Edwin Muir Books

I'd like to point ut to those who critocized Kafka's spelling of America that country spellings are actually different depending on where your from. If you read about where Kafka was from and look on a map you'll see it spelled as Prague. However if you go to Prague and look on one of their maps they actually spell it Praha. Therefore we are just as guilty.

perhaps it is best this novel remains unfinished......i've written and rewritten the last chapter in my head numerous times and that's been half the fun.......

I know Kafka was not American. I know that he wasn't even British and that he didn't speak English. He was Czech. He wrote in German. But "AMERICA" is spelled with a "C". I can't fault Kaca for this mistake. But his editors should have noticed it, I think.

It amazes me how Kafka has caught the American spirit so well. Since the end of World War II, Ameirican culture has become increasng hedonistic at the expense of other nations and even our own poor. But that spirit is reflected especially so in the 1990's where we seem to have forgotten what it means to look out for one another, and have lost the meaning of true hospitality and human empathy. Perhaps, Tom Brokaw in his new book, The Greatest Generation, is right; not since our grandparents has the nation cared for it's own in such an unselfish manner. That sense of caring seems to have been lost to us today.

Feuchtwanger is probably the best historical novelist in the world - truly superb in erudition and majestic in his literary style. While this German Jewish writer is famous for his Josephus trilogy detailing the scenes of the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem by the Romans, he has also written breathtaking historical novels on Goya the artist, J.J.Rousseau the philosopher, and last but not least, on Benjamin Franklin ("Arms for America"). "Jew Suss" (another masterpiece) is about medieval Europe and the Jewish presence there, sometimes a very visible presense, sometimes kabbalistically hidden. All of these books are a tour-de-force of the highest caliber.

A must read for every Historical Fiction lover. It displays a fascinating view of the Great Uprising at 70 C.E., and a truly unique study of the human nature and its drives. Josephus is a book with fully fleshed, multy-faceted personalities, well built background and wondrous plotline. Plenty of material for thought.

One of the traits I most appreciate in Feuchtwanger is that he does not attempt to idolize his characters, but presents them as the humans they were, with all the complications and wonders of the concept.

Aside from a few errors in Jewish religious terminology, and questionable historical moments (without which Historical Fiction is impossible) his portrait of the time is accurate, vivid and irresistable.

The book is bound to sweep every reader immediately, and never let go.

The epoch chronicled by Joseph ben Matthias, former priest of the High Temple in Jerusalem, military commander (of sorts) in Galilee against the opening Roman onslaught and historian of that war, is an extremely significant crossroads of civilization and religion.

Josephus was a champion of his maligned people in the waning years of his life. His life and works were shunned by his beloved Jews as he was considered an arch-traitor who became a Roman lackey. That his works were preserved was only due to
the dligence of certain Christian prelates in the early Church, who (after tampering with some revered passages) found in Josephus a witness to the life and resurrection of Christ outside the Gospels. What a marvelous subject for a novel. Lion Feuchtwanger rose to the occasion. His characters are not the antiseptic saints or the demons of Lew Wallace's Ben Hur, but
conflicted, vacillating and at times just plain goofy people who almost accidentally were placed center stage in one of history's most crucial turning points.

Is F's history a little fudged? Well certainly, but his own essay on the historical novel makes it clear that he is
a "political message" writer who takes liberties here and there to make his tale relevant. When he wrote, Jews throughtout the diaspora wrestled with the notion of Zionism... reestablishment of a Jewish polity on ancient ground. The countervailing movement was that Jews had to become "world citizens", contributing to civilization in the countries of their birth, even as rising fascism and antiSemitism closed in upon them.

So Josephus' famed Antiquities is given a bit of a spin to conform with Feuchtwanger's Germany and the Palestine under the British Mandate. To the purist, distortions such as having
the aristocratic priest Josephus be an early advocate of a Zealot faction called the Makkabees might be a bit jarring.
Was Queen Berenice a Jewish patriot in her own way? Well it's possible, and the real Josephus may have wanted to mute this
characterization, as the Jews in Rome were under suspicion and censure under Domitian. Did Nero's consort, Poppaea Sabina
flirt coquettishly with Josephus while testing his knowledge of Jewish aspirations in Judaea and the world? Why not? We know she showered Josephus with gifts and that she was sympathetic
to the Jews's situation....though not a very saintly person in her personal affairs to put it mildly.

Reading these works, one can only wonder why they were never brought to the screen, let alone allowed to go out of print.

