Charles’s Reviews > The Secret Lives of Public Servants > Status Update

Is this story Kafkaesque?

Christina wrote: "Is this story Kafkaesque?"

In ways specific to the federal government up here, there are in fact wisps of it lacing the story, but I expect more as I go along. For public servants themselves, the system can be absurd but also mildly funny, not necessarily soul-crushing all the time; perspective counts.

For public servants themselves, the system can be absurd but also mildly funny, not necessarily soul-crushing all the time; perspective counts.

It's been awhile since I've read Kafka, but Milan Kundera insisted in the book I just finished that, "The comic is inseparable from the very essence of the Kafkan," but the joke is only funny "if you're outside the bowl; by contrast, the Kafkan takes us inside, into the guts of a joke, into the horror of the comic." So, it's on my mind at the moment.