The Castle, by Franz Kafka (1926) ★★★★
A thorough review of one of the stories which Kafka never intended to reach the hundreds of thousands of people that it did.
“Fear of the authorities is born in you here, and is further suggested to you all your lives in the most various ways and from every side, and you yourselves help to strengthen it as much as possible.” Franz Kafka, The Castle
It is incredible to think that this story was penned 102 years ago in the snowy peaks of Central Europe, for nothing about it is particularly dated. Frustration towards bureaucracy and disorganization is always prevalent in the present day. Discontent is a natural reaction to displays of ignorance, mishandling, and inefficiency.
More profoundly, our faith, and within it our paths to salvation, are sometimes questioned by ourselves. Christians and other members of orthodox faiths wonder about the degree of necessity one’s works are, if at all. Kafka was deeply tortured by these abstract issues as a Jewish man. His diaries and letters reveal his desire to connect with his lineage and faith; he had studied Hebrew in his final years, frequented Yiddish stage performances, and attended meetings regarding the interests of his fellowmen. Still, such a grandiose and metaphysical concept as faith perplexed and stressed him deeply, which he expressed in this novel which survived him.
This review contains a lengthy summary of The Castle. If you do not wish to view spoilers, you may instead read my monthly reading reflection for September of 2024. Please consider subscribing to my blog if you are interested in works of classic literature such as this.
How I found this copy:
I thought it was overpriced when I first saw it. I found this mass market paperback edition at East Village Books, situated in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. The street it inhabits is perpendicular to Tompkins Square Park, where many idyllic childhood memories of mine reside. Now that I am an adult, I’d rather explore the bookstore than the sizzling metal slide.
East Village Books is home to hundreds of older works, though there are still plenty of recent works for sale as well; I did find my copy of The Map of the Territory here (and its French edition is in the photo below as well). The prices are certainly fair, especially for the city. However, I’ve been spoiled by my favorite used bookstore, and I cannot help but wince at a price higher than $5. Thus, when I saw the copy of Kafka’s The Castle, I reasoned that I would find it on eBay for less than the $10 asking price. I was mistaken.
I knew I needed this copy one way or another; this edition had one of the most thoughtful cover designs I had ever seen. It contained a foreword by Thomas Mann, and I adore when classics are prefaced by other classic authors. Upon the cover was Castle of the Pyrenees, by one of my favorite artists, René Magritte. The depiction of a castle situated over a boulder hovering impossibly over a sea is the most apt manifestation of The Castle. The absurdity of the subject, the imposing stature of the boulder, and the impossibility of scaling it to the castle exemplifies the theme of the work.
I regretted leaving it behind when I saw not a single copy for sale on eBay. Thankfully, it awaited me in the same spot I left it when I returned two weeks later. Verily, it was meant to be mine.
Characters:
K.: The story follows a land-surveyor, who is only referred to as K., who was summoned to a farcical village presided over by the elusive Castle. His presence in the village below the Castle rouses the attention, curiosity, and distrust of the peasants, who often refer to him as the Land Surveyor. Most villagers are suspicious of his person. He is mostly docile and phlegmatic; he seldom reacts strongly to inconveniences and wrongdoings. He does, however, stand his ground in debates and conversations. His background and origin are unknown to both the villagers and the readers.
Klamm: This Castle official even eludes the resident villagers, whose appearance is often described in supposedly conflicting ways by others who caught a glimpse of him. He corresponds to K. through his messenger, Barnabas, but the Land-Surveyor always fails to secure a spoken word with him directly. Still, K. hopes to reach him through a human bridge of connections.
“Haven’t you admitted yourself that you would be content if you only got the chance of speaking to Klamm, even if he never looked at you and never listened to you?” Franz Kafka, The Castle
Frieda: A mistress of Klamm and later fiancée of K., Frieda is a barmaid at the Herrenhof Inn. She leaves Klamm for K., which means leaving the bar and her position. She is quiet and possesses the skills of a good housewife, but she is conceited and disloyal. It is revealed much later that she had expedient reasons to become engaged with K.
Arthur and Jeremiah: Two men of strikingly similar appearances to each other are assigned as K.’s new assistants. These figures often appear before K. at inopportune times. They are later dismissed by K. for lying that he had broken into the storehouse to take firewood. They file complaints; Arthur becomes a waiter in the Castle and Jeremiah stays in the village to be with K.’s fiancée.
