Castelul

by Franz Kafka, Mariana Şora (trad.)

Castelul întruchipează imposibilitatea omului de a descifra sensul existenței sale civice. K., personajul principal, încearcă să-și întîlnească angajatorul, în vederea preluării postului proaspăt obținut. Un lucru cît se poate de obișnuit, s-ar spune. în lumina acestei motivații, limbajul lui Kafka este simplu și sobru, contrastînd cu peripețiile declanșate de o dorință cît se poate de banală, dar a cărei realizare depinde întru totul de castel. Interferența permanentă dintre rațional și irațional, dintre fragilitatea individului și violența exercitată asupra sa de acea ordine osificată, absconsă și ostilă (reprezentată de castel), cu trimiteri concrete la absurditatea birocratismului și la absența oricărei comprehensiuni între personaje (fără a ne afla însă pe tărîmul literaturii absurdului), dezvăluie cititorului imaginea unui scriitor împătimit de tragismul singurătății ultragiate. Unul dintre marii clasici ai prozei neclasice prin excelență.

Genres: Fiction, Classics, Literature, Philosophy, German Literature, Novels, Czech Literature

384 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1926

About the author

Franz Kafka was a German-speaking writer from Prague whose work became one of the foundations of modern literature, even though he published only a small part of his writing during his lifetime. Born into a middle-class Jewish family in Prague, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Kafka grew up amid German, Czech, and Jewish cultural influences that shaped his sense of displacement and linguistic precision. His difficult relationship with his authoritarian father left a lasting mark, fostering feelings of guilt, anxiety, and inadequacy that became central themes in his fiction and personal writings.
Kafka studied law at the German University in Prague, earning a doctorate in 1906. He chose law for practical reasons rather than personal inclination, a compromise that troubled him throughout his life. After university, he worked for several insurance institutions, most notably the Workers Accident Insurance Institute for the Kingdom of Bohemia. His duties included assessing industrial accidents and drafting legal reports, work he carried out competently and responsibly. Nevertheless, Kafka regarded his professional life as an obstacle to his true vocation, and most of his writing was done at night or during periods of illness and leave. Kafka began publishing short prose pieces in his early adulthood, later collected in volumes such as Contemplation and A Country Doctor. These works attracted little attention at the time but already displayed the hallmarks of his mature style, including precise language, emotional restraint, and the application of calm logic to deeply unsettling situations. His major novels The Trial, The Castle, and Amerika were left unfinished and unpublished during his lifetime. They depict protagonists trapped within opaque systems of authority, facing accusations, rules, or hierarchies that remain unexplained and unreachable. Themes of alienation, guilt, bureaucracy, law, and punishment run throughout Kafka’s work. His characters often respond to absurd or terrifying circumstances with obedience or resignation, reflecting his own conflicted relationship with authority and obligation. Kafka’s prose avoids overt symbolism, yet his narratives function as powerful metaphors through structure, repetition, and tone. Ordinary environments gradually become nightmarish without losing their internal coherence. Kafka’s personal life was marked by emotional conflict, chronic self-doubt, and recurring illness. He formed intense but troubled romantic relationships, including engagements that he repeatedly broke off, fearing that marriage would interfere with his writing. His extensive correspondence and diaries reveal a relentless self-critic, deeply concerned with morality, spirituality, and the demands of artistic integrity. In his later years, Kafka’s health deteriorated due to tuberculosis, forcing him to withdraw from work and spend long periods in sanatoriums. Despite his illness, he continued writing when possible. He died young, leaving behind a large body of unpublished manuscripts. Before his death, he instructed his close friend Max Brod to destroy all of his remaining work. Brod ignored this request and instead edited and published Kafka’s novels, stories, and diaries, ensuring his posthumous reputation.
The publication of Kafka’s work after his death established him as one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century. The term Kafkaesque entered common usage to describe situations marked by oppressive bureaucracy, absurd logic, and existential anxiety. His writing has been interpreted through existential, religious, psychological, and political perspectives, though Kafka himself resisted definitive meanings. His enduring power lies in his ability to articulate modern anxiety with clarity and restraint.

Reviews

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

"You misinterpret everything, even the silence."

If this was Homeros, the castle would be unattainable Ithaka. If it was Borges, it would be a labyrinthine library full of books one can't read. If it was Freud, it would be a nightmare in which the dreamer tries to reach a nonexistent goal.

But it is Kafka, and therefore it is a bit of all those stories, told in a meticulously described fog. As a symbol of life, it is depressing, and it leaves the reader to ponder what is worse: spending one's time fruitlessly trying to get access to the castle, or actually achieving the goal?

Life is what is happening in the meantime.

[Vit Babenco · Rating 5 out of 5]

Is there a way to penetrate into high places? Are high places really high?

Keeping his eyes fixed upon the Castle, K. went ahead, nothing else mattered to him. But as he came closer he was disappointed in the Castle, it was only a rather miserable little tower pieced together from village houses, distinctive only because everything was perhaps built out of stone, but the paint had long since flaked off, and the stone seemed to be crumbling.

Those who wield earthly power don’t sit high like Olympian gods they hide behind the closed doors concealed in the endless bureaucratic corridors. Do they really wield power?

Though the actual corridor was still empty, the doors were already moving, there was always one being opened a crack and then closed again quickly, the corridor was buzzing with all these door openers and door closers; K. saw here and there, above in the opening in the walls, which didn’t quite reach the ceiling, disheveled early-morning heads appear, and then vanish. From a distance, guided by a servant, came a tiny little cart containing files. A second servant walked alongside, holding a list which he was evidently using to compare the numbers on the doors with those on the files.

He who tries to reach the goal that isn’t worth reaching is doomed.

[Fergus, Weaver of Autistic Webs · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have loved this superb novel for a very, very long time. Perhaps you, too, have shrouded yourself in the endless folds of its inner mystery and adventure - and lost yourself within it!

But WHY does it always seem to us so frustrating? So unsatisfying in the end? Is it because the Land Surveyor never gets to his Castle?

Well - maybe there’s a DEEPER reason why he never arrives... something endemic to the functioning - or malfunctioning, of our ordinary minds.

Let’s try to FIND OUT what it is.

Now, some writers - and Kafka is one of them - seem to catch us unawares... as if they’re calling out to us from a higher plane of existence.

Edwin Muir, the Scottish expatriate poet who first ´discovered’ Kafka for us anglophones in the 1930’s, was sure that the dear, misunderstood Franzel had an armlock on some Hidden Truth.

But what if this key to Kafka is that he was caught in the complex to-and-fro-ing of Hegel’s Contrite Consciousness - the tempestuous Ethical Plane of existence, according to Kierkegaard?

And what happens when the human mind morphs from the everyday sphere of living for the day... to a scary Moral Sphere?

It can be like Freud’s The Schreber Case. After all, there’s no justification for moral judgements in an amoral world, is there? So we’re automatically viewed as a stranger. Once you take sides, Sonny, you’re on your own! The mind tends to play tricks on us at that point...

And, once challenged and stopped dead in its tracks, the mind starts to replay its key judgements and obsessions ad infinitum, as Kafka does here - almost in anticipation of Freud’s example, Schreber - but only neurotically, and not psychotically.

But, hey - you rise above the herd, and it ain’t gonna be easy! Let me put it from another angle: did Frodo chicken out from his Quest?

Not on your life!

Though, like us, he retreated to the false comfort of his Ring now and then - and paid for it heavily.

Just as Kafka and Schreber take comfort in their obsessive disorders... Though Frodo’s fix is a VERY dangerous narcissism - Power.

But Kafka IS calling us from a higher plane, because the Castle itself is theologically symbolic of a Higher Reality.

Just as Mordor is the hobbits’ Armageddon and Gandalf is their Guardian Angel, along with the elfin-folk.

Even though that wonderful symbolic reality has now become shadowy and ungrounded in the crass garish light of the daily news, and though heads of state now seem utterly self-seeking - making our Land Surveyor’s reasoning utterly nonsensical to them, we now all have to live in an Upside-Down Kingdom, the postmodern mindset.

That’s a fact of our lives for us modern ethically-minded seekers - for we Quixotes are now hopelessly pitted against powerful electronic windmills!

***
Okay, then.

Had Kafka lived longer, would he have written in a HAPPY ENDING for the poor Land Surveyor?

Would he have entered the Castle, finally?

I think so.

Because all it takes is that one unforgettable moment when, at the end of all our wanderings, we hear the magical voice of the “Woodthrush calling through the Fog.”

That moment when it finally dawns on us that there’s a much BIGGER story going on here than our own tiny story of dazed frustration as we trudge endlessly with the Land Surveyor through the snowdrifts of an Eastern European village...

Like in Kafka’s Amerika.

The bigger story of Redemption.

For it’s not about us...

It’s about something Bigger.

Kafka made this clear in a short story called Before the Law - only once (surreptitiously) published in his lifetime.

In Before the Law, a man ceases to believe, because he can’t even believe in the Law. So if he can’t believe in the Gospel, he loses the right to enter through the Gate of Heaven.

So the man always starts again. And TRIES again. And continually starts again at the beginning, simply because he now no longer believes.

When it’s time for him to die, the Gate is Closed.

Why?

Because he has given up trying, believing AND BEGINNING AGAIN!

And accepting the Law as - absurdly - God’s will.

In Amerika, though, Kafka comes to see that.

Salvation is a Free Gift.

And it’s only because he has given up hope completely, that the Gate (the Castle - or the Gift of Grace) of the Law is Now closed to him.

Until he starts over, but NOW it’s too late.

Or WOULD be too late - WITHOUT GRACE?

Or, without... the LAW!

For, to Kafka himself, at the end, Grace now ABOUNDED...

He now had kept his part of the bargain, always trying, unlike the Land Surveyor, no matter how hard it became, to believe and BITE THE BULLET... OF THE HARD AND FAST TRUTH... of the LAW.

AND SO THE CASTLE GATES SWUNG OPEN.

[Fernando · Rating 5 out of 5]

«La calle, es decir la calle principal del pueblo, no llevaba al cerro del castillo, solamente conducía hasta sus cercanías, y entonces, como adrede, se desviaba, y si bien no se alejaba de aquel, tampoco se acercaba más.»

