Wynn Wheldon

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

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  • The Dog

    Joseph O’Neill

    Fourth Estate, pp. 240

‘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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