Kafka clearly belongs to that class of writer to whom such an unquestioned aesthetic debt has accumulated that the individual reader -- at the risk of appearing gauche -- dare not call out what is obviously bad writing. The literary equivalent of Basquiat or Twombly; "subversive" and "unconventional" and "ironic" are very often modern code words to cover for lack of craftsmanship. Meanwhile, the audience gazes pensively and asks with laughable earnestness, "What is the artist communicating here? What message is he sending?" He just put his signature on a urinal and conveniently let the literati convince you that the laziness, dullness, and ridiculousness are all part of the point. ( )

This is a classic but beware. Which edition you read will greatly impact what you take away. I wound up with three editions and was surprised at how different they were. The first was a real rip off. I bought it from a used book site online. I was amazed at getting a new hardback for a low price. The cover was very attractive….too attractive. When it arrived my first indication that something was wrong was when it was less than half-inch thick. Opening it I found why it was so thin…the type was so small it was unreadable, and there were NO page numbers, no mention of who translated it, no indication of when a chapter started. It was "published" by THE DEAD AUTHORS SOCIETY in 2016. Avoid it.

The next edition I bought was a collection of all of Kafka's works appropriately titled The Essential Kafka. This was much more substantial, a three inch paperback with normal sized type published by Wordsworth Classics 2014. It also included a introduction by the translator and short notes about each of the works. While it was the first place I learned that Kafka died without finishing The Caste it did mention what Kafka told a friend about how Kafka intended to finish the work. I read about a third of the way through The Castle when the library notified me that they had obtained an interlibrary loan to fulfill my long forgotten request.

That's what alerted me to the differences in editions. What came from library was by far better than the others. It was published by Schocken Books (1992) with an introduction by Irving Howe. It is based on The Definitive Edition published in 1954 and includes the Homage which Thomas Mann wrote in 1940 and cites four translators. My first shock came when I tried to find the place I had gotten to in the Wordsworth edition. The Schocken edition had a different number of chapters and did not include chapter titles as the Wordsworth. Only by going back and forth between the two did I find my "place. I also noticed the sentence structure was quite different. In the Schocken edition The Sixth Chapter started with "Before the inn the landlord was waiting for him. Without being questioned the man would not have ventured to address him…." While the Wordsworth edition started the chapter with "Outside the inn the landlord was waiting for him. He would not have dared to speak unless spoken to.…" Clearly they came from the same source but the impression each left was different. In the Schocken edition the landlord seems arrogant. In the Wordsworth edition the landlord comes across more as reticent. It left me wondering what did Kafka want to imply? I'm sure there were more differences. I just happened to notice this quickly.

After finishing reading The Castle I went back to the Introduction by Howe and the Homage by Mann. The Schocken edition also includes an Appendix with almost seventy pages of pages and fragments deleted by the author. Clearly this was a field day for editors picking and choosing what to include. Howe also includes a review of much literary criticism that had accrued through 1992. He takes to task the religious interpretation that Mann featured in his Homage saying the word "Jew" never appears in the text. Notably Mann's Homage was written in Princeton in 1940 which was a period where Mann had fled from Nazi persecution so I would guess it would be easier for Mann to see Judaism than for Howe in 1992.

I'll leave to other reviewers to give a synopsis of the story. Yes it represents the futility of K's many attempts to reach the authorities in the Castle and in many ways it's a timeless tale that fits in easily with the rest of Kafka's unique approach to life. I've not read all the editions nor even all the Appendix in the Schocken edition. Based on what I've seen I recommend highly finding a copy of the Schocken edition. Sadly mine goes back to the Library. ( )