Book Review

BOOK REVIEW: THE CASTLE  

By Franz Kafka.

A new translation by Anthea Bell

Oxford World Classics,Oxford ,New York, 2009

 

            I am the King of the Castle

           and you are a dirty rascal.

 

           Children's nursery rhyme

 

           'When may my boss come up to the Castle ?' 'Never ' was the reply.

           Page 22 , The Castle, Franz Kafka

           

 

Kafka's great novel 'The Castle' remains a classic which ought to be read by any serious reader intent on deeply and audaciously exploring the fragility of the human condition. It is the quintessential work of a person who finds himself displaced and alienated in an incomprehensible world without clear rules. The novel sums up the angst, alienation and confusion of a person who obsessively pursues a self -defeating quest. As John Macquarrie succinctly puts it: "Where is the modern sense of ontological lostness and bewilderment set forth as well as in The Castle', as we read of the surveyor's unavailing attempts to get into touch with the real forces that determine his life?" 

Contrary to some prevailing views, the novel is not simply a story about the little man being oppressed by an all pervasive and inaccessible bureaucracy, but about love, relationships, manipulation, and people being absorbed with finding prestige, power and acceptance from others.

 

Some people don't want to read Kafka because they think it is either too depressing or heavy going. One Russian told me, "I don't like Kafka because his characters are too hysterical". But Kafka had an answer to those critics. He argued the role of literature is not to amuse, or make us happy but to inspire us to think differently. The role of literature is not to make people happy. The aim is to find the truth, the immutable and the eternal. He once stated, 'If the book we are reading doesn't wake us up with a blow on the head, what are we reading it for? So that it will make us happy, as you write. Good Lord, we would be happy precisely if we had no books, and the kind of books that make us happy are the kind we could write ourselves'.

In fact, the novel is not that depressing. On the contrary, there is a lot of amusing moments in this work suggesting Kafka was a subtle master of comedy. What puts people off from the novel is the fact that there is no authoritative narrator who suggests the overall meaning of the events unfolding in the novel. The interpretation of the novel is intentionally ambiguous suggesting the reader has to make an effort to unravel the meaning. Therefore reading the novel can be hard work. The reader has to deeply think about things. So this novel demands a lot of patience and hard work! Not all readers seek to deeply think about daunting questions. They prefer light reading and escapism. But I think 'The Castle' is worth reading not once but several times because you gain insights into real problems which currently plague modern society, such as people losing self-esteem, struggling to maintain their dignity and how all kinds of things render people anxious. Perhaps it is no accident that R.D.Laing heavily quotes Kafka in his work on Schizophrenia 'The Divided Self,' 1959. So Kafka gives a voice to the powerless.

 

THE PLOT

 

The plot centers around a mysterious inscrutable stranger, a land surveyor, who suddenly turns up in a village dominated by a castle. He claims to have been summoned by Count Westwest to take up the post of Land surveyor. But the officials and villagers are perplexed by this claim. Nobody knows anything about this job offer. Either the land surveyor is an impostor attempting to con the Castle or an error has been made by the official. The land surveyor is told by the mayor the Castle has no need for any land surveyor and if a letter was sent it was posted by mistake! However 'K' or the Land Surveyor won't be fobbed off by excuses and demands the Castle keep their side of the promise. So a long and bitter confrontation between 'K', and the Castle begins where 'K' relentlessly pursues an explanation as well as the promised post. In his quest for justice 'K' encounters many odd characters as well as a family who are shunned and denied work by the villagers. The reason for this is that a woman, Amalia, rejected the predatory sexual advances of an official. Like 'K', the Castle and the villagers treat them as pariahs. In his quest, 'K' has an affair with a bar maid called Frieda, takes up a post as a school janitor under the tyrannical authority of a school teacher, meets the mayor, officials and the family of a messenger Barnabas. The novel was unfinished! But Max Brod, Kafka's close friend claimed the novel was to end with 'K' being allowed to stay in the village just as he was dying from exhaustion.

