But then he discovers his uncle is on board the ship, and his uncle is extremely wealthy and takes Karl in and gives him nice things, like a piano, English lessons, and riding lessons. Then you have the utterly surreal chapter set at Mr. Green's enormous fortresslike mansion outside of Manhattan, where a few rooms have been wired for electricity but the bulk of the mansion sits in darkness, with a servant standing here and there with an electric torch, and endless circuitous hallways, and drafts because the walls aren't completely finished. Then Mr. Green's daughter Clara turns out to be a fantastic wrestler, who brings Karl down with some quick moves, causing Karl to desperately want to leave and go back to his Uncle's house. But then the most surreal thing of all happens, .
So Karl heads off down the road, meeting the impoverished, thieving, singularly unappealing n'er-do-wells Robinson the Irishman and Delamarche the Frenchman, and this is where the novel started to go downhill for me. I was enjoying the surreal aspects, but they become less intense at this point. In his introduction Klaus Mann writes that Kafka was a huge admirer of Charles Dickens, that he read and reread several Dickens novels while working on Amerika, and that "in Kafka's mind the figure and the works of Dickens were vitally connected with the American atmosphere and landscape." Kafka wrote that "My intention was, as I now see, to write a Dickens novel, enriched by the sharper lights which I took from our modern times, and by the pallid ones I would have found in my own interior." So Robinson and Delamarche are supposed to be Dickensian characters, I gather.
The remnants of surreality in the chapter that takes place in the Hotel Occidental, and Karl's job there as lift boy, made me think of the brilliantly surreal novel The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro and the character in it who is an elderly elevator operator at a hotel in central Europe. I wondered if Ishiguro got some inspiration from this chapter.
Back to Robinson and Delamarche: I hated these two, and they kept popping up like whack-a-moles. Karl ends up living with them and an obese singer Brunelda, in Brunelda's apartment in some highrise tenement north of New York City. Where, in Westchester County? Part of the hilarity of the novel is that Kafka never visited America, he never traveled outside Europe. So where were his impressions coming from? Then the Brunelda chapter ends, and we abruptly move to the last chapter, clearly with gaps in the narrative, as Kafka introduces a character named Fanny whom Karl is delighted to see again, although the reader has never met her. Also in this chapter Karl applies for a job with the "Nature Theatre of Oklahoma" and gives as his name "Negro," which was his nickname at his last post, although this is news to the reader as well. So although I was hating the chapter with Brunelda, Robinson, and Delamarche, my spirits picked up when Karl applied for some whackass job under the name Negro. And then he set off for Oklahoma, and the novel abruptly ended.
Oh, people: this is not magical realism. Please stop shelving it as that.
December 3, 2022
برای خودم به یادگار ، که ۴ ماه گذشته با کافکا زندگی کردم :
کافکا رو دوست دارم بخاطر نبوغ بی حد و آسیب پذیری که نخواسته و نتونسته بین هیبت های کج و معوج مخلوقاتش پنهان کنه.
ترانه ای رو دوست دارم با تکرار مدام این چند کلمه که “ blessed are those , who see and are silent “
کا. میبینه و به جای ایستادن رو نوک قله و فریاد سر دادن ، مفقودالاثر شدن تو یه شهر برفی دور افتاده رو انتخاب میکنه و گم شدن بین راهروهای دادگاه و بدون هیچ اوراق هویتی سرگردان شدن تو سرزمین ماشینی شده ی آمریکا رو .
کافکا با چشم باز ، خیال پردازی میکنه . خیال پردازی که خودش محکوم میشه و خودش قاضی .
بهش زنگ زدم و میگم ببین ماکس برود چی نوشته را��ب رفیقش ، به نظرت فوق العاده نیست ؟ میگه اگر صد سال دیرتر به دنیا میومد ، یه آیده آلیست بود با هزارتا برچسب بیماری روان و چه خوب که دیرتر به دنیا نیومد .
برای پایان تریولوژی تنهایی.
کافکا رو دوست دارم بخاطر نبوغ بی حد و آسیب پذیری که نخواسته و نتونسته بین هیبت های کج و معوج مخلوقاتش پنهان کنه.
