The folks at Schocken Books were kind enough to send me a copy of Mark Harman's new translation of Franz Kafka's Amerika: The Missing Person. Which I'm reading a bit of now. And enjoying. It's part of the Kafka I've never read before, so I can't comment on the quality of the translation or the difference between this translation and those that preceded it. But I can comment on the fact that it's interesting, trying to read Kafka, and trying to react to Kafka, without resorting to the reaction of, "Hey, that's Kafka." Interesting in that, I may have only now come to believe, I've got no real idea what Kafka's up to. Ever. It's too easy to accept the weirdness of him without questioning it--if it really is that weird, or "dreamlike," as one blurb states, or why it's that way, whatever way it actually is. Heaven knows, that strangeness, that sought-after Kafkaesqueness, that's how I came around to The Trial my first couple times through it. You know, you read Kafka because, he's Kafka. What else do you need, you know? Well, now I don't know, and I'm curious about it.

Long way of saying I'm trying to be a bit critical, a bit analytical. At least of my own reaction to the text, if not as much to the text itself as one or some might like. But. So. Maybe more so than usual, we'll see.