Editing Franz Kafka (section)

=== Novels ===

[[File:Kafka's notebook.JPG|alt=Franz Kafka Notebook with words in German and Hebrew. from the Collection of the National Library of Israel.|thumb|Franz Kafka notebook with words in German and Hebrew. From the Collection of the [[National Library of Israel|National Library]] of Israel.]]

Kafka began his first novel in 1912;{{sfn|Brod|1960|p=113}} its first chapter is the story "[[Der Heizer]]" ("The Stoker"). He called the work, which remained unfinished, {{lang|de|Der Verschollene}} (''The Man Who Disappeared'' or ''The Missing Person''), but when Brod published it after Kafka's death he named it ''[[Amerika (novel)|Amerika]]''.{{sfn|Brod|1960|pp=128, 135, 218}} The inspiration for the novel was the time Kafka spent in the audience of Yiddish theatre the previous year, bringing him to a new awareness of his heritage, which led to the thought that an innate appreciation for one's heritage lives deep within each person.{{sfn|Koelb|2010|p=34}} More explicitly humorous and slightly more realistic than most of Kafka's works, the novel shares the [[Motif (narrative)|motif]] of an oppressive and intangible system putting the protagonist repeatedly in bizarre situations.{{sfn|Sussman|1979|pp=72–94}} It uses many details of experiences from his relatives who had emigrated to America{{sfn|Stach|2005|p=79}} and is the only work for which Kafka considered an optimistic ending.{{sfn|Brod|1960|p=137}}

In 1914 Kafka began the novel {{lang|de|[[Der Process]]}} (''The Trial''),{{sfn|Brod|1966|p=388}} the story of a man arrested and prosecuted by a remote, inaccessible authority, with the nature of his crime revealed neither to him nor to the reader. He did not complete the novel, although he finished the final chapter. According to [[List of Nobel laureates in Literature|Nobel Prize-winning]] author [[Elias Canetti]], Felice is central to the plot of ''Der Process'' and Kafka said it was "her story".{{sfn|Stach|2005|pp=108–115, 147, 139, 232}}{{sfn|Kakutani|1988}} Canetti titled his book on Kafka's letters to Felice ''Kafka's Other Trial'', in recognition of the relationship between the letters and the novel.{{sfn|Kakutani|1988}} [[Michiko Kakutani]] notes in a review for ''[[The New York Times]]'' that Kafka's letters have the "earmarks of his fiction: the same nervous attention to minute particulars; the same paranoid awareness of shifting balances of power; the same atmosphere of emotional suffocation—combined, surprisingly enough, with moments of boyish ardour and delight."{{sfn|Kakutani|1988}}

According to his diary, Kafka was already planning his novel {{lang|de|[[Das Schloss]]}} (''The Castle''), by 11 June 1914; however, he did not begin writing it until 27 January 1922.{{sfn|Brod|1966|p=388}} The protagonist is the {{lang|de|Landvermesser|italic=no}} (land surveyor) named K., who struggles for unknown reasons to gain access to the mysterious authorities of a castle who govern the village. Kafka's intent was that the castle's authorities notify K. on his deathbed that his "legal claim to live in the village was not valid, yet, taking certain auxiliary circumstances into account, he was to be permitted to live and work there".{{sfn|Boyd|2004|p= 139}} Dark and at times [[Surrealism|surreal]], the novel is focused on [[Social alienation|alienation]], [[bureaucracy]], the seemingly endless frustrations of man's attempts to stand against the system, and the futile and hopeless pursuit of an unattainable goal. Hartmut M. Rastalsky noted in his thesis: "Like dreams, his texts combine precise 'realistic' detail with absurdity, careful observation and reasoning on the part of the protagonists with inexplicable obliviousness and carelessness."{{sfn|Rastalsky|1997|p= 1}}