La primera línea de “El castillo” en el que K., el agrimensor y personaje principal de la novela se detiene en el puente de acceso a la aldea, nos da a entender y como ha sucedido en otros textos kafkianos, que está colmada de incertidumbre: «Había caído la noche cuando K. llegó. El pueblo estaba sumido en la nieve. No se veía nada del cerro del castillo, lo rodeaban la niebla y tinieblas, y ni la lucecita más débil sugería el gran castillo».
Para colmo de males K. llega de noche. En “La metamorfosis” y “El proceso” todo ocurre de mañana. Aquí, nuevamente Kafka nos posiciona en un lugar desconocido, una aldea perteneciente a un país que no conocemos, en el que además no aclaran en qué continente se encuentra, aunque suponemos que es el europeo. Por la descripción inicial, da la sensación de que más que una aldea perdida en el medio de la nada, K. está pisando el puente hacia una isla. La historia comienza como el autor acostumbra y sugiere: que el tiempo comenzó en ese mismo instante en una especie de pequeño universo cerrado.
Pietro Citati en su impecable biografía Kafka nos aclara esta situación: «Al igual que en “La metamorfosis” y en “El proceso”, el comienzo es un principio absoluto: tenemos la impresión de que antes, no ha ocurrido nunca nada, y que el universo, la vida de Kafka, la historia de la literatura, comienzan esa tarde, cuando K. llega ante la colina envuelta por la niebla y se detiene en el puente de madera».
Como lectores, comenzamos a trazar similitudes y analogías con “El proceso”, ya que mientras que en “El proceso” la luz y el calor son parte de los ambientes que frecuenta Josef K., aquí K. solo tiene oscuridad y nieve y en ese clima hostil se desarrollará toda la historia.
Max Brod y otros autores y críticos afirmarán también que mientras en “El proceso” todo gira alrededor del concepto de “la Ley”, en “El castillo” lo que K. intentará es acceder a la Divinidad, representado en las autoridades de ese castillo.
Otros consideran “El castillo” como la novela capital de Kafka, incluso por sobre “El proceso”, pero es muy acertado lo que afirma Albert Camus en un capítulo consagrado al absurdo kafkiano en su libro “El mito de Sísifo”: «“El proceso” y “El castillo” no marchan en el mismo sentido. Se completan», para definir contundentemente: «Hay que haber escrito “El proceso” para escribir “El castillo”». Según él, ambas partes funcionan en conjunto para que el lector logre un entendimiento completo y cabal de las historias.
Al segundo día, K. comprende que todo aquello que se relaciona con el castillo no es lo que parece. Nada es lo que parece. Se presenta en la “Posada de los señores” indicándoles que ha sido contratado por el conde de Westwest (extraño nombre para un conde si los hay) para realizar trabajos como agrimensor.
He aquí el primer escollo: le informan que nadie ha requerido de sus servicios y que debe contar con algún tipo de autorización. K. intuye que debe haber alguna clase de error de algunas de la parte: «Usted ha sido contratado como agrimensor, pero no tenemos trabajo para usted… nadie lo retiene aquí, pero esto no es una expulsión».
Comienzan los primeros signos de inaccesibilidad, porque intenta realizar una llamada telefónica la cual resulta infructuosa, pues solo recibe ruidos desde el otro extremo del aparato: «Del auricular brotó un zumbido como K. no había oído nunca en un teléfono. Era como si, del zumbido de innumerables voces de niño –aunque no era tal zumbido, sino el canto de voces lejanas, lejanísimas-, como si de ese zumbido, de una forma francamente imposible, se formase una voz aguda pero resonante, que vibraba como si quisiera penetrar más allá de aquel miserable oído».
Nuevos obstáculos atentarán contra su empresa de acceder al castillo (ya en el inicio de la novela, K., es otro personaje derrotado de antemano), pues al querer tomar un trineo para llegar a él, recibe una inusitada negativa del cochero: «¿Qué está esperando? Algún trineo que me lleve dijo K. Por aquí no pasa ningún trineo, dijo el hombre, no hay tráfico. Sin embargo, es la calle que lleva al castillo, objetó K. Aun así, aun así, dijo el hombre con cierta inflexibilidad, no hay tráfico. Luego los dos se callaron».
Cuando finalmente la niebla baja y observa desde su posición el famoso castillo, descubre que ni siquiera se trata de la construcción que él imaginaba: «En conjunto, el castillo tal como se mostraba a lo lejos, correspondía a las expectativas de K. No era un viejo castillo feudal ni una fastuosa construcción moderna sino una extensa estructura, compuesta de algunos edificios de dos pisos y de muchos edificios bajos muy juntos; si no hubiera sabido que era un castillo, K. lo habría podido tomar como una pequeña ciudad. Vio solo una torre, y no pudo saber si pertenecía a un edificio destinado a habitación o a una iglesia». Primera desilusión de las tantas que le esperan.
K. es un extraño al que los pobladores no quieren aceptar en absoluto y mientras más intente avanzar, más difícil será. Los caminos kafkianos siempre son los más difíciles. La ilusión es el recurso estilístico que empleará Kafka para desconcertarnos, aunque haya elementos de conexión, tal es el caso de las posadas -la de los señores y la del puente- y de quienes la frecuentan, porque están directamente conectadas con el castillo de manera similar a los Tribunales en “El proceso”, ya que todo tiene que ver con todo. Pero recordemos: en forma ilusoria.
Mientras escribe la novela, Kafka todavía está hechizado por Milena y como consecuencia de esa relación decide llevarla a la ficción transformándola en Frieda, quien físicamente es distinta a ella (Mílena es morocha, mientras que Frieda es rubia), pero dotándola de la misma característica que la joven checa: la fogosidad.
Como sucediera con Leni, la secretaria del abogado de Josef K., en “El proceso”, Frieda utilizará todos los recursos de sirena que posee para intentar seducir a K., y lo consigue.
Frieda, quien fue amante de Klamm, señor del castillo quien supuestamente contrató a K. y es uno de los hombres más poderosos de la aldea, seduce a K. en la única escena de alto contenido sexual que Kafka representará en toda su obra: entre chacos de cerveza, botellas desparramadas y suciedad, ambos harán el amor de manera desenfrenada.
Las mujeres, como en toda obra de Kafka son más un escollo que una ayuda, especialmente para K., pues su relación con ellas difícil, conflictiva y ambigua y traza en cierto modo un paralelismo con la vida del autor. Tanto en el caso de Frieda como con las otras mujeres con las que se cruza, que son Pepi, la mesonera que reemplaza a Frieda (y que da la sensación de que para este personaje Kafka se inspiró en Julie Wohrysek) y Gardena, que está a cargo de la Posada de los señores.
Gardena, al igual que Grete y Brunelda en “El desaparecido” es de dimensiones importantes y no queda claro qué veía Kafka en las mujeres gordas para dotar a sus personajes femeninos con esta característica. Lo cierto es que Gardena es bondadosa y respetada en oposición al personaje de Brunelda, pero al principio es ruda con K.: «Usted no es del castillo. Usted no es de la aldea. Usted no es nadie».
Avanzando la novela, K., conocerá a Barnabás, el mensajero del castillo que es una especie de Hermes mortal, sin ningún atributo de dios quien trabaja llevando la correspondencia entre el castillo y las distintas dependencias de la aldea.
Este muchacho tiene tres hermanas: Amalia y Olga y la familia Barnabás, como es conocida en la comarca y que está marcada como paria y desclasada, debido a que un funcionario de rango medio llamado Sortini le ofreció matrimonio a Amalia quien desechó de lleno la proposición y en represalia a esta acción fueron expulsados del área del castillo a vivir alejados de todos, con la excepción de mantener en su trabajo al joven Barnabás. K. se interioriza de lo que le sucede a Amalia y visita a la familia. Olga es la encargada de contarle a K. la verdadera historia de lo que pasó con su hermana de Amalia. Y el caso de Olga es más denigrante, pues se ha prostituido con distintos funcionarios del castillo a cambio de limpiar el nombre de su hermana.
Además de los inconvenientes que K. ya tiene con la imposibilidad de trabajar como agrimensor para el castillo, las mujeres se complotan contra él. Lo complican (Gardena y Pepi), lo seducen y celan (Frieda) y lo distraen atraen (Olga). Amalia es la única que se mantiene un tanto distante. Los demás personajes que interactúan con K. no son muchos. Digamos que son algunos más en cantidad que los de “El proceso” y que sí volverán a cruzarse con él, aunque fugazmente.
Para llevar esto a cabo, Kafka diseminará a través de toda la novela, personajes de distintos rangos jerárquicos y sociales.
Durante la lectura y además del esquivo señor Klamm, a nunca logrará ver en persona, conoceremos también a Sordini, que es quien confunde el nombramiento de K como agrimensor en un intercambio erróneo de cartas y a los secretarios Bürgel y Friedrich, más puntualmente sobre los capítulos finales.
Pero si hay dos personajes que complementarán a K. en esta historia estos serán Arthur y Jeremías, dos ayudantes que las autoridades del castillo finalmente deciden asignarle al agrimensor. Y nuevamente nos encontramos, al igual que en “El desaparecido” con Robinson y Dellamarche y en “El proceso” con los dos señores que abordan a K., al principio y los verdugos de la escena final, con el mágico número dos, como también sucede con el relato “Blumfeld, un solterón entrado en años” a quien también le dan proveen dos ayudantes en su trabajo.
Estos dos clowns, conspiran todo el tiempo para que K. no logre su cometido. Son ineficientes e inoperantes y hasta pareciera que no poseen sus facultades mentales completas y que actúan como si fueran dos perros y no seres humanos, por la forma en la que K. les ordena y ellos se chocan entre sí, o se pelean para llegar primeros o se quedan esperando una orden. Lo persiguen, no saben absolutamente nada del oficio de agrimensura, se entrometen en todo, chusmean los momentos de intimidad que K. tiene con Frieda y lo que es más: sobre el tramo final de la novela, Frieda abandona a K. para irse con Arthur.
Solo le queda a K. apoyarse en el inexperto Barnabás que increíblemente parece ser la única esperanza de tener noticias del castillo. Y en esta novela a K. le sucede lo mismo que a Josef K. con el abogado Huld: algunos funcionarios lo atienden desde la cama, como Bürgel.
Todo, absolutamente todo lo que le pasa a K. en la novela se compone de futilidad, frustración, imposibilidad, fracaso. El castillo, infranqueable. El pueblo al que tiene que adaptarse, los pobladores, funcionarios, y las mujeres con las que se involucra sólo logran que el desasosiego y la desazón de K. alcancen límites insospechados.
Nadie colabora, todos entorpecen. K. se enreda en infinitos intentos que no conducen a nada. La inaccesibilidad al castillo es tal, que todos los funcionarios, dependientes, cocheros y criados conspiran en su contra, como Momus, el cochero que encuentra a K. semidormido dentro del coche que supuestamente lleva a Klamm al castillo. Él también le anuncia que jamás podrá acceder al castillo. Pero K. va una y otra vez…
La trama de “El castillo” va arrinconando al lector hasta lograr lo que Kafka inconscientemente busca: que el estado de frustración sea compartido junto con el personaje.
Cabe destacar que los ambientes en los que se desarrolla “El castillo” son también oscuros y opresivos como los de “El proceso”. Todos tienen su grado de complejidad. Las posadas, la escuela a la que K. ha sido degradado como Bedel, las oficinas administrativas de acceso al castillo son algunos ejemplos claros.
Y no sólo el castillo es inaccesible. Si bien este simboliza el poder, la “Divinidad”, afirmaba su amigo y albacea Max Brod, del mismo modo son inaccesibles sus funcionarios, resumidos obviamente en Klamm. Lo que diferencia a K., de Josef K., es que aquel intenta entender por qué es perseguido y condenado por el sistema, mientras que este K. va a su encuentro con el objeto de hacer infructuosos contactos.
K., del que ya ni siquiera conocemos ningún tipo de característica física (al menos de Josef K. nos enteramos de que tenía unos bonitos ojos negro) va transformándose en la inicial que lo identifica como un hombre reducido a lo más mínimo de su existencia. Él nunca se plantea: «¿por qué no me voy?», «¿por qué no abandono todo esto y pruebo una nueva vida?», sino todo lo contrario, quiere quedarse, establecerse porque no puede volver a donde vino y como todo personaje kafkiano vive en un eterno presente sin futuro alguno a la vista. Es un Quijote sin armas, un Ulises que ha perdido completamente el rumbo.
Sobre el final, Frieda le propone escaparse juntos a España o Italia, pero él desiste del mismo modo que el autor de esta novela siempre hizo, eligiendo el camino equivocado.
Mientras que en las novelas de Fiódor Dostoievski la procesión existencialista va por dentro del personaje para confrontarlo con la realidad y los demás personajes, en las de Kafka las circunstancias, el entorno y todas las probabilidades conspiran en su contra y a la inversa, perforando la conciencia del personaje para llegar, incluso, a paralizarlo.
Se han hecho muchas interpretaciones sobre el significado que Kafka quiso establecer en “El castillo”. Lo cierto es que cada lector podrá hacer un análisis y llegar a su propia conclusión, tenga que ver con la ley, lo divino o lo inalcanzable, que son en cierto modo los elementos con los que Kafka siempre trabajó sus historias.
Y tiene puntos de contacto con aquel hombre que espera en vano durante años en la puerta junto al guardián en el relato “Ante la Ley”, ya que el castillo es el punto de destino qué se ha planteado desde el principio porque supuestamente para trabajar allí lo contrataron, aunque no le hacen nada fácil su acceso y en la única oportunidad que tiene para llegar a entrar, se queda dormido en la habitación Bürgel, el secretario del funcionario Erlanger.
Luego de la muerte de Kafka, Max Brod juraba que este les había contado a fines de 1922 cómo terminaba la historia de K.: «Kafka no escribió ningún capítulo final. Pero en cierta ocasión me lo explicó, contestando a mi pregunta sobre el final de la novela. El supuesto agrimensor recibe, por lo menos parcialmente, satisfacción. No ceja en su lucha, pero muere de agotamiento. En torno a su lecho mortuorio se congrega la comunidad, cuando desde el castillo le traen la noticia del fallo judicial, según el cual no existía por parte de K. derecho legal a vivir en la aldea, pero que considerando ciertas circunstancias se le permitía vivir y trabajar allí».
Podemos entender el entusiasmo de Brod quien, con mucho afán, ordenó y publicó los borradores del castillo, pero es muy difícil creer que Kafka le haya contado esto si tenemos en cuenta que como se indicara previamente, le cedía el manuscrito porque no lograba cerrar la historia. Es más, una maquinación de Brod que lo que su amigo tenía intenciones de hacer.
Lo que sí sabemos, es que Kafka dejó inconclusa esta novela con una frase a medio terminar: «...hablaba con dificultad, era difícil comprenderla, pero lo que dijo,»
El enorme Ricardo Piglia supo definir cabalmente lo que significa la novela “El castillo” al afirmar brillantemente: «La interrupción, gran tema de Kafka, la interferencia que impide llegar a destino. La suspensión, el desvío, la postergación, esto es clásico en él, lo narra siempre, pero define también el registro de su escritura. Su estilo es un arte de la interrupción, el arte de narrar la interferencia». Concuerda con Borges quien afirmó que a los personajes kafkianos los caracteriza “la infinita postergación”.
Esa simple frase terminada en una coma es un no-final kafkiano difícil de superar por cualquier novelista, porque refleja su particular manera de abordar la literatura y es de este modo que Kafka desafía al lector abriéndole una puerta al infinito.

