“…they say that all of us belong to the Castle…” #kafka #thecastle #20BOS26 Book 31

It was probably inevitable that, having immersed myself in the story of Kafka‘s work and legacy, I would feel drawn to pick up a book which has been near the top of Mount TBR for a while. I revisited his “The Trial” back in November, and as I mentioned it’s a book I hadn’t read since my early twenties; I searched out a new translation of the definitive version, and remarked that I would need to do the same if I intended to re-read his other major work, “The Castle”. Inevitably I did acquire a new copy, in the form of this lovely Schocken version which is translated by Mark Harman from the German critical edition – and this was its time. “The Castle” was one of a number of works left unfinished by Kafka on his death which was rescued by Max Brod, (heavily) edited and then published. Like the bulk of Kafka’s work, then, it’s incomplete, but that makes it no less fascinating. As the book opens, we meet the protagonist K.; a land surveyor, he’s arriving in the snow at an unnamed village…