ترانه ای رو دوست دارم با تکرار مدام این چند کلمه که “ blessed are those , who see and are silent “
کا. میبینه و به جای ایستادن رو نوک قله و فریاد سر دادن ، مفقودالاثر شدن تو یه شهر برفی دور افتاده رو انتخاب میکنه و گم شدن بین راهروهای دادگاه و بدون هیچ اوراق هویتی سرگردان شدن تو سرزمین ماشینی شده ی آمریکا رو .
کافکا با چشم باز ، خیال پردازی میکنه . خیال پردازی که خودش محکوم میشه و خودش قاضی .
بهش زنگ زدم و میگم ببین ماکس برود چی نوشته را��ب رفیقش ، به نظرت فوق العاده نیست ؟ میگه اگر صد سال دیرتر به دنیا میومد ، یه آیده آلیست بود با هزارتا برچسب بیماری روان و چه خوب که دیرتر به دنیا نیومد .
برای پایان تریولوژی تنهایی.
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September 28, 2025In meinem Leseleben hat Amerika eine besondere Rolle gespielt und bleibt für mich für immer etwas Einzigartiges – mehr als ein Meisterwerk, ein Musterwerk des radikal Neuen in der Sprachwelt.
Ich habe es mit 16 oder 17 Jahren erstmals gelesen, aber bis dahin hatte ich fast nichts gelesen. Ich konnte das Buch also nur mit sehr wenigen anderen vergleichen, und es bildete für mich keinen Kontrast zu den sogenannten realistischen Romanen, weil ich solche einfach noch nicht kannte. Ich wusste fast nicht, was man von einem Roman erwarten konnte – und gerade deshalb war ich offen für alles, was dort geschehen könnte. So war es für mich ganz natürlich, dass diese Geschichte die unheimliche Helligkeit und die Logik eines Traumes hatte.
Träume geschehen, sie sind reale Geschichten, deren Absurdität natürlich ist. Sie sind sogar die bedeutendsten Geschichten für jeden von uns, sonst würden wir sie sofort verstehen und nicht vergessen. Wenn wir sie nicht vergessen und vielleicht sogar ein bisschen verstehen, ist das nicht einer rationalen Deutung zu verdanken, sondern stiller, unbefangener Aufmerksamkeit und Wehrlosigkeit.
Wir sind allein in unseren Träumen – wir können nicht mitträumen – und auch im Verständnis sind wir allein. Wir verstehen alles wortlos. Die anderen sind aber auch dort, für und gegen uns, sie spielen wichtige Rollen in unseren Träumen und in unserem Leben, helfen oder stehen uns im Weg. So ist es auch mit Karl Rossmann, dem Protagonisten dieses Romans, wie mit so vielen anderen Figuren in Kafkas Werk. Die besten Leser verstehen sie so wenig wie ihren Schöpfer selbst. Sie sind geworfen in eine Welt, sie sind Selbstentwürfe, sie suchen etwas, sie selbst sind Versuche; sie geschehen, und sie scheitern.
Amerika ist für mich als Anti-Bildungsroman das größte Musterwerk der modernen Literatur. Der Junge Karl Rossmann ist am Anfang seiner Geschichte niemand, und bis zu ihrem Ende – nach so vielen Ereignissen, Vorfällen, unglaublichen Zufällen und trotz der günstigsten Begegnungen für ihn, trotz seiner ungeheuren Anstrengungen, seiner Ehrlichkeit, Hartnäckigkeit, seines scharfen Sinns und starken Willens, trotz so vieler Glücke und Unglücke, nach einer ganzen Reihe lächerlicher, aber trauriger und sehr absonderlicher Abenteuer in einem ganz neuen Kontinent – ist er immer noch niemand geworden.
Es ist bekannt, dass Kafka keine Pläne für seine Geschichte gemacht hat. Nur deren Anfang wusste er genau, als er sie zu schreiben begann; dann geschah die Geschichte, eine Zeile führte zur nächsten, in einer hyperbolischen Linearität. Seine Geschichten sind wie Träume, und die unvollendeten Romane sind die unmöglichsten Träume von allen. Auch Träume haben nur einen Impuls, und der Rest ist ein fast unbewusstes Schöpfen.