Barnabas: He serves as K.’s correspondence between the village and the Castle. Waiting for, relaying, and memorizing messages in the cold winter is strenuous work. He is the brother of Olga and Amalia.
Olga: This Barnabas sister is the accused affair partner of K., though no infidelity ever occurs. She might have interest in him, but she never acted improperly towards him. She reveals to him that her family was not in favor with the Castle after an incident a few years prior.
Amalia: The younger Barnabas sister is blamed by the village for the downfall of her family after rejecting the obscene advances of a Castle official named Sortini. The Castle, and others on its behalf, felt scorned by her rejection and ostracized her family.
The Landlady: The Landlady of the Herrenhof Inn serves as a motherly figure to Frieda, trying to convince her that she is mistaken about K.’s character and that she shouldn’t have left Klamm.
There are other minor characters that had an impact on K.’s pursuit of the Castle. He is subordinate to the Mayor, who admits the poor communication within the government. The Mayor and the Teacher grant him a position as a janitor at the village school, so that he may have an income and a roof. There are also numerous Castle officials that appear briefly in the story: Momus and Erlanger, who are Klamm’s secretaries; and Brügel, a Castle secretary to an official who doesn’t appear in the story.
Plot and impression:
Only identified as K., a land-surveyor lodges in a less-than-hospitable inn, whose occupants marvel at him as if upon a spectacle and whose demeanors vary from curious at best to skeptical at worst. The presence of an outsider in their isolated village perturbs them, especially one who has a sense of entitlement towards expecting direct correspondence with the Castle that summoned him. K. finds the elusiveness of the Castle frustrating and bureaucratic.
K. is first received at an inn at the village rather inhospitably. He had arrived in the area too late to be considered polite at the Castle, so he sought a night’s stay in the village below. He is offered a bed of hay, which he accepts. A man named Schwarzer, the son of a low-ranking “Undercastellan” (a lesser official from the Castle), telephones the Castle to interrogate about the mysterious outsider. It is verified that a land-surveyor was expected to arrive; the presence of this rare, mysterious stranger sparks gossip and talk throughout the village.
He is assigned two assistants of striking likeness to each other, named Arthur and Jeremiah. In addition, he receives a designated messenger named Barnabas, whose duty is to bridge the correspondence between K. and their superior, Klamm. Barnabas presents K. with a letter from the Castle official, which entails that K. is to answer to the Mayor, his direct superior. Still, K. desires to communicate with Klamm and the Castellans (officials of the Castle) directly, rather than relay messages through middlemen. He accompanies Barnabas back to his lodgings under the impression that he would return directly to the Castle but is disappointed to find that he led him to his family’s residence at the village.
He meets Barnabas’ family, including his sick parents and two sisters, Olga and Amalia. Dissatisfied with the effort he exerted to leave the inn and walk through the snow, K. insists on following Olga to pick up some beer. He is told that the nearest inn only houses Castellans and wouldn’t receive him warmly, but he insists regardless. He is escorted by Olga to the Herrenhof, where he hopes to meet Klamm. Instead, he encounters the barmaid, Frieda, who allows him to peer at Klamm’s back through his room’s peephole. When he accidentally asks an uncouth question about whether Frieda knows Klamm, Olga tells K. that she is actually his mistress.
When the taproom is cleared of its rowdy customers, K. and Frieda commence an affair. She shows a willingness to stay with him instead of Klamm, and he finds marriage opportunistic to connect to the official through her. Her decision to leave Klamm for this foreigner is ill-received by the landlady of his other inn, who treats Frieda like a daughter. He fails to win the lady’s favor definitely. She disapproves of their union because she considers it a downgrade for her daughter to choose an obscure man over one of prestige. The landlady reveals that she was once Klamm’s mistress, but he ceased to call on her after the third visit. Perhaps she lives vicariously through Frieda and her affair.
K. visits the mayor, who is bedridden with gout. His wife, Mizzi, attends to his paperwork while he receives his visitor. He tells K. about a case where a land-surveyor was requested, only to learn that the village was already assessed. He praises the Castle and its offices but admits that a failure in timely communication led to K.’s summoning.
K. calls on a teacher he had encountered earlier and arranged to meet. He takes on a position at the local school as a janitor, as it offers room and board for his fiancée and he, as well as the assistants. After leaving, Barnabas delivers another letter to K., which praises him for his work as land-surveyor. This is a perplexing message, as it is incongruous with the reality of his experience. He had done no work as land-surveyor. It seems to indicate that the Castle pays little attention to what goes on with the people it hires.