[°°°·.°·..·°¯°·._.· ʜᴇʟᴇɴ Ροζουλί Εωσφόρος ·._.·°¯°·.·° .·°°° ★·.·´¯`·.·★ Ⓥⓔⓡⓝⓤⓢ Ⓟⓞⓡⓣⓘⓣⓞⓡ Ⓐⓡⓒⓐⓝⓤⓢ Ταμετούρο Αμ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Μέσα στον Πύργο κρύβεται η ουσία της ύπαρξης. Μόνο εκεί μπορούμε να ανακαλύψουμε το ανώτερο νόημα,πέρα απο το πλαίσιο της φυσικής μας ζωής πάνω στη γη.

Σε όλο το στερέωμα του Καφκικού σύμπαντος με επίκεντρο τον θρυλικό Πύργο προσπαθούμε να προσεγγίσουμε την είσοδο, την επαφή,το μυστήριο,το παράλογο,το ιδεώδες,το σύμβολο της ύπαρξης και του ονειρικού εφιάλτη.

Ξεκινώντας απο ένα φτωχό και παραμελημένο χωριό στο οποίο ούτε ως κλεμμένη δεν συναντούσες τη χαρά στους κατοίκους του,πρέπει αρχικά να συνηθίσουμε τα επικρατέστερα συναισθήματα που βιώνουμε. Απόγνωση,φόβο οργή,παρανοϊκή αναμονή για το παράδοξο.

Έπειτα να διασχίσουμε με απόλυτη δειλία,δυσκολία,απειλή και πόνο τα απελπιστικά πολλά και μπερδεμένα μονοπάτια του οικισμού και του μυαλού μας και αφού καταφέρουμε να επιζήσουμε ή να μην τρελαθούμε και χαθεί το κλειδί για την πύλη του Πύργου που είναι η ψυχή μας, ίσως, μα και πάλι μάταια καταφέρουμε να αντιμετωπίσουμε την ανημποριά και να στηρίξουμε την ύπαρξη μας στο υψηλότερο επίπεδο πνευματικής σοφίας,δύναμης,τόλμης,
αποφασιστικότητας και τελειοποίησης.

Ίσως χωρίς συνείδηση,δίχως τύψεις,σε μια κατάσταση πριν την επαφή με το θεϊκό απόκοσμο να μπαίναμε στον Πύργο και να βρίσκαμε το νόημα της ζωής.

Όμως σε όλη τη διάρκεια της προσπάθειας μας αγνοούμε τι πρέπει να κάνουμε. Τα εμπόδια συνεχόμενα και πολύπλοκα,οι δυνάμεις εξαντλούνται.
Επικρατεί έλλειψη ελπίδας και βοήθειας σε αντίθεση με την επιβολή μιας άνομης εξουσίας που παράλογα ασκείται και άδικα μας βασανίζει εμποδίζοντας την είσοδο στις κεντρικές πύλες του Πύργου.

Τα όργανα της εξουσίας είναι το ίδιο ετερόκλητα και ανειδίκευτα,το ίδιο ακατάληπτα και ανερμήνευτα όσο και η φανταστική διάσταση του κόσμου μας.

Αυτό που κυριαρχεί σε όλο το βιβλίο και καταρρακώνει σε πλήρη ταύτιση τον αναγνώστη είναι η αγωνιώδης αναμονή,η διανοητική εμπλοκή,η ανημποριά και η οργή που σιγά σιγά μας καταβάλουν και επεκτείνονται και στις προσωπικές και διαπροσωπικές λειτουργίες.

Οι κάτοικοι του χωριού δε γνωρίζουν τι θα τους βρει,δεν ξέρουν τι τους περιμένει, δεν προειδοποιούνται για το άγριο «αύριο» του Πύργου που δεσπόζει και τους πλήττει ήδη.
Είναι αποκομμένοι απο την εξέλιξη των πραγμάτων και την αλήθεια των γεγονότων,μπαίνουν στον κανόνα της ιστορίας με μόνο εφόδιο την τροφοδότηση διανοητικής εμπλοκής και το νοερό και ψυχικό μούδιασμα. Δεσπόζει το άγχος,η θλίψη,η παρεξήγηση εννοιών και πράξεων και η κατάρρευση.


Ο Πύργος είναι άδειος απο άτομα εξουσίας και πολιτικής δύναμης.
Είναι άδειος απο κάθε ανθρώπινη επίφαση ανωτερότητας και χειραγώγησης της μοίρας του κόσμου.

Όμως προβάλλεται και πιστεύεται ως ψευδαίσθηση άσκησης δικαίου και εξουσιαστικής επιβολής.
Δεν υπάρχουν κοσμικές εξουσίες στον Πύργο, οι ψευδαισθήσεις που μας επιβάλλουν νομίζουμε πως υπάρχουν.
Απαγορεύεται να χρησιμοποιήσουμε τη δύναμη του μυαλού μας ως ανθρώπινα όντα για να κατανοήσουμε το αληθινά μεταφυσικό.
Και αφού έτσι μας μεγαλώνουν και απο την κούνια μας πίνουμε το γάλα της επιφανειακής και στημένης πραγματικότητας, είμαστε ανίκανοι να λειτουργήσουμε εγκεφαλικά με διαφορετικά δεδομένα και ζητούμενα.