Die Schuld mit ihrer unbegreiflichen Komplexität ist ein großer Impuls, ebenso wie die Entfremdung mit ihren Schatten. In Kafkas Welt ist das Ordinärste das Bizarrste. Die Gehilfen der Hauptfiguren in den drei Romanen sind selbst hilflos; viele sind lächerliche Figuren, und manche von ihnen sind so linkische, naive, große Kinder, dass sie wie verfallene Engel sind. Nur David Lynch und Federico Fellini hätten die scheinbar kontrastierenden Eigenschaften gehabt, um gemeinsam Amerika verfilmen zu können. Schade, dass sie nicht dazu gekommen sind. Jedenfalls sehe ich in den Werken dieser beiden Regisseure immer eine große Affinität zu Kafka – wenn auch von verschiedenen Seiten.
Ich habe Amerika viele Male gelesen, und zwar in den verschiedenen Sprachen, die ich gelernt habe. Es war manchmal das erste Buch, das ich nach längeren Lesepausen lesen konnte – und einmal beinahe das letzte –, das ich gelesen habe. In einer großen Depression, als ich unter schweren Konzentrations- und Gedächtnisproblemen litt, versuchte ich trotzdem, Amerika als ein „letztes“ Buch zu lesen. In dem Irrenanstalt, in die ich zwanghaft eingewiesen wurde, um vor mir selbst sicher zu sein, bat ich, als es mir etwas besser ging, um dieses Buch. Und als ich allmählich wieder zu mir kam und etwas mehr für als gegen mich war, empfing ich es und begann von Neuem zu lesen.
Seit vielen Jahren kann ich mich nicht mehr daran erinnern, was ich träume. Jeden Morgen, wenn ich erwache, finde ich mich schon wieder in denselben Bogdan verwandelt. Vor meiner Depression habe ich viele merkwürdige Geschichten geschrieben. Noch bevor ich wirklich zu lesen und zu schreiben begann, war ich nur teilweise von meinen Träumen getrennt. Und noch früher, als Kind, träumte ich sehr viel; manchmal konnte ich meine Träume sogar ein bisschen kontrollieren und darin etwas erschaffen.
Einmal träumte ich, dass ich, als ich eingeschlafen war, bewusst die Augen nicht geschlossen hatte und so durch das Fenster sehen konnte, wie die Nacht sich in wenigen Sekunden in den Morgen verwandelte – genau in dem Moment, als ich auch tatsächlich erwachte. Ein anderes Mal träumte ich, dass ich nicht aufwachen wollte. Ich sah, was alle anderen im Haus den ganzen Tag ohne mich taten. Niemand weckte mich, ich konnte ruhig weiterschlafen – nicht nur die nächste Nacht, sondern auch den nächsten Tag, und wieder Nacht und Tag und Nacht und Tag. Doch es war langweilig – der banalste und realistischste Traum, wie eine private Reality-Show, mit mir allein als Zuschauer. Ich wachte auf, ich weiß nicht nach wie vielen Nächten und Tagen. Soweit ich weiß, bin ich seit vielen Jahren nur wach.
Ich habe es mit 16 oder 17 Jahren erstmals gelesen, aber bis dahin hatte ich fast nichts gelesen. Ich konnte das Buch also nur mit sehr wenigen anderen vergleichen, und es bildete für mich keinen Kontrast zu den sogenannten realistischen Romanen, weil ich solche einfach noch nicht kannte. Ich wusste fast nicht, was man von einem Roman erwarten konnte – und gerade deshalb war ich offen für alles, was dort geschehen könnte. So war es für mich ganz natürlich, dass diese Geschichte die unheimliche Helligkeit und die Logik eines Traumes hatte.
Träume geschehen, sie sind reale Geschichten, deren Absurdität natürlich ist. Sie sind sogar die bedeutendsten Geschichten für jeden von uns, sonst würden wir sie sofort verstehen und nicht vergessen. Wenn wir sie nicht vergessen und vielleicht sogar ein bisschen verstehen, ist das nicht einer rationalen Deutung zu verdanken, sondern stiller, unbefangener Aufmerksamkeit und Wehrlosigkeit.
Wir sind allein in unseren Träumen – wir können nicht mitträumen – und auch im Verständnis sind wir allein. Wir verstehen alles wortlos. Die anderen sind aber auch dort, für und gegen uns, sie spielen wichtige Rollen in unseren Träumen und in unserem Leben, helfen oder stehen uns im Weg. So ist es auch mit Karl Rossmann, dem Protagonisten dieses Romans, wie mit so vielen anderen Figuren in Kafkas Werk. Die besten Leser verstehen sie so wenig wie ihren Schöpfer selbst. Sie sind geworfen in eine Welt, sie sind Selbstentwürfe, sie suchen etwas, sie selbst sind Versuche; sie geschehen, und sie scheitern.