 

WONDERFUL WELL DRAWN CHARACTERS

 

What I like about this novel is how Kafka can  richly and vividly portray characters but still let them remain enigmatic. He doesn't kill the mystery of each character. For instance, though we know much about the character of 'K', in terms of being stubborn, angry, aggressive and at times understanding, we practically know nothing about his past. We find that he enjoyed his military service, and once climbed up the top of a steeple in a graveyard to plant a flag, but we don't know much about his family or roots. The official which 'K' is obsessed with finding is also depicted as something of a Godlike figure whom everyone is in awe of. Kafka writes - 'Klamm was far away; the landlady had once compared Klamm to an eagle, which had struck K. as ridiculous at the time, but not any more; he thought of Klamm's remote distance, his silence, perhaps only interrupted by screams as K. had never heard. He thought of Klamm's piercing glance from on high that would brook no contradiction and couldn't be tested either, of the immutable circles in which he soared, free from any interference by the likes of K. down below, moving by inscrutable laws and visible only for brief moments - Klamm and the eagle had all this in common.' {page 103}

 

A HAUNTING BUT HUMOROUS  ATMOSPHERE

 

The surreal and dreamlike atmosphere surrounding the Castle is very evocative. The Castle  seems so inaccessible and the high officials so remote. There is no direct road or path to the castle and no direct telephone line! When 'K' attempts to phone officials at the Castle he gets either a rude answer or no answer at all. Messages sent to and from the castle are either delayed, lost or forgotten. And there is always the sense that you are being watched.

A further reason why one should read the Castle is the humor. There are many amusing incidents. It is strange to hear 'K' being told by a villager that 'You are probably surprised to find us so inhospitable', said the man, 'but hospitality isn't a custom here, and we don't need any visitors'.{Page 15} Many officials keep on making absurdly contradictory statements to 'K' which don't make complete sense at all. 'K' actually runs away with the Mistress of Klamm yet still expects Klamm to help him secure his post! An official orders 'K' to return Klamm's mistress because it might have offended his sensibilities. I find hilarious the following statement where an official states, 'But the more important a man's work, and Klamm's is certainly the most important of all, the less strength he has left to defend himself against the outside world, and as a consequence any insignificant little things can be deeply disturbing to him. The smallest change on his desk, the removal of a dirty mark that has been there for ever, anything like that can upset a man, and so can the arrival of a new barmaid'. {Page 238}Poor Klamm!

Klamm even sends 'K' a letter congratulating the progress of his work as a land surveyor when he has not even begun his work. 'I will be keeping an eye on you', he writes.

There is even a scene where 'K' makes love with Frieda on the floor in a puddle of beer! When they make love in the school the two servants are shamelessly gawking at them.

 

How might we interpret this novel? Klaus Wagenbach argues 'The Castle' is Kafka's most autobiographical novel. He claims the novel partly mirrors his life in Zurau, the geography of the village and castle on his father's birthplace Wosek, and Frieda might be based on his lover Milena Jesenska and Klamm may be based on her husband. But this can be overstated and much of the novel was simply invented by Kafka! I think the novel can be understood on many levels and that the reader should be allowed to  reach his own conclusion.

 

HISTORICAL PARALLELS?

  

In what way might the novel part reflect the actual reality of the Austrian-Hungarian empire? Well, there are no clearly defined borders between the castle and the village. You sometimes hear that the village and the castle are one or they are separate! Nobody knew exactly where the borders between Austria began and finished! Just as the Castle is owned by an elusive Count Westwest nobody has ever seen, so many dukes and landlords were absent from their own territories. The Austrian Hungarian Empire seemed to endlessly expand. The motto of the empire was 'Plus Ultra' which means 'Still Further'. Despite the fact that the Austrian Empire had been defeated by the Italians, and the Prussians, the Austrian army were still under the delusion that their army was invincible. One historian has called the management of the empire as being based on 'institutionalized escapism'. This air of unreality comes across strikingly in Kafka's novel. When Kafka describes the chambermaids as practically having no days off he is accurate. A domestic servant in Vienna was only allowed 7 -8 hours off a day every second Sunday and was paid a pittance. Kafka is spot on when he describes many of the most oppressive jobs lacking clearly defined duties and responsibilities.

 

Why does 'K' not give up his quest to take up his post? Kafka offers hints in one passage when 'K' meets the mayor and offers an explanation. 'Let me tell you some of the things that keep me here : the sacrifices I made to leave my home; my long and difficult journey; my well founded hopes of an appointment here; my complete lack of means; the impossibility of finding suitable work at home now; and last but not least my fiancee, who comes from the village'.{page 68}. Where had I heard similar words? It reminded me of some homeless people who came to Moscow and would not dare return back to their home because there were no prospects and also they did not want to lose face. They felt it would be humiliating to return home empty handed. They didn't want to be viewed as a so called 'loser'. But 'K's condition might remind us of desperate people seeking work, displaced people and perhaps even refugees. The sad thing is  how 'K' and so many desperate people are treated when they enter a new village or country. They are often not allowed to fit in or be accepted by the community. So in one sense the Castle might be read as a profound account of the experience of people who feel complete outsiders and aliens.

The novel 'The Castle ' deserves to be read not just once but twice or three times. Every time you reread it you discover something new!