Romanticism
Franz Kafka's Quest for an Unavailable God
REVIEWED BY, Roz Spafford
Sunday, April 5, 1998
THE CASTLE
By Franz Kafka, translated by Mark Harman Schocken; 328 pages;
Franz Kafka's name has been appropriated as our century's reigning adjective; ``Kafkaesque'' is a word for which no adequate synonym exists.
From the absurd circuitry of managed care to our Dilbertesque workplaces and the bizarre comic opera playing in Washington, the relevance of ``The Castle,'' Kafka's para ble of bureaucracy gone mad, has never been lost on the modern reader.
Until now, the accepted English version of ``The Castle'' has been the 1925 translation by Willa and Edwin Muir, who believed Kafka's unfinished novel was about the quest for an unavailable God, according to Mark Harman, translator of the present volume. Harman's new translation emphasizes modern and post- modern meanings; Harman believes the book is about meaning itself, about the multiple interpretations of documents and events, but his translation opens up a variety of readings. In ``The Castle,'' a man named K. arrives in a village where he has perhaps been summoned to work as a land surveyor. Its inhabitants seem to be expecting him and not to be expecting him, and there seems to be a job and to be no job. Presiding over the village is a castle, which sometimes can and cannot be reached by telephone, and from which officials, who sometimes can and cannot be spoken to, descend to the village.
K. struggles at first to make his way to the castle, but quickly sees that no roads lead there; he then tries to make a place for himself in the village, whose inhabitants alter nately welcome, manipulate and reject him. Each scene in which he tries to locate himself is both ghastly and funny.
K. is given a letter signed by someone named Klamm, who may or may not have the authority to certify that he is employed, The letter seems to confirm and not confirm his employment and may have been delivered late or by accident by an
REVIEWED BY, Roz Spafford
Sunday, April 5, 1998
THE CASTLE
By Franz Kafka, translated by Mark Harman Schocken; 328 pages;
Franz Kafka's name has been appropriated as our century's reigning adjective; ``Kafkaesque'' is a word for which no adequate synonym exists.
From the absurd circuitry of managed care to our Dilbertesque workplaces and the bizarre comic opera playing in Washington, the relevance of ``The Castle,'' Kafka's para ble of bureaucracy gone mad, has never been lost on the modern reader.
Until now, the accepted English version of ``The Castle'' has been the 1925 translation by Willa and Edwin Muir, who believed Kafka's unfinished novel was about the quest for an unavailable God, according to Mark Harman, translator of the present volume. Harman's new translation emphasizes modern and post- modern meanings; Harman believes the book is about meaning itself, about the multiple interpretations of documents and events, but his translation opens up a variety of readings. In ``The Castle,'' a man named K. arrives in a village where he has perhaps been summoned to work as a land surveyor. Its inhabitants seem to be expecting him and not to be expecting him, and there seems to be a job and to be no job. Presiding over the village is a castle, which sometimes can and cannot be reached by telephone, and from which officials, who sometimes can and cannot be spoken to, descend to the village.
K. struggles at first to make his way to the castle, but quickly sees that no roads lead there; he then tries to make a place for himself in the village, whose inhabitants alter nately welcome, manipulate and reject him. Each scene in which he tries to locate himself is both ghastly and funny.
K. is given a letter signed by someone named Klamm, who may or may not have the authority to certify that he is employed, The letter seems to confirm and not confirm his employment and may have been delivered late or by accident by an