Well, none of the novels were complete at the time of his death, and his intention was that they be destroyed. (This is also true of a bit over half of his shor

Well, none of the novels were complete at the time of his death, and his intention was that they be destroyed. (This is also true of a bit over half of his short stories, though.) Given this, their narrative structure is shaky. Kafka is also much less verbose than your typical novelist, so you can't really skim his works like you would a normal novel. There's also a lot of ambiguity--there are definitely levels of symbolism and religious allegory, but the allegories are unclear if not contradictory. I think the best thing is to just take your time--all of Kafka's prose writing can fit in less than a thousand pages, so there's no reason to try to fly through it. Treat it like a nice liquor--just a taste at the bottom of the glass, not the whole bottle. And all works benefit from rereading, but his especially.