<![CDATA[The Castle (Dramatization)]]>

false <![CDATA[The Castle (Dramatization)]]>

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They are perhaps the most famous literary instructions never followed: "Dearest Max, my last request: Everything I leave behind me ... in the way of diaries, manuscripts, letters (my own and others'), sketches, and so on, [is] to be burned unread...." Thankfully, Max Brod did not honor his friend Franz Kafka's final wishes. Instead, he did everything within his power to ensure that Kafka's work would find publication--including making some sweeping changes in the original texts. Until recently, the world has known only Brod's version of Kafka, with its altered punctuation, word order, and chapter divisions. Restoring much of what had previously been expunged, as well as the fluid, oral quality of Kafka's original German, Mark Harman's new translation of The Castle is a major literary event. One of three unfinished novels left after Kafka's death, The Castle is in many ways the writer's most enduring and influential work. In Harman's muscular translation, Kafka's text seems more modern than ever, the words tumbling over one another, the sentences separated only by commas. Harman's version also ends the same way as Kafka's original manuscript--that is, in mid-sentence: "She held out her trembling hand to K. and had him sit down beside her, she spoke with great difficulty, it was difficult to understand her, but what she said--." For anyone used to reading Kafka in his artificially complete form, the effect is extraordinary; it is as if Kafka himself had just stepped from the room, leaving behind him a work whose resolution is the more haunting for being forever out of reach.

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The Castle

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0 4 false false Mon May 05 21:39:10 -0700 2008 Mon May 05 21:43:21 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 3 false false Sun Jan 25 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sun Jan 18 22:36:05 -0800 2009 Sat Jan 31 08:57:03 -0800 2009 more...]]> 5 3 false false Fri Aug 15 15:29:00 -0700 2008 Fri Aug 15 15:53:05 -0700 2008 Metamorphosis there is the ‘yuck’ factor of ...more...]]> 5 3 false false Tue Dec 01 00:00:00 -0800 1998 Tue Oct 09 03:21:35 -0700 2007 Wed Oct 10 06:30:38 -0700 2007 Much has been s...more...]]> 5 3 false false Thu Jun 28 20:25:14 -0700 2007 Thu Jun 28 20:25:14 -0700 2007

"The Eighth Chapter" of The Castle is, perhaps, some of the most beautifully composed writing in all of modern literature. T...more...]]> 2 2 false false Sat Dec 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Tue Oct 23 01:29:00 -0700 2007 Sun Jan 06 21:58:31 -0800 2008 more...]]> 5 1 false false Mon Aug 24 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun May 03 07:12:05 -0700 2009 Tue Aug 25 19:26:07 -0700 2009 more...]]> 2 1 false false Fri Dec 01 00:00:00 -0800 2006 Thu Jan 03 14:18:16 -0800 2008 Thu Jan 03 14:23:18 -0800 2008 more...]]> 2 1 false false Fri Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Wed Feb 06 19:12:54 -0800 2008 Mon Oct 13 10:37:09 -0700 2008
It was too, how do I say it?...Kafkaesque. But am I greater than the writer himself? No. Kafka quit too and just as mid-sentence as I, only later in the text. Evidently, he died of tedium. Thank God I stopped before Kafka's work killed me too.

I was not enrich...more...]]> 3 1 true false Fri Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Tue Jun 12 03:16:19 -0700 2007 Tue Jun 12 03:19:32 -0700 2007
When I was read...more...]]> 5 1 false false Tue Mar 06 14:50:30 -0800 2007 Tue Mar 06 14:50:30 -0800 2007 more...]]> 5 1 false false Fri May 30 13:06:04 -0700 2008 Tue Jun 10 13:57:08 -0700 2008 more...]]> 3 0 false false Thu Aug 27 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Sep 01 08:34:19 -0700 2009 Tue Sep 01 09:26:55 -0700 2009

“Look what Klamm has written!” said K., holding the letter before his face. “He has been wrongly informed. I haven’t done any surveying at all, and you see yourself how much the assistants are worth. And obviously too I can’t interrupt work that I’ve never begun; I can’t even excite th...

more...]]> 3 0 false false Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sat Aug 15 10:17:58 -0700 2009 Sat Aug 15 10:36:31 -0700 2009 The Castle that more-closely resembles Kafka's original manuscript. The lengthy introduction, explaining Mark Harman's translation philosophy is fascinating and helpful. Not being a German spe...more...]]> 5 0 false false Mon Aug 03 21:59:43 -0700 2009 Mon Aug 03 22:20:04 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 1 false false Thu May 21 07:57:22 -0700 2009 Thu May 21 10:43:42 -0700 2009 more...]]> 1 0 true false Wed Sep 02 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed Sep 02 22:43:07 -0700 2009 Wed Sep 02 22:49:50 -0700 2009 1
Now I ...more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Apr 19 15:30:05 -0700 2009 Fri Apr 24 10:41:21 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Sun Dec 14 07:41:53 -0800 2008 Sun Dec 14 07:41:53 -0800 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sat Oct 31 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Oct 26 09:52:32 -0700 2009 Mon Nov 02 11:41:48 -0800 2009 The Castle years ago, and have just finished the recent one by Harman. I think I prefer the Muirs on a literary basis, and Harman's as to linearity and style. In both versions I cannot give a five-star rating, as, like all of Kafka's big three novels, they w...more...]]>