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The Castle by Franz Kafka
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The Castle (original 1926; edition 1999)

by Franz Kafka

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8,312931,027 (3.95)170
Classic Literature. Fiction. Literature. HTML:

Translated and with a preface by Mark Harman

Left unfinished by Kafka in 1922 and not published until 1926, two years after his death, The Castle is the haunting tale of K.â??s relentless, unavailing struggle with an inscrutable authority in order to gain access to the Castle. Scrupulously following the fluidity and breathlessness of the sparsely punctuated original manuscript, Mark Harmanâ??s new translation reveals levels of comedy, energy, and visual power previously unknown to English language readers… (more)

Member:amalk
Title:The Castle
Authors:Franz Kafka
Info:Random House USA Inc (1999), Edition: New Ed, Paperback, 352 pages
Collections:Your library
Rating:****
Tags:top_10

Work Information

The Castle by Franz Kafka (1926)

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  4. 00
    Metropole by Ferenc Karinthy (alzo)
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» See also 170 mentions

English (75)  Catalan (2)  French (2)  Italian (2)  Dutch (2)  Portuguese (Portugal) (1)  German (1)  Portuguese (Brazil) (1)  Spanish (1)  Swedish (1)  All languages (88)
Showing 1-5 of 75 (next | show all)
This is a very funny book, although it’s beats of humor are often mixed with a kind of uncanny horror. It seems to me that Kafka isn’t often talked about as either a kind of humorist or horror writer, but I feel like he managed to forge his way into a psychological territory bordering upon both feelings of fear and hysterics.
While I think it’s fair to say that his style (as filtered thru the diluting influence of popular conception) has influenced almost everything that came after, he remains an artist in a world of his own. So much of what makes the style of this book special is the strange voice and tone with which it was written; we move with K. through a word that is muffled and cloistered by snow drifts. We pass through buildings of inconceivable dimensions that resemble constructions of anatomy rather than architecture. We meet characters whose personalities, bodies, and very identities are constantly warping as if seen through a funhouse mirror.
This ambiguity, which struck me as a young reader the first time I read this book as a purposeful stylistic choice, now seems like it could have been simply a result of the unfinished nature of the book. While his style and concepts were surely avant-garde in the truest sense of the term, the hagiography of Kafka has maybe got in the way of considering the majority of the works as they truly are: raw and unfinished scribbling in a notebook, not considered fit for publishing by their own creator. In the preface to the edition I read (trans. Anthea Bell) written by Ritchie Robertson, he laments the fact that Kafka had no chance to work with an editor on this book, as he evidently needed it. In contrast to Dostoyevsky (who Kafka loved and may have been trying to emulate in this regard) who wrote some of the best talkers in literature, The Villagers have a tendency to ramble on and on, dissecting a situation from every possible angle, exhaustively listing every detail of a situation or occurrence. The key to our understanding of these episodes may have been written into the book itself- K. is lulled to sleep by such a “rant” delivered by a bedridden official towards the end of the book. I remember feeling really inspired as a teenager who had aspirations to writing after reading this book, as a I felt like it was so clear that the writer was searching for the plot and meaning of the book right along with us readers, so different from the conception of the novelist as someone who writes from elaborate plans and schematics prepared beforehand. But of course, this style’s faults are only too apparent when you listen to someone describe their feelings towards a random bureaucrat or former bartender for 20 pages.
The question that naturally comes to mind is: what does it all mean? I’ve never been to interested in analyzing, and I think with a book like this, which relies so much on atmosphere and ineffable sensation, it defeats the point. What I will venture is that this seems like a 20th century response to the intellectual and technological maraudings of the previous 100 years. Kafka was after all living in the thick of the world putting that 19th century potential into horrifying practice. If Dostoyevsky was mapping out the course of man’s soul with no god to guide him, Kafka was exploring what happens to man’s body when the soul has long been buried and forgotten. ( )
  hdeanfreemanjr | Jan 29, 2024 |
So strange, like a dream where you're trying to run but your feet won't move. No matter what K does he cannot get to the man in the castle. I understand Kafkaesque much better now. ( )
  KallieGrace | Jan 18, 2024 |
Is Franz Kafka just talking about bureaucracy, how idiotic it can be, and how frustrating it is to deal with it? This is the most straight-forward reading of the book, I feel there is more to it but it fails me to understand. ( )
  siok | Jan 7, 2024 |
I generally like Kafka's stories, but this one was a bit dull for me. In this novel-length, unfinished story, a man turns up in a village saying he is a land surveyor contracted to work for someone from the castle. This supposed employer, Klamm, proves oddly elusive, so that the land surveyor winds up working as a janitor in the village school, while trying unsuccessfully to actually meet and speak with Klamm. He even engages himself to marry Klamm's mistress, perhaps just because he likes her, but more probably because she was Klamm's mistress and might get him access to Klamm. Since part of the point of this story is to illustrate the absurd layers of procedure that get in the way of any real progress in any larger bureaucracy, the tedium of this story fits, but it still made for a very slow read.
This book was never finished by Kafka, so perhaps he would have improved this one with more time to edit the final manuscript. ( )
  JBarringer | Dec 15, 2023 |
This world is surreal, claustrophobic, irrational, paranoid, absurd, sinister, and darkly funny. The writing was sublime at times. Reading the dialogues was like trying to find my way in an underground labyrinth, and then emerging in unexpected places.

This book also seemed to do very strange things to my brain and my perception of reality. It was a shame, and it was a relief, when it ended in mid-sentence (it could have gone on forever). ( )
  Alexandra_book_life | Dec 15, 2023 |
Showing 1-5 of 75 (next | show all)
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» Add other authors (82 possible)

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Kafka, Franzprimary authorall editionsconfirmed
Böhmer, GunterIllustratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Bell, AntheaTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Bragg, BillIllustratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Brod, MaxEditorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Fabian, ErwinCover designersecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Harman, MarkTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Howe, IrvingIntroductionsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Kaiser, ErnstTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Muir, EdwinTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Muir, WillaTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Pasley, MalcolmEditorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Rho, AnitaTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Sötemann, GuusTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Wilkins, EithneTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
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It was late evening when K. arrived. (tr. Mark Harman)
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Classic Literature. Fiction. Literature. HTML:

Translated and with a preface by Mark Harman

Left unfinished by Kafka in 1922 and not published until 1926, two years after his death, The Castle is the haunting tale of K.â??s relentless, unavailing struggle with an inscrutable authority in order to gain access to the Castle. Scrupulously following the fluidity and breathlessness of the sparsely punctuated original manuscript, Mark Harmanâ??s new translation reveals levels of comedy, energy, and visual power previously unknown to English language readers

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