Brod named it thus because the novel is set in a Kafkaesque version of early 1900s America, although there are so many oddities about it that it feels just as much like Kafkaland as his other novels. There are obvious errors of research, like the Statue of Liberty holding a sword rather than a torch, and the Brooklyn Bridge joining New York to Boston. None of which, it should be clear to anyone with half a brain, matters a jot.
The opening chapter of the novel – The Stoker – was one of the few pieces of work that Kafka published during his lifetime. It introduces us to Karl Rossmann, a refugee from Europe, sent to America by his parents for getting a housemaid pregnant. In the opening pages, as the ship arrives in New York harbour, he realises that he's left his umbrella in his cabin, and so leaves his suitcase in the care of a stranger in order to retrieve the brolly from below. He gets lost and bumps into the stoker, who is sick of mistreatment at the hands of Schubal, his superior. They end up in the captain's cabin, where Karl launches a vigorous defence of the man he has just met. It turns out that his uncle is present, and has come to install him in a life of extreme comfort.
Full abstract see amerika-the-missing-person-by-franz-kafka
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