The Castle: Amazon.ca: Franz Kafka, W. Muir, E. Muir: Books

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They are perhaps the most famous literary instructions never followed: "Dearest Max, my last request: Everything I leave behind me ... in the way of diaries, manuscripts, letters (my own and others'), sketches, and so on, [is] to be burned unread...." Thankfully, Max Brod did not honor his friend Franz Kafka's final wishes. Instead, he did everything within his power to ensure that Kafka's work would find publication--including making some sweeping changes in the original texts. Until recently, the world has known only Brod's version of Kafka, with its altered punctuation, word order, and chapter divisions. Restoring much of what had previously been expunged, as well as the fluid, oral quality of Kafka's original German, Mark Harman's new translation of The Castle is a major literary event.

One of three unfinished novels left after Kafka's death, The Castle is in many ways the writer's most enduring and influential work. In Harman's muscular translation, Kafka's text seems more modern than ever, the words tumbling over one another, the sentences separated only by commas. Harman's version also ends the same way as Kafka's original manuscript--that is, in mid-sentence: "She held out her trembling hand to K. and had him sit down beside her, she spoke with great difficulty, it was difficult to understand her, but what she said--." For anyone used to reading Kafka in his artificially complete form, the effect is extraordinary; it is as if Kafka himself had just stepped from the room, leaving behind him a work whose resolution is the more haunting for being forever out of reach. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Upon his death in 1924, Kafka instructed his literary executor, Max Brod, to destroy all his manuscripts. Wisely refusing his friend's last wishes, Brod edited the uncompleted Castle, along with other unfinished works, ordering the fragments into a coherent whole, and had them published. Brod's interpretation of the work as a novel of personal salvation was accepted and strengthened by Willa and Edward Muir, who translated it into English in 1930. Recent scholarship, less willing to accept Brod's version, has led to a new critical edition of the novel, which was published in German in 1982 and which purports to be closer to Kafka's intentions. Harman's translation represents this edition's first appearance in English. Harman's stated goal as translator is to reproduce as closely as possible Kafka's style, which results in an English that is stranger and denser than the Muirs' elegant work. A necessary acquisition for anyone interested in Kafka.?Michael O'Pecko, Towson State Univ., Md.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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4.2 out of 5 stars (50 customer reviews)

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The public misconception of Kafka, Jul 15 2004

By	Bryan Treitler "Bryan" (NYC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Castle: A new translation based on the restored text (Paperback)

Whenever asked who is my favorite writer, my response of Franz Kafka usually generates in the inquisitor a look of severity, as if I had responded with the most stifling and impenetrable answer imaginable. I have always been positively baffled by the public perception of Kafka as a "difficult" author, a "serious" author, one of those authors good for no one beyond college professors. This is simply not the case. All of three of Kafka's novels are thrilling, nightmarish, and haunting, to be sure, but they are also downright hysterical, containing countless moments of slapstick humor worthy of the great comics. Furthermore, Kafka's novels are probably the most compulsively readable of any I've ever read. I've yet to spend more than two days reading or re-reading one of the three novels, as once I'm drawn into Kafka's spell I have no choice but to finish (that previous statement obviously fits right in with Kafka's universe). I can't stand it when people consider Kafka "the guy who writes stories about people turning into bugs". The Castle is my favorite of Kafka's works, a novel so rich and beautiful, so full of crazy characters and imagination, it is the logical precursor to Roald Dahl and Tom Wolfe and Terry Southern and other writers of the comically absurd. Monty Python surely owes a huge debt to The Castle. The Castle is indescribable. There has never been another novel quite like it, before or after, and surely every reader will find it a different experience. It is a masterpiece in that it hints at serious post-modern themes and events, but remains ambiguous enough to take under its wing any number of interpretations. Great 20th century novels like Orwell's 1984 and Nabakov's Lolita probably won't stand up to future scrutiny the way Kafka's will, because Kafka is the only writer of the 20th century to succesfully represent the human experience through the form itself, letting the content and meaning transform entirely according to the reader.

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Enter At Your Own Risk, Jan 8 2004

By	Alex Udvary (chicago, il United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Castle: A new translation based on the restored text (Paperback)

Outside of the Russian authors it's hard for me to think of an author I like more than Kafka. I own everything he's every written, whether I have read all of his stories is a different matter lol. I have read "The Trial", and have read some of his short stories. I even did a school paper on two of them, "The Vulture" and "Home-Coming". But, "The Castle" is somewhat disappointing.

