The Castle: Introduction by Irving Howe

Arriving in a village to take up the position of land surveyor for the mysterious lord of a castle, the character known as K. finds himself in a bitter and baffling struggle to contact his new employer and go about his duties. As the villagers and the Castle officials block his efforts at every turn, K.‘s consuming quest-quite possibly a self-imposed one-to penetrate the inaccessible heart of the Castle and take its measure is repeatedly frustrated. Kafka once suggested that the would-be surveyor in The Castle is driven by a wish to get clear about ultimate things, an unrealizable desire that provided the driving force behind all of Kafka’s dazzlingly uncanny fictions.

Translated by Willa and Edwin Muir