At the Herrenhof Inn, the landlady wishes to catch a glimpse of Klamm, who is hidden away in one of the rooms and due to leave to his carriage at any moment. K. tries to snoop around the carriage outside in hopes of catching the official when he is unguarded, but he is forced to come back into the taproom. One of his secretaries, Momus, attempts to have K. sign some documents and consent to be examined. He completely refuses and comes back outside, only to find that Klamm had left the minute K. quit the carriage, almost as if he was omniscient.
“… for it was not Klamm’s environment in itself that seemed to him worth striving for, but rather that he, K., he only and no one else, should attain to Klamm, and should attain to him not to rest with him, but to go on beyond him, farther yet, into the Castle.” Franz Kafka, The Castle
They move into one of the classrooms in the evening, setting up camp for the night. The assistants break into the storeroom to take the firewood to heat up the frigid room. During their sleep, Frieda is disturbed by a cat. K. is also shocked to wake up in the night and see one of the assistants lying in Frieda’s place.
They are jarred from their sleep by the female teacher, Gisa, who flies in a rage at the sight of the encampment the new janitor and his family made of the classroom. She sweeps their belongings off her desk. The male teacher demands to know the identity of the individual who pillaged the storehouse. Frieda tries to take the blame, but the assistants both point fingers at K. He is severely lectured and almost fired, but he defends his case by reminding the teacher that the Mayor is his superior.
“You can do what you like. Your actions may no doubt leave deep footprints in the snow out there in the courtyard, but they’ll do nothing more.” Franz Kafka, The Castle
The female teacher strikes K.’s hand when she notices an injury on her cat’s paw, which no one had inflicted knowingly, if at all. The teachers leave with their students to the other classroom to continue the school day. K., frustrated and irritated by his assistants’ constant meddling, fires them and drives them out of the classroom. Their pleas are ignored as they hound at the windows for hours, begging to be let in like dogs. Eventually, they let up.
Frieda remains in the classroom to clean up, while K. pays a visit to the Barnabas household to inquire about any messages. She doesn’t like his messenger or his family, so he decides to not call on him to visit the school. He isn’t home, but Amalia and her parents are. She thinks he is here to see Olga, whom she says has an interest in him. She tells him that Olga doesn’t know about his engagement, but he believes she should know already by word of mouth in such a chatty village. However, she comes home and reveals that she had heard no such thing. While Amalia cares for their sickly parents, Olga explains why their family is ostracized.
The family had attended a local event in honor of a firetruck donated by the Castle a few years prior. Amalia was well-dressed and attracted the attention of a respected Castle official named Sortini. She had interest in him as well and believed they may marry each other. This idealistic dream was shattered by his crass and inappropriate letter that he addressed to her in expectation of a response. Despite the vulgar contents of the letter, the village considered her rejection to be a slight against him as a respected official, as opposed to being a slight against her as a young lady. Olga is pleased to see one person who finds the situation deplorable, but knows it has no effect or meaning on their fate. The family struggled to find work in the village, which led to the decline in her parents’ physical well-being. Barnabas was immensely moved by the opportunity to serve as an official messenger, knowing how improbable it was to be noticed by the Castle after that incident which seemed to curse their family.
A knock rapped at the door. The sisters answer and quickly try to conceal any view from the door into the house. They tell him that Jeremiah had come to the door. K. is already aggravated by his former assistant’s sly attempt to blackmail him by catching him talking to Olga and Amalia. He leaves the house through a different passage but decides to approach Jeremiah instead of pretending he wasn’t there altogether. His ex-assistant reveals that Arthur had returned to the Castle to file a complaint, while Jeremiah stayed for Frieda.
Jeremiah convinced Frieda that K. was having an affair with Olga and travelled to the Barnabas home to say he caught him there. This was a fabrication, as K. was only conversing with the Barnabas sisters. The engagement is dissolved; Frieda returns to her position at the Herrenhof as a barmaid, and Jeremiah steals K.’s position as her partner. He doesn’t fight or protest this injustice against him. One of the versions of The Castle ends here, but more comprehensive editions incorporate fragments and drafts to supplement the story.
Barnabas has good news for K., though. He had returned from a lengthy wait at the Castle offices. He had lost hope until he recognized a different official, who asked Barnabas to relay to K. that he would like to see him early in the morning. While searching the hall of the Herrenhof Inn, he encounters a few faces. Frieda was at work, while Jeremiah resided in her room. He also accidentally enters the room of Brügel, a Castle secretary whom he had awakened. Brügel reveals Frieda’s competition with her successor, Pepi. K.’s former fiancée had some ulterior motives of self-aggrandizement to be with him. By being the one to leave Klamm, she establishes herself as the “one that got away”, especially seeing how the Landlady still pines for Klamm after he never called on her again. He speaks for a long while as K. gradually fell asleep at the foot of Brügel’s bed.