Amerika ist für mich als Anti-Bildungsroman das größte Musterwerk der modernen Literatur. Der Junge Karl Rossmann ist am Anfang seiner Geschichte niemand, und bis zu ihrem Ende – nach so vielen Ereignissen, Vorfällen, unglaublichen Zufällen und trotz der günstigsten Begegnungen für ihn, trotz seiner ungeheuren Anstrengungen, seiner Ehrlichkeit, Hartnäckigkeit, seines scharfen Sinns und starken Willens, trotz so vieler Glücke und Unglücke, nach einer ganzen Reihe lächerlicher, aber trauriger und sehr absonderlicher Abenteuer in einem ganz neuen Kontinent – ist er immer noch niemand geworden.
Es ist bekannt, dass Kafka keine Pläne für seine Geschichte gemacht hat. Nur deren Anfang wusste er genau, als er sie zu schreiben begann; dann geschah die Geschichte, eine Zeile führte zur nächsten, in einer hyperbolischen Linearität. Seine Geschichten sind wie Träume, und die unvollendeten Romane sind die unmöglichsten Träume von allen. Auch Träume haben nur einen Impuls, und der Rest ist ein fast unbewusstes Schöpfen.
Die Schuld mit ihrer unbegreiflichen Komplexität ist ein großer Impuls, ebenso wie die Entfremdung mit ihren Schatten. In Kafkas Welt ist das Ordinärste das Bizarrste. Die Gehilfen der Hauptfiguren in den drei Romanen sind selbst hilflos; viele sind lächerliche Figuren, und manche von ihnen sind so linkische, naive, große Kinder, dass sie wie verfallene Engel sind. Nur David Lynch und Federico Fellini hätten die scheinbar kontrastierenden Eigenschaften gehabt, um gemeinsam Amerika verfilmen zu können. Schade, dass sie nicht dazu gekommen sind. Jedenfalls sehe ich in den Werken dieser beiden Regisseure immer eine große Affinität zu Kafka – wenn auch von verschiedenen Seiten.
Ich habe Amerika viele Male gelesen, und zwar in den verschiedenen Sprachen, die ich gelernt habe. Es war manchmal das erste Buch, das ich nach längeren Lesepausen lesen konnte – und einmal beinahe das letzte –, das ich gelesen habe. In einer großen Depression, als ich unter schweren Konzentrations- und Gedächtnisproblemen litt, versuchte ich trotzdem, Amerika als ein „letztes“ Buch zu lesen. In dem Irrenanstalt, in die ich zwanghaft eingewiesen wurde, um vor mir selbst sicher zu sein, bat ich, als es mir etwas besser ging, um dieses Buch. Und als ich allmählich wieder zu mir kam und etwas mehr für als gegen mich war, empfing ich es und begann von Neuem zu lesen.
Seit vielen Jahren kann ich mich nicht mehr daran erinnern, was ich träume. Jeden Morgen, wenn ich erwache, finde ich mich schon wieder in denselben Bogdan verwandelt. Vor meiner Depression habe ich viele merkwürdige Geschichten geschrieben. Noch bevor ich wirklich zu lesen und zu schreiben begann, war ich nur teilweise von meinen Träumen getrennt. Und noch früher, als Kind, träumte ich sehr viel; manchmal konnte ich meine Träume sogar ein bisschen kontrollieren und darin etwas erschaffen.
Einmal träumte ich, dass ich, als ich eingeschlafen war, bewusst die Augen nicht geschlossen hatte und so durch das Fenster sehen konnte, wie die Nacht sich in wenigen Sekunden in den Morgen verwandelte – genau in dem Moment, als ich auch tatsächlich erwachte. Ein anderes Mal träumte ich, dass ich nicht aufwachen wollte. Ich sah, was alle anderen im Haus den ganzen Tag ohne mich taten. Niemand weckte mich, ich konnte ruhig weiterschlafen – nicht nur die nächste Nacht, sondern auch den nächsten Tag, und wieder Nacht und Tag und Nacht und Tag. Doch es war langweilig – der banalste und realistischste Traum, wie eine private Reality-Show, mit mir allein als Zuschauer. Ich wachte auf, ich weiß nicht nach wie vielen Nächten und Tagen. Soweit ich weiß, bin ich seit vielen Jahren nur wach.