Οι πληροφορίες που μας καθιστούν ικανούς να επεξεργαζόμαστε σταματούν μπροστά στα στερεότυπα καλού-κακού, δίκαιου-άδικου,σωστού-λάθους,λογικού-παράλογου και γενικότερα σε όλα τα δίπολα κατεστημένων ψευδαίσθησεων.
Επομένως δεν μπορούμε να συλλάβουμε την ιδέα του Πύργου και ως εκ τούτου δεν είμαστε ικανοί κυρίως πνευματικά να εισέλθουμε σε αυτόν.

Ελάχιστοι ίσως κατοικοεδρεύουν μέσα στον Θρυλικό Πύργο.

Φήμες λένε πως εκεί μέσα τραγουδούν αιρετικά φαντάσματα απονενοημένων πράξεων συνείδησης,τρελοί,σοφοί που αδιαφόρησαν,έξυπνοι που σιώπησαν την εκδίκηση και ευφυείς που παρανόησαν και επηρέασαν την εξέλιξη της φυσικής νομοτέλειας.

Ο Πύργος ανήκει σε έναν ιδεατό κόσμο που δεν υπόκειται σε κάποιον έλεγχο,άρα οι ανθρώπινες συμπεριφορές και τα κοινά φαινόμενα δεν μπορούν να ερμηνευτούν με λογικό τρόπο.

Όλα τα παραπάνω μου τα εξιστόρησε με εξαιρετική μεταδοτικότητα και άριστη μεθοδολογία ο μέγας δάσκαλος Κ. που λάτρεψε τον Πύργο και το νόημα του.
Το νόημα του έγκειται στο νόημα της ζωής. Αυτό το μεγάλο ανεξήγητο μυστικό που συνίσταται απλά στο να ζεις!

Κάποια στιγμή προς το τέλος της ιστορίας ο Δάσκαλος Κ. μου είπε πως έπρεπε να φύγει για λίγο (ή για πάντα)δεν το διευκρίνησε.

Στη θέση του ήρθε ένας φίλος του που προσπάθησε να συνεχίσει την εξιστόρηση του Πύργου... φάνηκε όμως πως δεν μπόρεσε να σταθεί στο ύψος των περιστάσεων.
Η αφήγηση του ήταν απογοητευτική σε σχέση με του Δασκάλου.
Αναλογιζόμενη όσα είχαμε πει μεταξύ μας, κατάλαβα πως ο Δάσκαλος Κ. εφυγε επειδή κατάφερε να μπει τελικά στον Πύργο έστω και απο άλλη εισοδο,λιγότερο γνωστή.

Εκεί βρίσκεται τώρα παρέα με το θάνατο,τον αβάσταχτο πόνο,την ύπαρξη του κακού,την αίσθηση του παραλόγου και την απουσία νοήματος.

Τώρα που δεν φοβάται το θάνατο και έχει την εμπειρία της οδύνης και την πεποίθηση έλλειψης αξιών, ίσως περιφέρεται στον Πύργο και προσπαθεί να συμφιλιώσει αντίθετες θεωρήσεις και μεγάλες ιδέες για να μπορούμε κάπου να αποβλέπουμε ...!!

🏰🏰⚔️🔪🧠🗣🆓🔝🔚🔙🔪🧠🏰🏰

Καλή ανάγνωση!!

Πολλούς ασπασμούς!!

[emma]

slowly but surely attempting to make kafka my entire personality

[Valeriu Gherghel · Rating 4 out of 5]

#bibliotecaafectiva

Un roman neterminat (ca toate ale lui Kafka), tipărit de Max Brod după moartea autorului, în 1926. Titlul îi aparține lui Brod. Kafka a intenționat să-l scrie la persoana întîi, dar pe parcursul redactării și-a schimbat gîndul și l-a redactat la persoana a treia: „Era seară cînd K. sosi”.

Max Brod a propus și prima lui interpretare. Das Schloß ar prezenta alegoric o căutare (neîmplinită, desigur) a grației divine. Într-un eseu mai vechi, m-am întrebat ce s-ar întîmpla dacă protagonistul ar fi primit la castel... Dar sînt aproape sigur că Franz Kafka nu s-a gîndit nici o clipă la acest sfîrșit banal (K e primit cu amabilitate de Klamm, apoi de contele de Westwest, e servit cu un ceai etc.) și ar fi lăsat finalul deschis...

Ceea ce m-a intrigat cînd am citit literatura critică dedicată romanului (pentru a-mi redacta eseul) a fost afirmația recurentă că o astfel de carte nu este interpretabilă. Cineva a plusat și a scris, negru pe alb, că e vorba de „un roman inexplicabil”. Inexplicabil poate avea două sensuri: fie că romanul lui Kafka e ilizibil (nu pricepi nimic din el), fie că admite mai multe interpretări. Înclin să cred că acesta e sensul corect. Dacă Das Schloß ar fi incomprehensibil (dar nu e!), un cititor nici măcar nu l-ar putea rezuma.

În opinia mea, la nivel literal, Castelul este o proză perfect lizibilă şi interpretabilă. Dificultăţile survin abia dacă îți propui (cum a făcut Max Brod) să-l citești simbolic, alegoric, mistic. Mulți comentatori i-au urmat exemplul. Simbolic, nimic nu e sigur. Dar poţi face ipoteze cutezătoare. Poți vedea, bunăoară, în clădirea meschină şi inaccesibilă a castelului de pe deal un simbol al divinităţii (sau al Ierusalimul celest, de ce nu?). Problema e că n-ai rezolvat mare lucru, ai mutat-o ceva mai încolo. Și, în fond, ce-ar putea face somnolentul Klamm în Ierusalimului celest?

Mă gîndesc că Franz Kafka a procedat, ca de obicei, ironic. Cînd citea prietenilor dintr-un manuscris de-al lui, era primul care se amuza. Deci, a construit o tramă și a lăsat restul în voia cititorilor. Care nu duc niciodată lipsă de imaginație, abia așteaptă un impuls.

În încheiere, aș cita niște rezumate. Nimic nu exprimă mai bine ceea ce au înțeles criticii literari decît rezumatele pe care le propun. Primul îmi aparține:

„Un individ, desemnat prin iniţiala K, fără o identitate precisă, greu creditabil, face eforturi zadarnice, în scopul de a fi acceptat de ‘castelani’ ca agrimensor al satului”. Cum vedem, subiectul romanului poate fi expus simplu și limpede. În această privinţă, nu există vreun motiv de controversă între exegeți.

Nici Ilana Shilot nu rezumă altfel: Castelul e povestea unui anume K., individ care soseşte într-o aşezare neînsemnată, urmînd astfel o pretinsă înţelegere cu pretinşii stăpîni ai locului (aceea de a fi agrimensor) şi care aşteaptă zadarnic recunoaşterea statutului său de către domnii din castel.

Și mai simplu a formulat subiectul Elizabeth Boa: „The modern hero has arrived in a premodern world”. Altfel spus: Castelul ar ilustra zicala despre omul (ne)potrivit aflat în locul şi momentul (ne)potrivite...

[Mark Porton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Warning for those wanting to read this, it is excruciating. Having said that, it is Kafka at his best.

Protagonist K. enters a small village located under a large castle on a mountain, its winter, dark, cold, and forever snowing. K. enters an inn and announces he has been engaged by the Count of the Castle as a land surveyor. The initial suspicion and hostility of the locals is transformed into silent acquiescence as a call is made to check with the Central Office of the castle to check K’s. story.

Needless to say, Central Office have never heard of K.

Now we enter “Kafka-World.” It is a nightmare comprising of self-important, often invisible, administrators (senior and junior), inept assistants – such as secretaries and messengers, inefficient and ineffective departments a bloated self-serving bureaucracy and suspicious and unfriendly locals. All of this, snugly ensconced in a dark, cold, unfriendly environment.

K. is buffeted between all the above, he is certainly determined (bahahaha – poor bloke) and he is obsessed about contacting a senior official called Klamm, this guy has all the answers apparently. K. is usually lead on – he gets many false promises if he’s lucky, lots of dead-ends. He’s also allocated two of the most useless assistants one could ever meet – both act like 4-year-olds and make his life worse. Funny enough - K. also ends up being a school janitor and ends up with a fiancée called Freida (Klamm's ex). There are too many other unhelpful & odd characters to mention here – but if you read this you will find the distractions and diversions annoyingly numerous.

One can only feel for K. his pain, frustration and desire for help and friendship is palpable.

One main, if not the main reason I read is to ”feel”. For an author to make one feel frustrated so completely, a bit angry, to feel bored more than once – and also to chuck in a couple of laughable scenes (more like chuckles really – or irritated chuckles), is no mean feat. Kafka achieves this absolutely and completely.

The weight of the novel is considerable. So much so, that I was going to DNF on many occasions. But what compelled me to continue was twofold:

1. My man, Kafka spent a lot of time and effort creating this befuddling world, so I felt an obligation to spend a lot of time in it.

2. To get the whole “Kafka Experience “one must suffer and gobble up every annoying word and situation. So, I did.

Without giving the ending away, this story ends mid-paragraph. This was Kafka’s last work – so we can draw our own conclusions whether he died mid-sentence or not. But, in a nightmare story like this – perhaps there is no ending.

I hated and loved this.

5-Stars

Note for those of you who haven't read Kafka - I'm not sure this one is the best to start your bizarre journey. This short story is a good one of his A Country Doctor and will only take you half an hour: https://www.kafka-online.info/a-count...

[Luís · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mr. K arrives in the village where he is appointed surveyor; he discovers the castle, a central city, where the officials order, with the help of enigmatic circulars and without any spirit of responsibility, the collective life of the village below. To put up with it, except that K. wants to communicate with the castle from which he awaits its installation. He is impatient. He wishes to exercise his rights and exist as a responsible individual lawfully, but this would imply a change in the established order and acceptance by all; therefore, he will be isolated and seen as an absurd character, the stranger, the intruder.
Through absurd machinery, Kafka emphasizes with his usual humor our difficulty in finding our place individually in the world to which we belong.
The devices described by Kafka are, unfortunately, realistic.

[Sonky · Rating 2 out of 5]

Honestly, I quit.

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 goodness I stopped before Kafka's work killed me too.

I was not enriched by the petty squabbles of German? Czech? villagers and the gyrating evasions of bureaucrats worshiped in detail by said squabbling villagers. I didn't like the protagonist; I couldn't even admire K. for not liking K.self.

I think at the time and place of its writing, it was somehow valuable to use The Castle, pointing out in surrealism the satirible qualities of the bureaucracy and peasantry.

The value The Castle has to offer here and now is not worth the attention required to read it. Kafka is upside down in his book.