When K. finally sees Erlanger, he is told that Frieda must return to the inn as a barmaid for the sake of the bureaucratic apparatus. Pepi offers K. lodging, and he obliges. The story’s end is very anticlimactic, with K. being lectured by the Landlady for allegedly judging her clothing.
According to Kafka’s confidant, Max Brod, The Castle was to end with K. spending the rest of his life in the village but never being given a chance at the Castle. On his deathbed, he is finally phoned by the Castle to tell him he has no legal right to reside in the village, but extenuating circumstances allows this to be overlooked.
Kafka grapples with the same general themes amongst his works. His main character, an inextricably likeminded person to the author, contends with the looming, overarching sovereignty of authority over himself. My interpretation is that the perplexity of power stems from his strained relationship with his father. He found his father too tough and domineering; his father must be in the right by his command alone, which eludes his sensitive son. Patriarchal traits of authority, strength, and leadership are present in the government, as it reigns by law over the people. I will probably expound this idea in an essay in the foreseeable future. It is plausible that it is for this underlying reason that Kafka’s struggle with the elusiveness of structured power is so pressing throughout his works.
The Castle seems to represent a man’s struggle with understanding faith. It was known that Kafka had a desire to connect with and understand his Jewish faith. The Castle itself represents heaven, while the village represents earth. K. believes making connections and doing works will merit his entry into the Castle. By trying to follow Barnabas or preparing for marriage with Frieda, he hopes it will capture the attention of Klamm. The happenings within the Castle are shrouded in mystery, as even some affiliates with the Castle are not allowed into some of the rooms. The villagers find it hubristic to expect to be noticed and attended to by the Castellans above. His drive to be seen and accepted by the Castle compels him to stay in the village, instead of returning to his obscure origins.
“It isn’t only though the servants themselves that I have a connection with the Castle, for apart from that I hope and trust that what I’m doing is being noticed by someone up there …” Franz Kafka, The Castle
Quite frankly, this novel had some considerable flaws. I am not critiquing the text too harshly, as it is a posthumous work that never had the chance to be concluded, edited, and refined. Still, I must note the style of prose, which is the written equivalent of the product resulting from mixing every watercolor shade together into one brownish-grey mud. I had the impression that there was little action compared to the narrator’s continuous speech. It lacks a good flow in its sentence structure, which causes it to sound wearisome and lecturesome at times. It also doesn’t introduce too many new themes apart from his other, more comprehensive works. The same ideas are explicated far more concisely in The Trial.
In fact, the same ideas are covered compactly in his short story, “Beyond the Law”, which was also part of The Trial. The protagonist appears at an open gateway with a guard at his post. The guard stands before the Law, which he wishes to enter. He is not permitted to enter at the moment, but he is informed that it is possible in the future. He lingers around in wait, offering all his belongings to the guard as bribes to enter. The guard accepts these bribes but does not quit his post. The protagonist grows older and frailer until he is at the cusp of death. Vexed by the realization that no one else had attempted to enter the Law, he asks the guard why no one was granted entry. The guard explains this in a final, bone-chilling sentence:
“No one else could ever be admitted here, since this gate was made only for you. I am now going to shut it.” Franz Kafka, The Trial
Thus, the protagonist believed he could enter “the Law” with money, bribery, or pleas. He was only barred from entry mentally. Only he could let himself into the Law, and no one else could lead him through. This serves as an allegory for orthodox religion, where a man who believes he is saved through the sum of his works is dismayed to find that true belief is the necessary component of salvation.
I was content with reading The Castle, but I didn’t find anything particularly new or novel about its themes and contents when compared to his other works. Generally speaking, unless you wish to delve into Kafka’s comprehensive bibliography, it is not a necessary book to understand his beliefs. The Trial is more succinct and clearer. Nevertheless, I still give this work plenty of credit for helping me understand the pervasiveness of his religious crisis.
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Rating: ★★★★/5
Page #: 471
Dates read: 9/1/24 - 9/10/24
# of books read this year: 33
Bibliography:
“Franz Kafka.” Franz Kafka, 2020, www.franzkafka.de/werk/das-schloss.