Word: kafka
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Shalom Auslander’s writing has already drawn comparisons to Philip Roth, Woody Allen—and even Franz Kafka. Since Auslander’s first collection of short stories, Beware of God, won’t hit stores until April 1, the hype may be premature—but it’s not unwarranted...
...book jacket photo of the author suggests that Auslander marks a break from the Jewish writer prototype. Roth and Allen are—like Kafka was before them—flesh-and-blood definitions of the Yiddish “oysgedart” (emaciated). The broad-shouldered Auslander, by contrast, looks like the kind of guy who could hold his own in a bar-fight...
Whereas in the Kafka original, Gregor Samsa wakes up in the body of a “monstrous vermin,” Auslander’s character, an 18 year-old Lubavitcher yeshiva student named Motty Aranson, finds himself “transformed in his bed into a very large goy.” Motty’s struggle to come to terms with his “burly construction worker” body reaches its humorous high point when he unzips his jeans and exclaims, “So that’s a foreskin...
...story: boy meets girl, girl turns out to be his mother, boy kills father. Sophocles told it 2,400 years ago, as have many authors since. But few have tackled the Oedipal tale with as much wit, verve and retail success as Japan's Haruki Murakami has in Kafka on the Shore. The book sold 550,000 copies in its first month on his home soil in 2002, inspiring a sequel comprised of selections from the 8,870 e-mail critiques Murakami received and his 1,220 replies. Kafka has become a best seller in Germany, South Korea and China...
...Kafka lacks the narrative consistency of Norwegian Wood and the noirish menace of his 1989 classic A Wild Sheep Chase. But what a tale! You never know when the cats will talk, the sky will rain sardines or yet another show-stopping character will step forward. In a Web poll of Japanese readers, most respondents said that if Kafka were dramatized, they would want to play Oshima, the librarian's impressively literate, transsexual assistant. Others preferred Hoshino, the earthy truck driver who helps the cat-talking old man in his quest to find a magic stone that can free...