Magical-realism is a very effective form of writing, but there is one caveat. It still ought to be understandable, otherwise it becomes totally abstract. I bought Achmat Dangor's novel in the UK a couple years ago with high hopes. It looked interesting. When I plunged into it recently, however, I found that I was going nowhere fast. It is an involved family saga, it is perhaps an allegory about South Africa before and after apartheid, and it is full of weird, largely-sexual images. In the USA, when segregation flourished, very light African-American descendants sometimes used to "pass", that is, claim to be white and live their lives by passing as white. This practice was no doubt widespread in South Africa too. In KAFKA'S CURSE, everything that is not black or white (an 'absolute', that is) survives by passing. A Muslim of Indian descent passes as a Jew, marries a white woman. Crime passes as respectability. Dictatorship passes as democracy. Loneliness passes as marriage. And so on. Everyone is "ducking and diving", but what does it mean ? "Conventionally exotic", a phrase gleaned from the book, comes to my mind. Exoticism is used to wrap a very average product. I don't consider myself a literary idiot, but this one really had me puzzled. Like the art of Jasper Johns or Barnett Newman, if such work grabs you, you may like this novel a lot. If you remain sceptical, you may feel that it is a case of the Emperor's having no clothes. I suggest you try something else in that case and leave the muddled KAFKA'S CURSE for the aficionados of blank novels.

I was expecting something completely different from the plot. I thought this book was going to be more about the day-to-day life of an Indian Muslim posing as white Jew in post Aparteid South Africa, which leds up to his death. Instead the book focuses its time on life after Omar's/Oscar's death, more particularly revolving around Malik's dilapidated marriage and somewhat difficult children.

I am not sure if Dangor was trying to play on the theme of how Aparteid has affected all the male figures. I think the book would have been much better had there been more discussion about Omar's/Oscar's life, his relationships, and what drew him to 'change'. Although most people do know what Aparteid in South Africa was, it may just seem like a 'distant' thing, considering most of us have never lived under such a ridiculous and absurd government. I thought the book was going to give more insight into the Indian perspective on Aparteid.

The book was also a bit confusing with so many different characters with similar names (Anne and Anna, Salma, Salleem and Sulman) and the ever changing scenes that the author gives no led-ins to. Even with the family trees at the beginning of the book, I was still just as bewildered. And what is with Dangor's obsession with sex. The book seems to exude sexuality left and right unnecessarily.

The bottom line is that I wanted to like this book, but my interest digressed as I perused through it; It came to the point where I didn't even want to read it anymore. I only finishd it so I could have a thorough and fair opinion about it.

The title of this disturbing novel is a reference to both Kafka's "Metamorphosis" and the alienated, lonely characters who haunt his fiction. Both themes crop up throughout Dangor's novel: the fable of the man who turns into a tree, a Muslim of Indian descent who reinvents himself as a "white" Jew, and the nation of South Africa itself, before and after apartheid.

Nearly all of its characters, both white and "colored," live miserable, violent lives--symptomatic of the brutal apartheid realm. Yet Dangor convincingly adopts an astonishing range of voices: the conservative Muslim ashamed of his brother's "passing," his perceptive wife who unexpectedly leaves him, his rebellious and cynical teenage daughter, the married psychotherapist with whom he has an affair (and who may or may not be a psychopathic killer). And the novel's violent conclusion actually offers hope: that South Africa may be able to purge itself of its complicated history, just as some of the novel's women are able to leave behind the pasts that torment them.

Readers who enjoy straightforward plots, explicit symbolism, and unambiguous endings will surely be perplexed by this novel; even the family trees and the glossary won't help much in untangling the book's many possible meanings. The story is often as blurry as the racial lines created during apartheid. Yet I cannot get this novel and its lyricism out of my mind; the more I think about it, the more it seems to make sense of the nonsensical, schizophrenic society in which these people somehow managed to live.

I made the mistake of reading Phillips "The Politics of Rich and Poor: Wealth and the American Electorate in the Reagan Aftermath a decade ago (interestingly when the economy was in the same mess it's in now)Phillips is one of those authors that loves to breed on negativity and jealousy. Isn't it amazing how people will applaud (sometimes) when somebody wins the lottery (although green with jealousy) but look with ambivelence when someone becomes successful in a business."The rich get richer" they lament. "Rich people should pay more in taxes" Oh really? Who provides the jobs, surely not the poor! If you want to increase layoffs, tax the rich so the money that was headed for payroll and business expansion now goes to taxes.Phillips message is old and tired. If the past is any indication, look for this book to come running out of the gate only to stop dead and fall fast just like The Politics of Rich and Poor did. I saw one man with this book under his arm while he was buying a lottery ticket. Does that tell you something?If in fact all of the wealth were redistributed, it would be back in the same hands within 2-5 years. All those with self earned wealthhave achieved success irregardless of the government. Americans have become financial wimps by depending on government intervention. True success depends on you, not the government. If you really want this book, wait for a used copy here at Amazon or on the discount racks of a used book store. I suspect you'll find many copies lying around.

1 star reviewers, at least do Mr. Phllips the dignity of reading the book before you bash it. Keep in mind that Phillips is a republican and as an American, has the virtue of freedom of speech. Read the book and then come back and state your "opinions."Or----are your minds so frozen that you cannot accept any other viewpoints than whay you percieve to be true?Read it first!

This is a clear exposition of political economics. The general thesis is not new. The widening gap in financial strength between the wealthy and the middle and lower classes interferes with the healthy functioning of democratic institutions. Wealth versus Commonwealth. Class warfare. It seems to be the natural order of things for there to be periodic accumulations of massive wealth and power in the hands of a few (particularly around times of booms associated with new technology) which leads to an inevitable bust and governmental policies to redistribute the wealth more widely. Kevin Phillips does a masterful job of showing these historic cycles. He uses Hapsburg Spain in the 1500s and early 1600s and the accumulation of wealth from the exploitation of the new world as the first modern example. The Dutch were the immediate successors to the Spanish with textiles and shipbuilding in the 1600s and 1700s in the waves of boom and bust cycles. The English followed with railroads in the 1800s and early 1900s.The most recent boom-bust cycle was associated with the current Americans infatuation with high technology. His thesis tends to minimize the notion that those who take great risks might deserve great reward.

These massive accumulations of wealth in the hands of a few lead to control of democratic institutions as a means of preserving and increasing wealth. Or in the words of mark Twain "I think I can say, and say with pride that we have legislatures that bring higher prices than any in the world." Also the influence of non elected officials such as the Federal Reserve and Federal Judges increases during periods of disproportionate wealth accumulation. In addition schemes to increase markets and drive down labor costs i.e. globalization result. After the bust more socialistic policies prevail. Examples from American history include the aftermath of the Civil War with the rise of the Republicans through the gilded age and the roaring twenties until the start of the great depression. Subsequent Democratic control with FDR saying "I should like to have it said of my first Administration that in it, the forces of selfishness and lust for power met their match. I should like to have it said of my second Administration that in it these forces met their master" achieved the first great realignment of wealth since the Civil War. The Republicans later gained control in the late 1960s and have held control through the speculative mania associated with the technology boom. Bill Clinton is described as glorying in stock market gains as much or more than any Republican predecessor.
Wealth and Democracy makes the case that the current grossly disproportionate share of wealth in the hands of the few built up under predominately Republican policies calls for a return of Democratic policies of wealth realignment for the common good. And this is from Kevin Phillips who was the chief political analyst for the 1968 Republican presidential campaign, and in 1969 published The Emerging Republican Majority.