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Books

Kafka goes to Dubai

A review of The Dog, by Joseph O’Neill. This riff on Kafka’s The Castle is dominated by a creep but we stay with it because the satire is absurdly funny

30 August 2014

9:00 AM

30 August 2014

9:00 AM

The Dog Joseph O’Neill

Fourth Estate, pp.240, £16.99, ISBN: 9780007275748

‘X’ is in ‘the Situation’: Joseph O’Neill, author of the clever and superb Netherland, hereby lets us know that his new novel is a riff on Kafka’s The Castle. Kafka’s ‘K’ has become X, struggling for recognition by his lover, by his employer, by the world.

The Situation is a residential block in Dubai (desert sand for Kafka’s snow).

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