When I first read "The Trial" I had a lot of ideas as to what it represented. I felt a connection with the main character, but, here with "The Castle", I'm debating what is this book about? My first guess was\is the castle clearly represents the government. But I wouldn't call "The Castle" a political book. As with all of Kafka's novels, they are incomplete. I noticed this bothered some people when reading "The Trial", but I thought the book was a masterpiece. I've also noticed some people are bothered by this book being incomplete as well. While I'm not really upset over that, I will admit, I did think about it more. Many characters are just forgotten. We have no clue what will happen to them. The last chapter I found unnecessary. And hated the last sentence in the book.

But would I call this a bad book? No. Maybe I just like Kafka so much I can't be hard on him. I do think there is some substance to this book, it just takes a while to absorb it, but, I don't think it's as rewarding as "The Trial".

Would I encourage someone to read this book? Only if your a Kafka fan. In order to "test the waters" read some of the short stories and "The Trial", I haven't read "Amerika" yet, so I can't comment on it, but "The Castle" should not be your introduction into Kafka's world.

Bottom-line: For me, simply not as thought provoking as other works by Kafka. I enjoyed it to a point, but was left somewhat disappointed. Has a sloppy ending and seems as if it doesn't resolve anything.

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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not his best, Jul 16 2004

By	Edward Aveyard "E.P.A." (Ossett, West Yorkshire, U.K.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Castle: A new translation based on the restored text (Paperback)

I disagree with many of the reviews of this work. "The Castle" is deliberately cumbersome to get across the feeling of bureaucracy; this makes it perhaps a good read when you've got nothing to do and are feeling a bit philosophical or pessimistic, but it's not something you can read after work. I liked "The Trial" a lot; it blended a bleak view of the world of guilt, punishment and self-righteousness with some good humour ["Are you a house painter?"] There is much less humour in "The Castle" and Josef K's character does not develop anywhere near as fully in this book. It is hard not to put this down to the fact that it was far from finished and the text breaks off mid-sentence, whilst "The Trial" [though still unfinished] has an ending and was nearer completion. There is still the surreal interactions with women in this book and the stubborn conversations that don't go anywhere, but they are in a much less animated tone. Also, the chapters where the procedures of bureacracy are described or K's "story so far" gone over are terribly boring. Some may say that this is to build up a sense of the bureacratic nature, but doing it in this way was no better than just reprinting the criminal code of Russia. I'd say the last few chapters are amongst the best, such as when he talks to an official that can never get to sleep.

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5.0 out of 5 stars One of the great literary nightmares of the past century
Franz Kafka was obsessed with dreams, and THE CASTLE is his attempt to depict the modern world of corporate and governmental bureaucracy as a crazed nightmare. Read more

Published on Mar 3 2004 by Robert Moore

5.0 out of 5 stars Franz Kafka: So Many Rooms Behind
The Trial, written by Franz Kafka and published posthumously by Kafka's best friend, Max Brod, is hailed as Kafka's best work, and though it is very well written and very good,... Read more

Published on Dec 28 2003 by Nobody!

3.0 out of 5 stars Very sneaky indeed!
It is a pity that it wasn't until the book's abrupt end that my interest finally piqued. So many questions unanswered. Read more

Published on Aug 20 2003 by randywood7

5.0 out of 5 stars the greatest book half-written
There's no denying it--the Castle is fragmentary, maddeningly slow-paced, and suddenly shifts gear at repeated points, with the undeniable suggestion that Kafka stumbled across... Read more

Published on Jun 15 2003 by 869516255

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Kafka, but not for the neophyte.
I would not buy this book if it were your first forray into the realm of Kafka. But the short stories first, then Amerika, then the trial, and then, if you could make it through... Read more

Published on Mar 9 2003 by Go Sox

5.0 out of 5 stars Readable at last!
Translation means everything! Over the years I've read much of Kafka especially during adolescence and into my early twenties when his worldview spoke most directly to my own... Read more

Published on Feb 25 2003 by hkrosnick

5.0 out of 5 stars A hilariously terrifying book !!
I wish to offer a friendly retort to reviewer Bob Newman, who states how Kafka would share excerpts of this book with his colleagues and would laugh out loud uproariously - and... Read more

Published on Aug 8 2002 by John K. Joachim

3.0 out of 5 stars Unsure. Is this how I'm supposed to feel?
Being the last (and unfinished) work of the brilliant, but very bizarre writer Franz Kafka, this book weaves a strange tale of supposedly autobiographic search and discovery. Read more

Published on Oct 25 2001 by Brendan Kennedy

1.0 out of 5 stars If you have to read Kafka...
If you like Kafka, you'll like this book. Otherwise, probably not. Of his works, The Castle is more fully developed, less hectic, and generally a much better read than most. Read more

Published on Aug 5 2001

5.0 out of 5 stars My Favorite
Franz Kafka's The Castle is my favorite book. I first read it when I was young at a time when I also read America and The Trial. Read more

Published on Jul 28 2001 by Mikael Hansen

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