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The Castle by Kafka is a very strange book and will definitely not appeal to everyone! It was written by Franz Kafka in 1922, he started it as he arrived at the snowy and mountainous Spindlermühle. The place obviously had a striking impact on Kafka and the setting for The Castle seems to have been plucked straight from this location. Kafka died before he finished The Castle. It is unclear whether he ever intended to finish the book or whether he abandoned it as a ‘lost cause’, either way the novel frustratingly ends mid-sentence. Some chapters are named and others aren’t, and the novel was closely edited by Max Brod before he published it. All of this adds to the general confusion and surrealism of the novel.

Late one evening, K. arrives in a remote village and asks for accommodation at the inn. However, he is told that he does not have permission to sleep in the village and must therefore leave. After an uncomfortable confrontation, K reveals he is the Land Surveyor requested by the Count, and when this is confirmed by a telephone call to the Castle, he is grudgingly allowed to stay. The following morning, K. attempts to reach the Castle, but slowed down by the snow, he does not get very far before he is too tired to continue. His attempts to find help and a friendly face are met with hostility and an unwilling compliance. This attitude is maintained by the local villagers throughout the novel, who are highly suspicious of the stranger in their midst. Frieda, a local barmaid at the Herrenhoff Inn, is overly friendly with K. and after a shockingly short period of time they are engaged to be married.

In the meantime, two assistants arrive to help K., but K. has no idea what work he has been assigned, nor is he able to contact the relevant authorities at the Castle to find out what he should be doing. K. becomes obsessed with trying to contact Herr Klamm, the official to whom he is answerable. At all points his attempts are frustrated by circumstances within the village. K. can not understand the psychology of the villagers or the absurdity of the bureaucratic and administrative system of the Castle. The Mayor informs K. that his appointment was in actual fact a mistake; there is no position for a Land Surveyor. Instead K. is offered work as the school caretaker until the situation can be rectified. K. continues his struggles to get into the Castle whilst contending with the pressures of his new relationship, the inane activity of his assistants, and the antagonism of his new neighbours. The only family, who are willing to help K., is the Barnabas family, who have been ostracized by the village, after a bizarre faux pas.

The novel breaks off at Chapter 25, just as K. appears to make a contact which might get him closer to his goal. Due to the nature of the novel, it seems almost cruel that Kafka was unable or unwilling to finish The Castle.  Ironically K. is left in a perpetual state of alienation and the reader can only guess as to the fate of the Land Surveyor.

The Castle is about isolation and oppression. K., the outsider, is consistently obstructed, not only in his attempts to contact the Castle, but in everything he attempts. His ways of thinking and doing things are seen as alien and abnormal, and his refusal to adapt to village ways is met with mistrust and antipathy. K. has no real chance of ever getting to the Castle, because he cannot understand what the Castle stands for. Even Frieda, K.’s fiancée, cannot understand him and completely misinterprets his actions and intentions.

The villagers are extremely odd and it is very difficult to make any connection with them. They come across as exceedingly naïve and childlike at times. They do not seem to have any comprehension of the world outside of the village or the Castle. They do not question the way the system is run, but always defend it. They have an unswerving and absolute faith in the administrative system and are awestruck by all castle officials, who are treated as exceptional and sensitive beings who must be protected and respected. The fear of upsetting an official is constantly at the forefront of the villagers’ minds. Yet, they believe the officials to be so infallible as to be incapable of being upset by anything. This is an example of one of the many contradictions throughout the book, which K. must contend with. The extremity of the reverence due to the officials is witnessed in the story of Barnabas’ family. A perceived insult is blown out of all proportion to the extent that the family must sue for a pardon, which absurdly can not be granted as their guilt in the matter is not proved nor recorded by any Castle official. Yet, the family suffer the complete destruction of their reputation as they are unwilling to let go of their perceived guilt and fall into disrepute among the villagers. This highlights the utter oppression of the Castle and how the fear of being out of favour completely immobilizes the villagers beyond all reasonable levels.

At other times the villagers appear to be simple, mindless, automatons who just spout information that they have been programmed with. When K. presents an alternative to their indoctrination, they seem unable to cope and revert to arguing with themselves out loud in an attempt to place K.’s perspective within their limited view of the world. This argument with themselves often cycles through self-contradictions, only for them to return their original viewpoint. Or if K. is irrefutable then they merely accept his word alongside what they already know, often causing contradictions within themselves. For example when K. rings the Castle in Chapter 2 about the assistants. K identifies himself as an assistant called Josef but the Castle knows that the assistants are called Artur and Jeremias: ‘Those are the new assistants,’ said K. ‘No, they are the old ones.’ ‘They are the new ones. I am the old assistant, I arrived here today to join the surveyor.’ ‘No!’ the voice shouted. ‘Then who am I?’ asked K., remaining calm. And after a pause the same voice… though it seemed like another, deeper and more authoritative voice: ‘You are the old assistant.’

The officials seem completely incapable of functioning as a cohesive unit. They continually pass the buck and refuse to make any kind of concrete decision. Their work load seems never-ending, although this is probably due to the ludicrous amount of paperwork which they all seem to have and squabble about. The officials are disinterested in anyone but themselves and their job. The fact that K. has traveled miles to come and complete a job, which he was appointed to by the Castle, does not seem to bother them in the slightest. His arrival is an inconvenience that no one wants to deal with. So they waste his precious time and avoid him at all costs, whilst they “deliberate” over his case. Their avoidance is an abuse of the power which they hold, the villagers have learnt to accept that the officials take forever in decided anything, and their acceptance only legitimizes the officials abuse of power.

Although The Castle appears to be set within our own world, there are elements of the narrative which are unquestionably otherworldly. For example, when K.’s assistants arrive, K. asks if they are in fact his old assistants, who have worked with him before. Surely K. would know just by looking at them whether this was the case or not. Furthermore K. had seen the assistants come from the Castle, they are totally ignorant of surveying and do not have any of the instruments, which K. had given to his old assistants. Yet they maintain the pretence for some time. Later in the novel, when the assistants are separated, K. does not recognise Jeremias. K. says ‘But you look quite different.’ ‘That’s because I am on my own,’ said Jeremias. ‘When I’m alone I lose my youthful high spirits.’ It seems bizarre that this would manifest itself physically in such a way as to make the assistant totally unrecognisable to K.! Another mysterious phenomenon is the tiredness which settles over K. whilst he is in the village and the strange perception of time that K. finds it difficult to cope with. Daytime seems to consist of only a couple of hours, while the darkness holds sway for the greater part of the day.

Kafka’s writing style is easy enough to read, the plot is not complex, although,with the numerous contradictions, it can get confusing at times. I found the novel incredibly frustrating because of the futility of all K.’s efforts to be accepted. Of course this is the point; Kafka was a German-speaking Jew, living in Prague in the early 20th century. At the end of day K. and the reader will never get into or know the Castle.