About this title: Published posthumously, Kafka's novel--a major modernist/symbolist work--is about a surveyor, known only as K., who struggles with an absurd, implacable bureaucracy in an attempt to penetrate a dimly defined "castle." The characters in Kafka's allegory inhabit a strange world, comic and dreamlike, that has come to be known as "Kafkaesque."
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Schocken Books
Date Published: 1998
ISBN-13:9780805211061ISBN:0805211063
Description: New. No dust jacket as issued. New tight binding and clean bright unmarked pages; NOT remaindered! Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 352 p. Audience: General/trade. "...Harman has also made it more faithful to Kafka's dreamlike style" NYTimes "This new definitive edition is the product of an international team of experts who went back to Kafka's original manuscript and notes to create a text that is as close as possible to the way the author left it. " read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Schocken
Date Published: 1998
ISBN-13:9780805211061ISBN:0805211063
Description: New. Brand New! Buy with confidence-your satisfaction is guaranteed at B-Logistics! Due to the large scale of our operation, we do not have access to the specific contents/condition of our items. Please note that Expedited shipping is not available at this time. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Schocken Books
Date Published: 1999-01-01
ISBN-13:9780805211061ISBN:0805211063
Description: NEW. Softcover. From an inventory that is 100% brand-new, 100% direct from the publishers' distribution channel. We carry NO pre-owned, NO remaindered. We pack in CARDBOARD to ensure the pristine quality is maintained. (Bubble-wrap alone is NOT sufficient to protect from USPS equipment. ) Guaranteed brand-NEW, protected with CARDBOARD, your satisfaction is guaranteed. BKLUVID: 9780805211061. read more
Description: Very good. 1954 Knopf hard cover-some wear to edges of dust jacket-tanning to page edge-otherwise cover and binding like new contents clean-a fine copy-enjoy. read more
Description: Very good; Collectible. 1954 Knopf hard cover-some wear to edges of dust jacket-tanning to page edge-otherwise cover and binding like new contents clean-a fine copy-enjoy. read more
Edition: First Edition; First Printing
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Schocken
Date Published: 1998
ISBN-13:9780805241181ISBN:0805241183
Description: New in New dust jacket. 0805241183. New and unread stated first edition, first printing Schocken partial cloth hardcover and dust jacket in excellent condition. Protective mylar cover.; 1.25 x 9.5 x 7 Inches; 325 pages. read more
"I read this book in order to keep a promise to one of my favorite professors of all time--it was required reading for a course I loved but I just didn't have a chance to get through it on top of all my other work. He said he would overlook it if I promised I would read it one day.
Now I have.
I can see how it fits into the course (Gnosticism) but other than that, this book was a major disappointment. The whole thing was...well, pointless. Maybe from an artsy perspective that was the intention but it wasn't even well-written pointless. The main character was a jackass to everyone in the village and was constantly correcting them. The villagers had so little spine and resolve that they immediately changed their minds after hearing him speak, even if they were dead-set against him to begin with.
Other people have suggested I read The Trial if I want to continue in this vein, although I'm not entirely sure I'm willing to give Kafka another chance."
"On the one hand, this is a book I cannot praise enough. I recommend that everyone who hasn't should read it immediately. It's one of those books that reminds you what fiction can be and can mean. It's the first book that I've read through twice in a row since Infinite Jest. On the other hand, I have to warn anyone who intends to read it that it's likely to drive you insane. The story makes your brain itch. If I had to describe it in one word I'd go with tantalizing. And that might be okay if Kafka had finished the thing. But it's only a fragment of what would have been a much larger entity, ending mid-story, mid-narrative, mid-sentence. You are left with the sense that it was heading somewhere life-altering, that all the intriguing seeds planted throughout were about to blossom simultaneously, but that you will never, ever get to see that harvest. I read it the second time in hopes of gleaning something more from the parts of the story that do exist, and I did pick up on several new subtle details, but that ultimately left me even more frustrated. In the end, I still think everyone should read it. But don't say I didn't warn you."
