/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.6620151]

Hello /lit/, let's discuss The Castle.

I know people like to boil Kafka's major novels down to critiques of bureaucracy or totaltarianism, but I think that is greatly discrediting them. I see Amerika as a sort of comedy of manners, showing the absurdity in cultural traditions and classism, and The Trial as heavily tied to the idea that everyone is guilty when scrutinized by the law and so it is only a matter of who the people choose to have looked into that are charged.

But what of The Castle? I have read up on the theological reading, but I don't quite get the transcendental vibe from the book. What do you guys think?

[Anonymous No.6620520]

It really is about bureaucracy and totalitarian-administrative states.

But also about how silly it all is at the micro-level.

Or maybe it's just about a lot of stuff that happens and people try to make sense of it all.

[Anonymous No.6620527]

>>6620151
Let's discuss that cover! Yeesh!

[Anonymous No.6620913]

>>6620520
How is The Castle any more so than The Trial or Amerika? What do you suggest it is trying to in specific?

[Anonymous No.6621632]

it seems to me entrance to the castle is spiritual enlightenment, the rewards of religion. but none of the townspeople ever achieve this, it is only the faith, the idea that it is achievable that keeps the society in order. those inside the castle are the only ones who reap this faith's true enlightenment in the form of their power. like zizek says about bureaucracy as a form of religion

[Anonymous No.6621701]

I think Kafka's novels are more dream-related rather than anything else (most of the 'totalitarianism prophecy' theories seem to me little more than a circle-jerk pose tbh).

The Trial has some very obvious dream imagery/vibe to it, with all the absurd events (e.g. the clerks falling through the hall in the floor), the space/time oddities (e.g. there being a court-room galleries in the flat of the chief clerk) and overall the attitude of the protagonist to the narrative (he semi-consciously goes with it, as is the case in dreams). There's also the case of K. getting it on with most of the female characters in the novel, which could be interpreted as an obvious manifestation of the libido.

Metamorphosis is another example of a very dream-like narrative, even just for the quite obvious reason. And a lot of other works of Kafka share the dream-like narrative themes.

Overall, I think people wrongly take Kafka for a social critic - they should rather take him as an explorer of the unconscious. We'll probably won't know the exact source of inspiration for his novels, but I'd bet that a lot of his popular novels had to be atleast partially based on dreams (or intended to look like such).

[Anonymous No.6621729]

Have any of you read Maurice Blanchots essays on Kafka?
I'm finding them pretty interesting, the whole idea of "the birth of the art" and how Kafkas novels, and especially The Castle follows this.

[Anonymous No.6621738]

>>6621701
Certainly. That's a good note about the semi-lucidity. It perfectly describes the way Kafka's protagonists find themselves thrust into absurd situations and accusations but never find anything overly bizzare about the situation and immediately begin an attack. Sure, they are lucid enough to react, but they are not working at full capacity. A good motif you brought to my attention there.

Another thing I noticed on my reread of Kafka's novels is all the mindgames being played. So much of his prose is indicative of the psychological battles being played out in the absolute simplest of conversations.

But back on topic, I just feel - and perhaps this is naive of me - that The Castle - like most novels - has to mean something, even in a very vague or abstracted way, I do not feel you write a modernist quest for truth like this without some meaning in mind, and surely the castle is not meant to be THE modernist quest for truth, as in the quest for any truth, it simply does not feel universal enough for allegory like that

[Anonymous No.6622066]

Those are things that are very much intertwined with the modern state, which is the true subject of Kafka's output as a whole. You aren't wrong, but everyone you say is oversimplifying is also correct.

[Anonymous No.6622078]

The archetype of the unconscious dealt with in the castle is the desire to be the arbiter of your own spacetime trajectory, this can be represented by bureaucratic opacity, spiritual unfulfillment, or any feeling of vulnerable smallness of the individual in his burdensome, nebulous existence

[Anonymous No.6622419]

It's about a guy who wants to sleep but a lot of bullshit from other people and a lot of bullshit awoken within him by structures he happens into won't let him.

Seriously, throughout the book K is constantly not getting sleep.

I always think it's poignant in its crudeness to bring up this point.