RARA-AVIS: Kafka's _The Trial_

From: MTSaler@aol.com
Date: 19 Apr 2000


Does _The Trial_ fall under any of the debated rubrics that are being discussed -- noir, crime, hard-boiled (not much slang in the novel, but a lot of violence!) I read somewhere that Kafka enjoyed popular fiction, and wondered if he might have been influenced by late nineteenth-century detective fiction. His themes of alienation and the quest for meaning in a bureaucratic, corrupt modern world gibe with noir, and his own clear, declarative sentences precede the Black Mask style pioneered by Hammett.

Conversely, are there crime fiction writers of the 30's-50's who have admitted being influenced by Kafka?

Mike

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