[Nika · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars rounded up

" It was late evening when K. arrived. The village lay deep in snow. There was nothing to be seen of Castle Mount, for mist and darkness surrounded it, and not the faintest glimmer of light showed where the great castle lay. K. stood on the wooden bridge leading from the road to the village for a long time, looking up at what seemed to be a void ."

Such are the opening lines of this novel, where almost nothing is quite as it appears.
Kafka wrote to Milena Jesenská as regards her translation of one of his works:
“… I have the feeling that I’m taking you by the hand through the story’s subterranean passages, gloomy, low, ugly, almost endless <...> hopefully in order to have the good sense to disappear into the daylight at the exit.”
The same holds true for the Castle. Some of its paragraphs are almost endless, most of them gloomy, but the novel as a whole astounds the reader and catches their attention.
Everything here resembles an agonizing dream. In this nightmare, you continue going in circles without any feasible hope of achieving what you want to achieve or what you presume that you want to achieve.
If we regard the story as a dream, the fact that the writer never completed it (the novel literally ends mid-sentence) will look reasonable. Dreams could be suddenly cut short, could they not?

We follow a man called K. as he arrives in some village to work as a land surveyor. On the top of a nearby mountain stands the castle. The villagers view it as the sole source of power and status.
The only subject that the people in the village care about is the castle. Their lives revolve around this semi-mythical and quasi-mysterious building and officials who seem to have access to it.
It is snowing and does not want to stop at all, as if the weather were in accord with such a gloomy and depressing mood.

K. was left standing in the snow, feeling disinclined to haul his foot out of it only to have it sink in again a little further on. The master tanner and his friend, happy to be rid of K. at last, made their way slowly back through the door of the house, which was only standing ajar, still keeping an eye on him. K. was left alone in the all-enveloping snow.

The seemingly omnipotent castle casts its long shadow over the village. However, the relationship between the two entities must be symbiotic. One cannot exist without another, and vice versa.
In this world, which K. is about to discover, nothing is certain and no one worries about such things as logic and common sense.
Although the protagonist is convinced that the castle sent for him to work as a land surveyor, not a single authorized person is ready to confirm his appointment, thus reducing K. to constant waiting.
K. does not want to reconcile himself with the reality, inimical to him and his plans. He attempts to fight the System and grab every opportunity that presents itself. One of such opportunities is Frieda, an alleged lover of a powerful official from the castle. Some aspects of Frieda’s personality and K.’s attitude toward her may relate to Kafka’s relationship with Milena.
After several unsuccessful attempts to turn the tide, the main character seems to let himself be taken in by the weird circumstances, which have turned out to be too difficult for him.
K. has to follow where fate takes him. Nevertheless, for the story does not have an ending we will never know what may happen to the unlucky land surveyor.
In the novel, everyone experiences anxiety, one way or another. K. is frustrated with the castle’s officials, whereas the local people dislike K. whom they regard as being extremely impolite.
They do not hesitate to point out to him the importance of showing deference toward the castle.
Having to delve into the impersonal world of bureaucracy with its endless tunnels and hiding-places is a disturbing perspective.
K. is too stubborn to stop trying to find some logic concerning his job appointment, but his chances of being able to cope with the absurd look bleak.

What does the image of the castle stand for?
It can be seen as a metaphor for bureaucracy that permeates every sphere of public and private life. However, the power of the castle, which may seem limitless, lasts as long as the people in the village choose to believe in it.

If you do not want to be disappointed, having started the novel, you should not expect to find a plot in it. You should not expect your efforts to be rewarded with a proper ending. There will be none, as I have already mentioned.
The novel, like many of Franz Kafka’s texts, is abstract, remote from real life, and at the same time poignantly personal, reminiscent of Kafka's personal experiences.
Instead of going deeper into the story, which I do not pretend to fully understand, I want to quote the following lines from Leonard Cohen’s Waiting for the Miracle.

Nothing left to do
When you're begging for a crumb
Nothing left to do
When you've got to go on waiting
Waiting for the miracle to come
(see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXvG0...)

I think that they capture the prevailing atmosphere of the book, the feelings of our bedazzled protagonist, and my overall impression.

[فؤاد · Rating 5 out of 5]

۱.
«در نور ته شمع، کسی قوز کرده و کتاب می خواند. مادر گرستکر بود. دست لرزانش را به طرف ک دراز کرد و او را کنار خود نشاند. با زحمت حرف می زد، فهمیدن سخنش دشوار بود، ولی چیزی که می گفت،

متن دست نوشتۀ رمان قصر همین جا و به همین صورتِ ناتمام، پایان می یابد.»

فکر کنم رمان رو باید توی شِلف «ناتمام ها» بذارم. (:


۲.
دو سه ماه بعد از تموم کردن قصر، یه شب خواب دیدم که داشتم برای کسی راجع به تفاوت دو رمان قصر و محاکمه توضیح می دادم. گفتم: محاکمه پیرنگ نداره، از یه سری صحنه های کمابیش منقطع از هم تشکیل شده. ک میره این جا، با این آدم حرف می زنه، یه سری اطلاعات راجع به دادگاه می گیره. بعد میره اون جا، با اون آدم حرف می زنه، یه سری اطلاعات دیگه می گیره و همین طور...

برعکس، قصر پیرنگ داره. یه اتفاق علت اتفاق بعدی میشه که اونم علت اتفاق بعدی میشه و همین طور... مثل مهره های دومینو. قصر هم گفتگوهای طولانی راجع به ماهیت قصر داره، اما تمام داستان فقط گفتگو نیست. این گفتگوها توسط یه رشتهٔ محکم که پیرنگ باشه به هم متصل شده‌ن. به خاطر همینه که قصر رو بیشتر ازمحاکمه دوست دارم.

توی بیداری متوجه این فرقشون نشده بودم.


۳.
چیزی که برام جالب بود، تفاوت شخصیت ک در این رمان با ک در محاکمه بود. با این که هر دو رمان مضمون مشابهی دارن، اما ک در این رمان بیشتر عصیان می کنه، بیشتر بی اعتنایی می کنه به توضیحات و توجیهات بچگانۀ آدم ها راجع به قصر/دادگاه، بیشتر واقع بینی ش رو حفظ می کنه و سعی می کنه درست واکنش نشون بده، واکنش هایی که گاهی دل من خواننده رو خنک می کرد که قصر/دادگاه اگر نه کاملاً حداقل در یک مورد خیلی جزئی سنگ روی یخ شده.

بر خلاف ک در محاکمه که مثل کسی که در خوابی گیر افتاده باشه، تنها ناظر بود، ناظر اتفاقات و تصمیماتی که براش گرفته می شد، بدون این که خودش کاری بتونه بکنه، و در انتها هم به گفتۀ خودش «مثل سگ» کشته شد.

می تونم امیدوار باشم ک در قصر حداقل «مثل سگ» کشته نمی شه. هر چند سرنوشتش مبهم تر از ک در محاکمه است. شاید به خاطر همین شخصیت غیرمنفعل ک در قصر، حتی خود کافکا هم انتهایی برای داستان در نظر نگرفته بوده و نمی دونسته چطور چنین داستانی به انتها می رسه. وقتی که نه شخصیت می تونه شکست بخوره، نه قصر/دادگاه.

به قول جوکر:
This is what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object.
داستانی که ضرورتاً نمی تونه پایانی داشته باشه، و ضرورتاً تا ابد این تخاصم و درگیری ادامه پیدا می کنه.

پل استراترن توی «آشنایی با کافکا» گفته بود این احتمالاً بازتاب حال روحی کافکا موقع نوشتن دو داستانه. موقع نوشتن محاکمه کافکا هنوز تحت تاثیر پدرش و کارش و قید و بندهای دیگه، احساس درماندگی و ناتوانی داشت. اما موقع نوشتن قصر با دختری آشنا شده بود، از زادگاهش به جای دیگه ای نقل مکان کرده بود (به آلمان؟ یادم نیست) و مدتی هر چند کوتاه، از اون احساس درماندگی و ناتوانی که محیط خانواده و زادگاهش بهش تحمیل می کرد آزاد شده بود.

[Henry Avila · Rating 4 out of 5]

A murky exercise in the absurd, a soup without flavor but nutritious to the consumer if they can digest it, a labyrinth into a maze with a molasses plot you may scream at yet continue into the fog helpless, however this is Kafka what did the reader expect? Not a clear view certainly, nevertheless The Castle one of only three novels he tried to produce all incomplete though, the unusual, uniquely talented writer but unsure of his own worth never could believe in himself. As his multiple nervous breakdowns and broken engagements that history records. The book meanders like the main character "K"( why are authors lacking the energy to give a protagonist a credible name?) I digress . The narrative set in a little nameless village probably in Bohemia, Czech Republic dominated by the enigmatic Castle and surrounding territories during the 1920s as electric lights are rare here. Officials from the citadel rule still... for good or bad this is the unanswered question. They don't mingle much with villagers when living in the hamlet, hidden in inns writing reports of who knowns for what purpose the Count never seen, few invited to the castle . K a surveyor he says hired by them, though nobody says for what job. Meets and fall immediately in love, Frieda a barmaid, not pretty or intelligent, all the same sly and former mistress of Klamm the apparent power behind the throne, to be sure nothing is understood in the village, all are illusions the more K wanders lifting the veil the more the mystery thickens and frustrations increase, but bureaucracy governs . K can't leave or stay no money still women Amelia and sister Olga both poor are attracted to the impoverished man. He becomes a janitor, Frieda tries assisting but can she be trusted with Arthur and Jeremiah, K's helpers given to him to spy on him? The novel will frustrate, puzzle and never be solved since the author passed away unable to complete it for better or worse. Those people with stamina might like this, others the grind can not be forgotten and have an opposite reaction. I'm in the former side.

[Nandakishore Mridula · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was the start of the year when NK. picked up The Castle by Kafka, a book he had tried to read a lot of times but failed in the past; but now he was full of a new resolution that he will finish it this time. He had hardly read a few pages, however, when his wife called him. "We need to withdraw some money from the bank," she said: "There are a lot of bills to be paid, and some of them are long overdue.""Can't we do it online?" NK. grumbled. "No," said his wife. "The grocer and the vegetable peddler do not carry card-swiping machines." NK. set off to the bank, annoyed.

