Kafka was never innocent, and, while it is hard to believe that his visceral dislike of airplanes and of heroes told the entire possible story, his suspicion that the building of machines was a hopeless effort by which mankind attempted to evade himself seems an idea worth contemplating for any age.
At the novel's close, the narrator – now firmly established in that adult life he once sought to evade – updates himself, and us, on the later lives of the Yoghurts, professing himself to be "stunned" by how little has changed for them.
When Peck discovers that his agency is conducting "illegal surveillance on a massive scale," he sets up a meeting with a journalist, and soon finds himself evading a squad of government assassins.
As such, Mitchell is a classic mid-century white antihero, the kind that can be found, in works ranging from "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" to "Portnoy's Complaint," exuding professional mediocrity, evading responsibility, humiliating himself sexually, and cowering in the face of his supposed inferiors: women, children, household help, members of all kinds of the putative lower classes.
To everybody's surprise, however, Mr Hoeness himself admitted to evading an even greater sum: €18.5m.
The same officials then arrested Magnitsky, accusing him of evading taxes himself.
This is the story of a person who does not claim to be a fighter for patriotic causes, a political leader or diplomat, it is merely a story of an ordinary citizen, who found himself thrust into the midst of events he had no choice but to be a part of - events he could neither evade or distance himself from, as they unfolded.
In one instance, when two views are conjoined in a kind of cinematic Cubism, the character who is evading police detectives appears to meet himself coming and going.
Lucas repeatedly surprises himself with his skills at evading those pursuing him.
By evading standard lines of authority, Roosevelt guaranteed himself competing sources of information, while injecting a healthy dose of creative tension (albeit some unhealthy paranoia as well).
