Most discussions of Philippe Claudel’s fiction eventually identify Kafka as a likely influence, some even describing his narratives as “Kafkaesque.” If anything, The Investigation, the most recent of Claudel’s books to be translated into English, makes it unmistakably clear that such comparisons are entirely accurate, but it might also prompt us to consider the implications of the comparison more carefully. Kafka’s undeniable greatness aside, why, after almost 100 years, would a novel that so obviously duplicates the most familiar features of the Kafkaesque, that so obviously wants to be Kafkaesque, also still want to be regarded as somehow original and daring?
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