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| | Empire of the infinite | By genre | Guardian Unlimited Books |
 | | What Roth seems to have loved about the Empire, that it imposed a uniformity on so many different peoples, is also seen in his books as a kind of tyranny, almost a totalitarianism, so that Roth and Kafka have more in common than might at first seem to be the case. |
 | | His identification with the Empire, though it became excessively nostalgic, had no complacency about it, because it issued not from comfort but from what seems a kind of desperation. |
 | | He is a simple, loyal subject of the Empire, who unquestioningly believes that the government will provide him with a pension and a small job for life. |
| books.guardian.co.uk /reviews/classics/0,6121,113069,00.html (1339 words) |
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