Trial by Dorrit

Dickens’ Little Dorrit, particularly the tenth chapter of its first part — a chapter titled ‘Containing the whole Science of Government’ — offers the reader a rather clear instance of one of the World Literature’s firmest rules — though it does, admittedly, have its few exceptions. This rule states that, whatever of value may be searched for and found in other literature, the same can already be found — both better expressed and more concisely — from English hands. In this case, but a chapter of Dickens can be said to cover the whole Kafka oeuvre.