First published in 1988, The Necessity of Form is a foundational work of late-twentieth-century Kafka criticism.

Corngold’s central claim is that Kafka’s meaning is inseparable from form, syntax, and narrative procedure, and that interpretive shortcuts — allegorical, biographical, or moral — fundamentally miss the work.

Written against both existentialist and purely symbolic readings of Kafka, the book helped reorient Anglophone Kafka studies toward close reading, linguistic attention, and formal constraint. Definitely more of a textbook, but readers interested in modernism, literary theory, and the limits of interpretation and of course, our boy Kafka, should be interested.