At the bank, he tried to withdraw money, first from the ATM, and when that proved unsuccessful, from the bank personally; but the teller told him: "I am afraid there is a technical issue, sir, you Aadhar number which is linked your account has some problem, so I am unable to complete the transaction.""Oh," said NK. "What is the problem?" "I can't see that from here, sir," said the teller. "I think you will have to log in to the site with your ID and check yourself." "Can I do it from here?" NK. asked. "No sir, our bank policy prevents us from allowing outsiders to use our computers. I am sorry, sir." The teller replied.

NK. returned home. "Got the money?" asked his wife. "No. There is a problem with my Aadhar number and I need to correct it online." NK. said. His wife replied: "Well, you can't do it from here. There is a power shutdown until the evening.""I will do it on my laptop," NK. said and went to his office room. But the laptop would not power up: he suddenly remembered that the battery was dead and had to be replaced. He called his computer serviceman. "I guess you will have to bring it here, sir," said that gentleman. "Today all my assistants are on leave and there is no one to send." Accordingly NK. went outside to catch an auto-rickshaw.

He was standing on the roadside for quite some time without success, when a neighbour chanced by. "What are you waiting for?" he asked. "An auto," said NK. "Well, you won't get any today. There's a lightning bandh declared by one of the political parties, the Congress, BJP or CPI(M), I don't know which, to protest against a killing somewhere in the North." Said the neighbour. "Well, in that case I better go home,"NK. said. The neighbour concurred.

By this time it had grown quite dark. NK. wondered where the day had gone. As he went into his office room, he saw The Castle lying unread on his table. "I will definitely read it tomorrow," he said.

[Olga · Rating 5 out of 5]

In my humble opinion, 'The Trial' is a more powerful work than 'The Castle' but it is as difficult as 'The Trial' to describe and define. All these people who live in their village next to the Castle all their lives are motivated and driven by the only desire - to get into the Castle to serve their crazy, comic inhabitants - the officials or at least get closer to them. Only Kafka can create this surreal, dark, tense, somewhat grotesque and mesmerizing (as strange as it may seem) atmospere of the novel where the characters follow their only agenda and twisted logic and keep trying to obtain the unobtainable.

Is there a point in existance? Is salavation possible?

'There's no quiet place here on earth for our love, not in the village and not anywhere else, so I picture a grave, deep and narrow, in which we embrace as if clamped together, I bury my face against you, you yours against me, and no one will ever see us.'
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'If a man has his eyes bound, you can encourage him as much as you like to stare through the bandage, but he'll never see anything.'
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'Illusions are more common than changes in fortune.'
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'Our winters are very long here, very long and very monotonous. But we don't complain about it downstairs, we're shielded against the winter. Oh, spring does come eventually, and summer, and they last for a while, but now, looking back, spring and summer seem too short, as if they were not much more than a couple of days, and even on those days, no matter how lovely the day, it still snows occasionally.'
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'It seemed to K. as if at last those people had broken off all relations with him, and as if now in reality he were freer than he had ever been, and at liberty to wait here in this place usually forbidden to him as long as he desired, and had won a freedom such as hardly anybody else had ever succeeded in winning, and as if nobody could dare touch him or drive him away, or even speak to him, but — this conviction was at least equally as strong — as if at the same time there was nothing more senseless, more hopeless, than this freedom, this waiting, this inviolability.'
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'Of course I'm ignorant, that remains true at all events and is extremely distressing for me, but it does have the advantage that the ignorant man dares more, so I shall gladly put up with ignorance and its undoubtedly dire consequences for a while, as long as my strength lasts.'

[George · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm re-reading The Castle 10 years later with older, more patient eyes and it's proving to be a wonderful time, especially with the new translation.


"The Eighth Chapter" of The Castle is, perhaps, some of the most beautifully composed writing in all of modern literature. The new translation adds a dreamy, sudden stillness and frightening sense of desolate open space in Kafka's work which is better known for his breathless, claustophobic style of writing and description. This feeling was lost and never captured in the previous, "original" translations which used archaic (even for kafka's time) english words from Kafka's odd german. Punctuation and syntax and grammer and phrasing that Kafka never used or put in were added in the old translations. All of that has been stripped away and the purest form of Kafka's German in English is now available. While still not the same as the actual German, it's very close and very true to his "real" style.

Kafka is, without argument, regarded as one of the greats of 20th century literature, and The Castle (the third installment of Kafka's alluded "brothers" trilogy, with Amerika & The Trial being the other two) is the purest example of what makes him great. Within this amazing book that was never finished and thus has no ending, is "The Eighth Chapter", a small chapter so heart-wrenchingly beautiful I had to read it twice before moving on to the next chapter.

It is a hard book to begin as a "starter" into Kafka, and perhaps not even suggested as a starter regardless. Following his own writing path would be highly valuable, reading through the new critical translations of Amerika and The Trial, as well as his short stories (the hunger artist, the sons, the penal colony, the metamorphosis), will grant a greater appreciation when undertaking The Castle.

[Alessandro · Rating 3 out of 5]

The devil has a library. Alongside Necronomicon and Malleus Maleficarum, you can find a copy of Franz Kafka's The Castle. To read this is to know pain. This book is an ungodly torment. It doesn't even have proper paragraph division. There are paragraphs that contain chapters inside themselves. How much of a mind twist is that? Wall of text of death! The narrative unravels in a feverish and dream-like state and never breaks from it. Nevertheless, I manage to finish reading this sucker. Oh! I am the baddest motherfucker alive and I wasn't going to give up just like that. While reading The Castle, I experienced nausea, boredom, anxiety, nervous breakdown and unsurpassed rage. I survived through it all. I half expected that, in the last chapter, Franz Kafka would reveal this book as being a big joke. He would congratulate the reader for reading thus far and offer his sincerest apologizes for such torture. It never happened. I hear he died before finishing The Castle. Maybe that was his intended ending.

Spoilers ahead! The Castle is an obvious commentary about bureaucracy and about an individual oppressed by society. Nonetheless, I cooked up my own interpretation of this bloody mess. The next paragraph exposes it.

The villagers and castle-officers share two common traits. First off, they both are proud of their station in life and job. Some of the villagers work at the most mundane jobs possible. Nevertheless, they are proud of it. The castle-officers are shamelessly inefficient and The Castle fails to provide solution to anything during the novel. Nonetheless, these officers regard themselves as semi-gods and are proud of it. The other common trait is that they all believe that life is out of control. They never act. Instead, they accept every circumstance and let every occurrence mold their lives without resistance. Except the disgraced family, but that’s precisely why they are disgusting to the villagers. Every time a villager reinterprets everything that happens to K as being profoundly and inexorable important to his or her own life, Kafka is pointing out that the commoners never act to fix their lives. They accept it as it is. I perceived this when Pepi (the most unimportant character imaginable) reviews everything that happened thus far from her point of view. Moreover, blamed K. for every affect it had in her life. She is just a passive victim. All the villagers and castle-folk are passive. As a foreigner, K. is different. First, K. does not have a clear job and that hurts his pride. In the first chapters, he is completely pissed off but the book never tells it to you straightaway. He is hurling snowballs at people to catch their attention. If that is not the action of an angry person, I do not know what it is. Second, and most important, K. is active. He acts and tries to solve his problem. That is completely alien to the villagers. Their only trade is the art of making excuses and empty (endless) arguments. That is the reason why the villagers consider K. as being childish and naive. Does he not know he is supposed to accept live as it is? When the narrative approaches its end, K. is reasoning like one of the villagers already. Body Snatcher style, he has been assimilated.

[Krell75 · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Lei non è del Castello, non è del villaggio, lei non è nessuno."

Uno straniero, K., giunge in un freddo villaggio nevoso con un incarico lavorativo. Il suo obiettivo è raggiungere e contattare il CASTELLO, sede dell'autorità, del Potere. Non sarà semplice.

Ci sono scrittori che hanno bisogno di una "chiave" speciale per poter accedere al loro lavoro. Con Kafka siamo di fronte ad uno dei massimi rappresentanti di questo genere di scritti e il povero lettore, che pretende di forzare la serratura e penetrare nel suo pensiero, deve fare della filosofia ermeneutica il suo grimaldello d'argento.
Kafka va quindi interpretato e non semplicemente letto, in base al suo pensiero filosofico, la sua vita, il suo tempo, la sua concezione religiosa, i suoi problemi esistenziali, non farlo lascia il lettore in uno stato di oblio e confusione, un groviglio inestricabile di non sensi e situazioni al limite del grottesco, incapace di cogliere fino in fondo le tante allusioni, le similitudini e gli infiniti possibili significati racchiusi nella sua opera.
Ebraismo al contrario, psicanalisi, surrealismo, Kierkegaard, metafore, allegorie, paradossi, labirinti mentali, angoscia, la mancanza di giustizia calpestata ogni giorno, "un dio in esilio ha portato con sé la giustizia", e la Legge che non può essere messa in dubbio da incapaci, impossibilitati a capire.

"Uno dei principi ispiratori del lavoro delle autorità è che non si contempla affatto la possibilità di un errore."

Una burocrazia padrona e complicata, talmente irraggiungibile da portare alla follia, come la dodicesima fatica di Asterix. Personaggi ambigui e scostanti o grotteschi come ad esempio i due aiutanti, simili ai gemelli in Alice nel paese delle Meraviglie, altro caposaldo del surrealismo.
Non mi sento assolutamente in grado di giungere a dare un significato univoco a questo "incubo" della letteratura, dove anche gli esperti non ne vengono del tutto a capo. Nessuno può. Kafka fa della sua scrittura un mezzo per racchiudere la sua angoscia ed è quindi del tutto personale. Ogni tentativo di critica risulta sterile e incompleto.
Molti dei significati racchiusi in questi frammenti mi saranno sfuggiti, perché in fondo solo Kafka conosceva Kafka, ma senza dubbio mi sono trovato più volte a riflettere e altri con un bel sorriso amaro in volto. Esperienza assolutamente imperdibile.

-------------------------------------
"She's not from the Castle, she's not from the village, she's nobody."

A stranger, K., arrives in a cold snowy village with a job assignment. His goal is to reach and contact the CASTLE, seat of authority, of Power. It won't be easy.