"I haven't read Kafka in a while, except for the Penal Colony story that I sometimes go back to, and I had almost forgotten what the experience is like. This book does not benefit much from paragraphs, though it is divided into many chapters. It has a strange yet delicate way of going about punctuation marks. And the beautifully composed dialogues are inseparable from the text, as they straddle conversation and inner voices of the characters.
I very much enjoyed the way Amalia's story is juxtaposed with that of Frieda, as both stories elegantly describe the intricate ways in which power/knowledge works within the village, and set contrasts to each other. I would like to read more about how Foucault has been influenced by Kafka, as this book serves almost as a case study for the definition of power that Foucault seeks to provide in his work. The ways in which Barnabas describes the offices, as having no clear boundaries, spaces in which you never know how much you know, how close you are to the center, etc, is fascinating. The Klamm character, setting up an unidentifiable, unknown Real, is also beautifully described, especially in the paragraphs where Olga pictures the transformations in his appearance depending on where he is, like an animal that makes every use of camouflage. Even when you see him, Olga says, you are never sure of what you have seen. And this is exactly what K. experiences when looking through the peep hole, at a man who seems to be working behind his desk with much paper work in front of him, only to find out that this is how officials sleep, for most of their days.
Accordingly, the way space and time operate within the novel is very dreamy, and intangible. K. spends around seven days in the village, and yet so much happens within these seven days, including an engagement, and a break-up. Although these seven days are marked by failed attempts, there is almost no idle time, rather the novel is infused with constant activity, which does not lead K. into the castle, but instead to the dark chambers of Gentleman's Inn. The space in which all this happens, is described to be a snowy village, where paths lead nowhere, and that is exactly what happens to K., as he becomes slowly immersed within the labyrinth of the village, at once declaring that he is to stay there for good. His occupation as a land surveyor further emphasizes the undecipherable spatial qualities of the village, which once again serve to conceal or at times manifest power relations within this unnamed place.
In reflecting on my own work, I very much enjoyed the below passage, as it clearly discloses the ways in which one has to persistently seek for further approval, further opportunities to have access, etc.
"Dealing directly with the authorities wasn't all that difficult, for no matter how well organized they were, they only had to defend distant and invisible causes on behalf of remote and invisible gentlemen, whereas he, K., was fighting for something vitally close, for himself, and what's more of his own free will, initially at least, for he was the assailant, and he was not struggling for himself on his own, there were also other forces, which he knew nothing of, but could believe in because of the measures adopted by the authorities. By mostly obliging him from the start in some of the more trivial matters -and no more had been at stake until now- the authorities were depriving him not only of the chance to gain a few easy little victories but also of the corresponding satisfaction and the resulting well-founded confidence for other, greater battles. Instead they let K. wander about as he wished, even if only in the village, spoiling and weakening him, barred all fighting here, and dispatched him to this extra-official, completely unclear, dull, and strange life."
On another note, it could be argued that this book is a beautiful ethnography, from an ethnographer who is trying to speak with people who are concealed behind multiple layers of professionalism."
"I feel like I deserve an award for finishing this book. It's sort of like Alice in Wonderland, lurching from one absurd situation to another, but without the delightful humour of the Alice books. And it's a one-joke book. Once you realize that K. is never going to reach the castle, the book is serious of endless conversations. If Kafka's intent was to give the reader the feeling of this petty wrangling going on ad nauseum, then he succeeds. It was interesting how K., Olga, Freida, Pepi, the landlady and others all had completely different interpretations of essentially the same events. I suppose it could be taken as some sort of allegory with the unobtainable castle as heaven. The book ends in the middle of nowhere with no resolution. This edition contains extra material not included in the first edition, but it is just more of the same. It doesn't go anywhere, and maybe that's the point, but does it have to go nowhere at such great length?"
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