January 30, 2021
Premetto che leggere dei romanzi incompiuti mi dà sempre qualche problema nel senso che ne faccio una lettura condizionata da una forma che l’autore, per un motivo o per l’altro, non ha voluto definire.
Il titolo “America”, lo dobbiamo all’amico Max Brod che lo pubblicò postumo nel 1927.
La redazione degli otto capitoli più i frammenti, risale al periodo tra il 1911 ed il 1914 e quindi precedente a “Le Metamorfosi”(1915) ed a “Il processo” (scritto nel 1914 e pubblicato postumo nel 1925).
Nel 1913 Kafka pubblicò il primo capitolo (“Il fuochista”) s’una rivista e sappiamo che si riferiva a questo romanzo chiamandolo “Il disperso”.
La storia racconta di un sedicenne praghese cacciato dalla famiglia per avere sedotto una cameriera. Un romanzo di formazione in cui il giovane protagonista, Karl Rossmann (sempre quella K nei suoi personaggi!!), approda prima a New York e poi in un’immaginaria città chiamata Ramses, probabilmente con qualche richiamo biblico.
Certamente meno oscuro de “Il processo” ma con quella cifra particolare che ha reso famoso l’autore ceco e che fa della metafora un vero e proprio agente narrativo.
Ci sono i simboli come l’arrivo in terra americana e...
”... vide la statua della Libertà tanto a lungo contemplata, come se attorno ad essa la luce del sole si fosse improvvisamente fatta più intensa. Il braccio con la spada svettava alto come se si fosse alzato allora, e attorno alla sua figura aleggiava libera l'aria.”
C’è poi quella condizione soffocante data dal perdersi, dal non essere compresi e il perenne senso d’ingiustizia.
Una storia che si segue bene nei suoi primi sette capitoli poi, però, l’ottavo (“Il teatro naturale di Oklahoma”) ci porta alla deriva.
Il filo narrativo è perso e tanto meno si può riallacciare con i frammenti che seguono.
Il fatto che Kafka non abbia voluto dare una forma definitiva, probabilmente, ci dice solo che così doveva restare.
Il titolo “America”, lo dobbiamo all’amico Max Brod che lo pubblicò postumo nel 1927.
La redazione degli otto capitoli più i frammenti, risale al periodo tra il 1911 ed il 1914 e quindi precedente a “Le Metamorfosi”(1915) ed a “Il processo” (scritto nel 1914 e pubblicato postumo nel 1925).
Nel 1913 Kafka pubblicò il primo capitolo (“Il fuochista”) s’una rivista e sappiamo che si riferiva a questo romanzo chiamandolo “Il disperso”.
La storia racconta di un sedicenne praghese cacciato dalla famiglia per avere sedotto una cameriera. Un romanzo di formazione in cui il giovane protagonista, Karl Rossmann (sempre quella K nei suoi personaggi!!), approda prima a New York e poi in un’immaginaria città chiamata Ramses, probabilmente con qualche richiamo biblico.
Certamente meno oscuro de “Il processo” ma con quella cifra particolare che ha reso famoso l’autore ceco e che fa della metafora un vero e proprio agente narrativo.
Ci sono i simboli come l’arrivo in terra americana e...
”... vide la statua della Libertà tanto a lungo contemplata, come se attorno ad essa la luce del sole si fosse improvvisamente fatta più intensa. Il braccio con la spada svettava alto come se si fosse alzato allora, e attorno alla sua figura aleggiava libera l'aria.”
C’è poi quella condizione soffocante data dal perdersi, dal non essere compresi e il perenne senso d’ingiustizia.
Una storia che si segue bene nei suoi primi sette capitoli poi, però, l’ottavo (“Il teatro naturale di Oklahoma”) ci porta alla deriva.
Il filo narrativo è perso e tanto meno si può riallacciare con i frammenti che seguono.
Il fatto che Kafka non abbia voluto dare una forma definitiva, probabilmente, ci dice solo che così doveva restare.
March 30, 2018
Wonderful! My "first" Kafka....
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