There are writers who need a special "key" to access their work. With Kafka we are faced with one of the greatest representatives of this kind of writing and the poor reader, who claims to force the lock and penetrate his thought, must make hermeneutic philosophy his silver pick.
Kafka must therefore be interpreted and not simply read, based on his philosophical thought, his life, his time, his religious conception, his existential problems, not doing so leaves the reader in a state of oblivion and confusion, an inextricable tangle of non-senses and situations bordering on the grotesque, unable to fully grasp the many allusions, similarities and infinite possible meanings enclosed in his work.
Reverse Judaism, psychoanalysis, surrealism, Kierkegaard, metaphors, allegories, paradoxes, mental labyrinths, anguish, the lack of justice trampled on every day, "a god in exile brought justice with him", and the Law that cannot be enforced in doubt from incapable, unable to understand.

"One of the guiding principles of the work of the authorities is that the possibility of a mistake is not contemplated at all."

A mistress and complicated bureaucracy, so unattainable as to lead to madness, like the twelfth effort of Asterix. Ambiguous and unfriendly or grotesque characters such as the two helpers, similar to the twins in Alice in Wonderland, another cornerstone of surrealism.
I absolutely do not feel able to come to give a univocal meaning to this "nightmare" of literature, where even the experts are not entirely on top of it. Nobody can. Kafka makes his writing a means to enclose his anguish and is therefore entirely personal. Any attempt at criticism is sterile and incomplete.
Many of the meanings contained in these fragments will have escaped me, because after all only Kafka knew Kafka, but without a doubt I found myself reflecting several times and others with a beautiful, bitter smile on their faces. Absolutely unmissable experience.

[Cecily · Rating 5 out of 5]

An extraordinary combination of beauty and subtle, paranoid horror - "growing inured to disappointment". Who else can make snow sinister (scary perhaps, but surely not sinister)? It ends in the middle of a sentence, more tantalisingly still, it ends with a mysterious old woman just about to say something... Very apt for a tale of layers of secrecy and never-ending frustration.

It can be interpreted as an allegory for Jewish alienation and/or as a semi-autobiographical rendition of his relationship with Milena and hers with her husband (portrayed as the mysterious Klamm). Or you can read your own meaning into it.

See my Kafka-related bookshelf for other works by and about Kafka: HERE.

See also Murakami's Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, which I reviewed HERE. One of the two strands has many parallels with this.

[Steven Godin · Rating 3 out of 5]

What a crying shame Kafka never got to finish what probably would have been his finest achievement. Certainly on an emotional level anyway. Kafka had a greater poignancy and a deeper feeling for his characters in The Castle when compared to the other works of his I have read, so it was extremely frustrating for this book to end right in mid-sentence. Damn!
I knew it was going to happen, but how can one truly prepare one's self for a novel without an ending?

Parts of me felt like it would have been better not reading it at all, to spare the pain of getting to the final few words, and screaming to the heavens - NO!
The three star rating reflects more on the way it made me feel at the end (or non-end in this case)
rather than what went before, which was mostly great.

What was to become of K.? I can only guess how things would have gone, and haven't a clue just how much more Kafka planned to write to get to his finale. So if there are any of my fine and helpful GR brothers and sisters who are well knowledged when it comes to The Castle, and have any ideas, then I'd love to know.

I'm now off to drown my Kafka sorrows with a cocktail or two.

[Game0ftomes · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn’t really get this book. The main guy, K., just walks around a snowy village trying to get into a castle but never does. Everyone talks weird and nothing happens. It was confusing and boring. Why didn’t he just leave?

[AiK · Rating 5 out of 5]

Традиционная для Кафки спайка абсурда, тревоги, бесплодных усилий предвещает беду, которая все не наступает, а образует бесконечный и бессмысленный путь в никуда, которое никогда не кончится. Сродни Сизифову труду, ежедневные попытки сдвинуться хоть на йоту, борьба с системой не дают результата. Замок может широко интерпретироваться – от тоталитарной системы до господа Бога. В любом случае, это власть земная, небесная или любая другая – она абсолютна по своей природе, до которой простому человеку далеко и бессмыслен труд достичь даже его подножия.
Но не только «самый ничтожный человек» подавляется этой властью, абсурд системы в том, что люди, выстраивающие её и служащие ей, служащие замка также подавляемы ею. На каждого начальника найдется свой, более вышестоящий начальник. Незыблемость иерархичной пирамиды обусловливается тем, что система является единственным источником закона, закона несовершенного, направленного на воспроизводство бюрократии до бесконечности, в результате чего законопослушный человек и служащие этой системы оказывается вовлеченный в бег по кругу, ��ак белка в колесе. Это холостой ход, деятельность ради деятельности, ориентированность на процесс, а не на результат. Абсурдность бюрократии во всей ее бессмысленности!
Примечательна реакция жителей деревни на человека, пришедшего извне, а, значит, свободного от системы – его пытаются унизить, подавить. К. пришел свободным человеком, но вдруг оказывается принятым на работу землемером. Системе, чтобы подчинить, нужно вобрать в себя человека. Так К. оказывается частью системой, тем винтиком, который крутится энергией и волею бумаг. Задача системы – занять ее участников этим бегом по кругу. Кафка гениально описал механизм этой адской машины, в которой современные люди тоже выступают винтиками, в любой стране, может уже в цифровизированной форме, но суть та же. Кафка попытался осмыслить абсурд устройства человеческого общества, изобразив его необходимые ингредиенты и механизм, и это ему удалось.

[Kostas Papadatos · Rating 1 out of 5]

Καλοκαιρινό βιβλίο, ότι πρέπει για διακοπές και για ανάγνωση δίπλα στη θάλασσα. ΝΟΟΟΤ. Ούτε καν, παίξτε ρακέτες καλύτερα, χτίστε στην άμμο παλάτια, δε ξέρω, κάντε κάτι, στην εξοχή είστε που να πάρει. Η αλήθεια είναι ότι δεν είναι τόσο κακό, αλλά η στιγμή που επέλεξα να το διαβάσω ήταν. Επίσης ακόμα πιο λάθος επιλογή ήταν να αντικαταστήσω τον σελιδοδείκτη μου με ένα κομμάτι μπέικον. Ο ήρωας μας λοιπόν, ο "Κ", αποφασίζει να επισκεφτεί τον Πύργο "αφού". Δε μπορεί όμως να φτάσει σε αυτόν λόγω γραφειοκρατίας και αποφασίζει να μείνει στο χωριό κάτω από τον Πύργο. Οι κάτοικοι του όμως είναι μεγάλα γαϊδούρια που νομίζουν πως η λέξη "φιλοξενία" είναι χωριό στην Ανδαλουσία. Εκεί, ο "Κ" γνωρίζει την Φρίντα (είναι από το χωριό δε την ξέρετε) και κατόπιν ωρίμου σκέψεως ενός νανοδεύτερου τη ζητάει σε γάμο γιατί την αγαπάει (πφφ). Αυτό μέχρι τις πρώτες εκατό σελίδες, όολο το υπόλοιπο βιβλίο περιστρέφεται γύρω από το -θα μπω, δε θα μπω- του ήρωα μας στον Πύργο. Το τέλος (το ποιο;) του βιβλίου ανύπαρκτο, η ιστορία μας τελειώνει πιο απότομα και από χαράδρα στο Grand Canyon, είχε κατάθλιψη και φυματίωση ο Kafka όταν το έγραφε και δεν το ολοκλήρωσε ποτέ. Thanks for nothing Franz, μας υποχρέωσες.

[Sawsan · Rating 4 out of 5]

تبدو الحياة في كتابات كافكا كالسراب..الانسان لا ينال مُراده منها مهما بلغ سعيه فيها
كافكا بارع في اختيار أفكار رواياته حتى ولو لم يكملها للنهاية
أبدع هنا في تصوير حالة الحيرة والغضب والاغتراب لدى بطل روايته ك
في محاولاته لإدراك وإصلاح خطأ ما خاص بعمله وقبوله في أرض القلعة
ك يواجه قوة وسلطة القلعة التي تتحكم في وجوده ومصيره
وأهالي القرية وما يمثلونه من خضوع ولا مبالاة وعبث وبيروقراطية
يدور في دائرة من الغموض واللاجدوى من أجل الوصول إلى مطالبه
وحاجاته الانسانية البسيطة لكنه في النهاية قد لا يصل إلى شيء

نص يحتمل التأويل بعض مشاهده ممتعة برغم الإطالة في الحوارات والتفاصيل

[Miss Ravi · Rating 5 out of 5]

جهان رمان قصر، خواننده را به‌مانند شخصیت اصلی‌اش «ک» سرگردان می‌کند. قصر برای من نمادی از یک سیستم ناکارآمد و آشفته است و «ک» هرچه برای نظم دادن و مرزبندی‌ کردن آن تلاش کند، بی‌ثمر است. دنیای این رمان، دور باطلی است که به هیچ نقطه ثابت و امنی نمی‌رسد. و چه مهارتی دارد کافکا برای ساختن و نمایش این جهان انباشته از سرگردانی. هربار کتاب معرکه‌ای می‌خوانم به ذهن نویسنده‌اش فکر می‌کنم و دلم می‌خواهد می‌توانستم ذهن کافکا را ببینم که هرچند ممکن است آن‌چنان تاریکی غلیظی فراگرفته باشدش اما برای من بسیار تماشایی است.

[Semjon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Das Schloss ist für mich ein Roman, der nicht von der Handlung, sondern von der Atmosphäre lebt. Diese ist durchweg beklemmend, phobisch und düster. Der Landvermesser K. taucht in einem Dorf auf, das von einem Schloss beherrscht wird. Dabei ist es kein aristokratischer Herrscher, der die Angst bei den Dorfbewohnern hervorruft, sondern das Schloss als Institution, als undurchdringlicher Verwaltungsapparat. Es gelingt K. nicht, zum Schloss vorzudringen. Die Dorfbewohner stehen ihm feindlich gegenüber, und K. ist auch kein Sympathieträger, der Vertrauen erwecken kann.

Das Buch hat kein Ende. Es hört mittendrin als Fragment auf und so bleiben die vielen Fragen ungelöst. Ist K. wirklich ein Landvermesser? Hat er seinen Beruf nur vorgetäuscht und das Schloss spielt letztlich nur das Spiel mit, bedankt sich sogar in einer völlig abstrusen Szene für die geleisteten Landvermessungsarbeiten, die K. gar nicht durchgeführt hat. Das Schloss schickt ihm sogar zwei Gehilfen, die in ihrer Absurdität an Estragon und Wladimir erinnern. K. will es nicht wahrhaben, dass es keinen Zugang zum Schloss gibt. Er will diese devote Ehrfurcht der Dorfbewohner nicht übernehmen. Die Regeln, die in diesem Mikrokosmos Dorf-Schloss gelten, bleiben das ganze Buch über unklar und rätselhaft. Letztlich muss sich K. damit abfinden, dass er einer Übermacht gegenübersteht, gegen die er nicht ankommt. K. betrachtet die Auseinandersetzung von Beginn an als einen Kampf mit der Schlossbehörde. Er ist ein Don Quixote, der gegen die Windmühlen anrennt.

