Kafka’s Leopards
Moacyr Scliar, translated by Thomas O Beebee
2011, Texas Tech University Press
152 pages, hardback
TO THE extent that Scliar’s text is disorienting, senseless and at times even menacing, this short novel is Kafkaesque. It tells the confusing and dissatisfying tale of the Ukrainian Benjamin Kantarovitch who is recruited into an imagined revolutonary mission by Leon Trotsky at the time of the Russian Revolution. Kantarovitch heads for Prague where, in a confusion of errors, he finds himself in possession of a text by Kafka that he misinterprets as a call to arms that will stay with him for the rest of his life. The text becomes central to a second great mission long after he has emigrated to Brazil, during the period of military dictatorship, where he gives it to a nephew to sell as an antique. The text is again misinterpreted by the police and the nephew is arrested, forcing Scliar to intervene. Although there is a nihilistic fatalism at the heart of this story – that there are no answers and redemption lies, most probably, in adaptation – it is beautifully written and, regardless of the Kafkaesque perspective, more charming than disturbing. – EC
