emma's Reviews > A Cage Went in Search of a Bird: Ten Kafkaesque Stories

rip franz kafka you would have loved real estate brokers

some of these stories were really good and really captured the kafkaesque scary grueling monotony of bureaucracy in modern life: undergoing MRIs you don't think you need, that elif batuman rendering of buying an apartment.

some of these were really good but not kafkaqesue: yiyun li's carrollian dialogue between punctuation, tommy orange's look at k-holes.

some stories were not good, but kafkaesque, which is kind of a compliment in and of itself really — rarely do you break from actual kafka to take the time to be like, wow, this is so lovely.

and some of course were neither good nor kafkaesque.

that's the trade you take, i guess.

bottom line: i mostly read this as an excuse to say kafkaesque, in case you couldn't tell.

(thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)

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tbr review

an all star lineup of authors writing like kafka? am i dreaming