Es macht nicht immer Freude, dieses Buch zu lesen. Sprachlich ist es ein Genuss, aber die schier endlosen Gedankenströme des Protagonisten und Monologe der Dorfbewohner steigerten meine Aggressivität. Man möchte die Figuren schütteln und zur Besinnung bringen. Was K. mit dem Roman aussagen wollte, ist unklar. Die aufgeworfenen Fragen im Buch muss jeder Leser selbst für sich beantworten. Man sollte beim Lesen mehr auf das eigene Empfinden als auf die Interpretationsmöglichkeiten achten. Was bewirkt es in einem, wenn man gegenüber einer Institution so hilflos ist wie K. gegenüber dem Schloss? Fühlt man sich da nicht selbst daran erinnert, in welchen Situation man auch keine Anerkennung der eigenen Personen, der eigenen Wünsche und Bedürfnisse erfahren hat. Literatur kann schon weh tun, insbesondere bei Kafka.

[Rosemarie Björnsdottir Jørgensen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is simultaneously one of the most boring and insufferable books I've ever read, but also one of the most impressive and perfectly crafted books I've ever read. I hated this book so much, but that's also why I loved it.

Regardless of how much I hated reading this book (in the end), it is still one of my forever favourites. And the dread of reading it and how annoying it was to get through towards the end also felt perfect. It felt like that was exactly how the book intended to make you feel.

The atmosphere is incredible — so dreamlike and intriguing. The Castle is also a surprisingly funny book because of how absurd everything is. Nothing makes sense but at the same time it all makes perfect sense.

The Castle also contains my absolute favourite quote of all time:
“I can’t think of any greater happiness than to be with you all the time, without interruption, endlessly, even though I feel that here in this world there’s no undisturbed place for our love, neither in the village nor anywhere else; and I dream of a grave, deep and narrow, where we could clasp each other in our arms as with clamps, and I would hide my face in you and you would hide your face in me, and nobody would ever see us any more.”

[james · Rating 1 out of 5]

i wouldn’t have let him into the castle either

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 4 out of 5]

Four stars to keep the Kafka cartel from adopting me to their ranks and slapping me with their theses on the role of Klamm as übermensch and Olga as überwench. Franz transfers The Trial to a small village, where K. struggles to receive an appointment at the department for deportment in the castle, and sets about seducing a barmaid on the floor of the bar (no one told me Kafka was so erotic!), and making wrong utterances to every person encountered. The fact this novel breaks off mid-sentence proves apt: one suspects K. to remain trapped in the village, never to receive an appointment with Klamm until the moment of death, and fortunately, by the time the final sentence comes around, one is begging for release following Pepi’s rambling free indirect monologue (one of many overlong interactions in the novel). Otherwise, a brilliant beach read.

[Jan-Maat]

It struck me round about page 200 that there was no particular reason for this novel to end, or for it to have been this long, rather it could have progressed near infinitely, a continuing unfolding of enigmatic conversations and meetings with assistant secretaries and children of under castellians, the promise of revelation growing balanced by the necessity of accepting the fundamental absurdity of the situation.

I found I had to read this novel slowly, partly because of Kafka caused insanity, partly because the situation described is so enveloping ,that the idea of escaping the Castle by finishing the book became in some way a thought crime, and semi-consciously, or even demi-consciously, I read slower and slower, just as K. walked all day but never got closer to the Castle so I read but barely progressed.

I liked the alternative beginning and the rejected fragments many of which I read as I went like footnotes, I fantasied about an insane edition of The Castle with two versions of the text printed not in succession, but back to front so the book had two front covers and one could flip the book over to read the other version like an A and B side of a record.

We know that in the graveyard of the nineteenth century two graves lie side by side: God and the author. Who wrote The Castle, Franz Kafka? K.? Max Brod? The reader? Any of these acting in collusion and conspiracy together?

I read a Broderised edition. Kafka and Brod are for me like Mussgorsky and Rimsky-Korsakov, one man asserting himself over the creativity of the other. It may in principle be possible to read Kafka without Brod but without Brod would we even know Kafka today? Would his strangeness left him forgotten?

I was compelled of my own free will to read this, freely submitting to the gravitational pull of a friend reading Letters to Milena. That was insane. Kafka is not K. K. is Kafka, Milena is not Frieda, and yet...

At first the experience of K. in the story reminded me of telephoning a large organisation, you don't have the direct number of the person you need to talk to, from the switchboard you are transfered through the system, put on hold, transfer from number to number, ultimately to be connected to nothingness, a dull tone only in the receiver.

Traditionally I would fall back on the social and cultural context, you know Kafka had lived through the experience of going to bed one night a citizen of the Austro-Hungarian dual monarchy, waking up feeling a bit strange, and not quite one's self, and then in the evening realising that he was now a Czechoslovak.

Reading further the setting of The castle reminded me of Melvyn Peake's Gormendghast, but told from the point of view of Steerpike, Peake's trilogy began to be published in 1946, the first translation into English of The castle was published in 1941. The setting seems curiously similar particularly the relationship between village/outertown and the fortress, also how both places appear both isolated from the wider world and yet of this world too.

The Muirs' translation in its word choice was influenced by Max Brod's understanding of the religious nature of the text, this was not wildly unreasonable, Brod lays out this reading in the
First Afterword with particular attention as the Sortini/Sordini episode as a parallel to Kierkegaard's interpretation of the Abraham and Isaac story in Fear and Trembling. Well. The problem is that a good parallel is not a straight forward thing to appreciate, does it indicate agreement or criticism or nuance of the original story - more complex in this case as it touches on the relationship between God and people! Here the water is very deep, the story of The Castle does not suggest an uncritical relationship to the Castle and its administration, if it represents Divinity in any way it suggests that at the heart of the Temple, in the Holy of Holies, one finds only the The Wizard of Oz although having said that I understand that in such places in various temple traditions often there is nothing or perhaps only a mirror to make clear the ineffability and inexplicability of the experience with the Divinity, or as it says in the story - you don't know if the person you are speaking to on the telephone is really the person you think you are talking to, indeed you can't even know if the person you meet face to face is the person they say they are. Deep water since I know too little about Kafka and his religious views, or his attitudes generally. Was Brod right? after reading vor dem Gesetz I admit I am much more open to a religious reading of Kafka Letters have emerged in which the two discuss their fears of contracting syphilis so they were comfortable discussing certain intimate issues with each other, on the other hand my impression reading the sections removed by Kafka was that he was attempting to polish the text into a mirror. The reader approaches the Castle and finds their own preoccupations and vital concerns. It could be bureaucracy - perfectly insane, or Capitalist society, or the modern condition in a post-Enlightenment world or a vision of life as a struggle for power or as resistance against the attempts of others to dominate us, or about the relationship, here dysfunctional, between sex and intimacy, or indeed Kafka knows what. The reader reads and finds themself at the centre of the text. The Author is dead. Long live the Reader that miserable, demanding tyrant!

Indeed it was the Muir translation which I first read half a lifetime ago, the Muirs were, once upon a time, a young Scottish couple (she a teacher, he a drifter and refugee Orcadian) who rumgebumelt about Europe in the interwar period working for the British Council here and there. They spent some time in Prague and Dresden among other places, learnt themselves some German and produced the early translations into English of Kafka, rather like the great plant collectors of the eighteenth century brought back exotic blooms to European glasshouses, so they transplanted, no doubt not as subtly as others since the work of this middle European writer to the English speaking world.

And also I mentioned Letters to Milena. I was struck her by the sudden force of feeling in this for example: jeder Angriff gegen Frieda gleichzeitig ein Angriff gegen meine Existenz ist. Ich bin aus eigenem Willen hierhergekommen, und aus eigenem Willen habe ich mich hier festgehakt (p168) and here the quotes from those letters popping up in my feed made a new sense of the story, if Frieda is a Milena, and if Klamm is a Milena's husband, then K.'s belief and acceptance of Frieda's feelings for Klamm continuing and respected even in the context of their own intimacy make a different sense. An attack against his existence? Here then I wondered not novel as masked biography but maybe the novel as a poetisisation of his own life and experience - this is what life feels like to me - Franz Kafka - read and despair, mere reader! And there is in this an acceptance of an insane situation as an opportunity for the assertion of identity and values.

As a bonus since we read Kafka we understand the world through his eyes - Kafka creates our Weltanschauung. We understood what a Kafkaesque situation is because we have read Kafka.

Then there is the dreaminess of the whole thing, the way I at least, maybe you too recognise and understand things in dreams in a direct way, for example I dreamt I was in Australia and saw a downtrodden Sumatran tiger walking alongside a road. I can't in this waking life distinguish a Sumatran from a non-Sumatran tiger, but in the dream if was a fact beyond question. So with the two assistants K. recognises them and doesn't know them either then follows eventually the delightful exchange:"Er hat dein Dienst verlassen. Du warst aber auch ein wenig grob und hart zu uns. Die zarte Seele hat es nicht ertragen. er ist ins Schloss zurückgekehrt und führt Klage über dich..."
"Worüber klagt ihr denn?"
"Darüber...dass du keinen Spaß verstehst..." (p.195)
The assistants have been detailed to K. they protest they know nothing of surveying, they are told it is not important: Das wichtigste ist aber, dass ihr ihn ein wenig erheitert. Wie man mir berichtet, nimmt er alles sehr schwer. Er ist jetzt ins Dorf gekommen, und gleich ist ihm das ein großes Ereignis, während es doch in Wirklichkeit gar nichts ist. Das sollt ihr ihm beibringen (ibid.)
He must be cheered up, he takes things to heart. In the end a kiss is just a kiss and a novel is just a novel?

Delightfully insane, deliberately mysterious, it brought to mind The quest of the Holy Grail, in one episode, questing knights arrive at a Castle, the Lady of the Castle has leprosy and can only be cured by bathing in the blood of a maiden of noble birth. What luck, the knights happen to have their virgin sister with them - how much blood is needed? Eight and a half pints. She has just such an amount. Sister dies, the Lady is cured - don't try this at home. This what happens when you start rereading Kafka. He gets everywhere, like sand at the beach.