{"product_id":"kafkas-hat-9780889227439","title":"Kafka's Hat","description":"\u003cp\u003e • Author(s): Patrice Martin\u003cbr\u003e • Publisher: Talon Books\u003cbr\u003e • Publisher Imprint: Talon Books\u003cbr\u003e • BISAC: Literary\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn Patrice Martin's ticklish tip of the hat to the writing of Franz Kafka, we follow the misadventures of a bureaucrat - aptly named \"P.\" (pun intended) - as he embarks on the illustrious task of collecting the titular headgear. \"P.\" expects that the accomplishment of this seemingly simple task will grant him both a professional and a personal promotion. But Martin's eager protagonist has overlooked the systematic difficulty in modern bureaucracies - as well as in some of twentieth-century's best fiction - of getting things done. And so Kafka's hat is increasingly unreachable: express elevators get stuck between floors, rooms full of suitcases must be searched, unsympathetic bureaucrats must be confronted, and then there's the rather unanticipated discovery of a fresh cadaver in the library ... Naturally, \"P.\" knows that every hero has his coming-of-age trial to go through; trouble is, he's no modern Ulysses.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNever departing in tone and timbre from a somewhat amicable and farcical, obstinately absurd storytelling style, \u003cem\u003eKafka's Hat\u003c\/em\u003e assembles a pleasant labyrinth of intertextual references, which make room for the diverse imaginary worlds of Jorge Luis Borges, Italo Calvino, and Paul Auster. Living in a different city, wearing new clothes, but still immersed in the part-tragic and part-comical ambience of Franz Kafka's best existentialist literature, Patrice Martin's \"P.\" is the compelling alter ego of a not-so-distant \"Joseph K.\" - still contemporary, still relevant.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eInvoking some of modern literature's most meaningful authors, Martin's prose playfully reminds us that we do not create new work without reintroducing past fictions inside our present desires.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Talon Books","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":45084682748055,"sku":"9780889227439","price":840.0,"currency_code":"INR","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0666\/3471\/1191\/files\/9780889227439.webp?v=1767637094","url":"https:\/\/atlanticbooks.com\/products\/kafkas-hat-9780889227439","provider":"Atlantic Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}