In this real masterpiece Lion Feuchtwanger has incredibly successfully showed the very nature of jews and their religion. Through the book the reader can not only understand what this people feel and why they live how they do. He starts to love them, to see their tragedy, destiny, future. It's absolutely impossible to stay indifferent. The next two parts of the trilogy ("The sons" and "The day will come") accomplish the history of life of a profound historian Josephus Flavius, but personally I admire this book the most.

I'm trying to construct a situation whereby a person would be browsing in Amazon's world of words and stumble across an edition of Edwin Muir's poetry without prior knowledge of the poet or his work. No "Listmanias" link to this book (perhaps I'll change that, eventually). There aren't any recommendations for alternate purchases, which leads me to believe that no other purchases would suggest this book as another possibility for the interested. In fact, if you read this review, you probably know more about Edwin Muir than I do. Nevertheless, for what it's worth:

Persevere through the first section: his early poems. Things start happening in "Variations on a Time Theme." Sections 7 and 10 of that one are phenomenal. Continue and you'll find a poet obsessed with the symbols and themes of Christianity, mythology, time, and loss. T. S. Eliot in the introduction calls him and Edwin Muir contemporaries doing different things, yet Muir converted Eliot to be a fan and editor, and no wonder--in Muir's ruminations on Time I thought persistently and inevitably of the Four Quartets. Muir's language is lovely yet accessible, just the right amount of formal hyjinks and symbols that leave a sweet and full-bodied aftertaste (only a poet who knows history can do this). I've been sitting with a lion and a dragon since the morning.

Edwin Muir is probably better remembered now as the translator of Kafka than as a writer in his own right; but he was a poet of extraordinary range, depth, elegance, and skill, and his poems are among the glories of English language poetry in the twentieth century.

This collection was edited by Kafka's great friend, the man who saved his writings from the flames, Max Brod. It contains the work which Kafka published in his lifetime, including 'Meditation' 'The Judgment' The Metamorphosis' ' The Country Doctor' ' In the Penal Colony' and three pieces of travel- writing.
Had Brod obeyed his friend's instruction and burned his work, then this present collection would be what we have of Kafka. We would not have the Journals, the Letters to his Father, Milena, and others, the novels, The Castle, the Trial, most of Amerika.
Nonetheless even from what there is in this volume alone we can see that we are dealing with one of world Literature's great originals. The uncanny and mysterious character of Kafka's writing, those strange riffs of reasoning which take us to places in imagination we have never been before pervade this volume.
Two illustrations. First, the Bucket Rider a small story , a parable of the human soul in search of heat, and help meeting the cruelty of winter cold and the merciless human heart. The other, ' Metamorphosis' in which Kafkean self- contempt seems to find its most perfect embodiment, and in which we observe Gregor Samsa struggling to communicate with his family and the world to remain alive, only to be rejected in the end by those he loves and cares about.
Camus said that Kafka is a writer that must be reread and reread if he is to be addressed properly. The element of parable in his writing is a major element in urging us to this rereading. In the famous 'Before the Law' and in the 'Imperial Messenger' we have two examples in which there is that improbable Kafkean combination of a special fate and chosenness combined with a cosmic impossibility and failure.
I would have preferred to see introductions to each seperate piece here including details of the first publication of the work, and if possible of Kafka's considerations regarding each work. That is I would have preferred more extensive editorial work here.
But this lapse cannot detract from the remarkable power of these stories. Rereading them after quite a few years away from them I am again struck by how wholly different Kafka seems from any other writer. I don't think that even Borges could teach him how to better write his Parable.

In his protagonist, Richard Hieck, Broch has presented us with a companion to Robert Musil's Ulrich: both are men influenced by the unsettling theories of their time and both search for meaning within the maddening cacaphony of ideas, but where Ulrich is swallowed by the din Broch presents us with an intriguing resolution to the problems of disorder. Hieck is a mathematician, an astronomer, a scientist - he is a lonely man who pursues knowledge down all of its blind alleys and dead ends purely for the sake of the pursuit, certain that there is no end, no ultimate goal. All of his relationships with the world are kept at an uneasy distance; from his half-demented mentor Doctor Weitprecht, his saintly younger sister Susanne (whose own response to the chaos of her times is to become a true "Bride of Christ"), his bohemian artist brother Otto - all are as equally inscrutable to Richard as are the millions of stars which pattern the night sky. And throughout his quest he remains haunted by the memory of his father, himself a scientist who succombed to the madness of the universe; it would seem that Richard is doomed to an obscure life and unrepented death. Can he be saved?
I mention the comparison to Robert Musil's masterpiece, "The Man Without Qualities" not only because it bears a relation to Broch's work but also because the respective authors seemed to have know of their connection. No less an authority that Elias Canetti - who knew both men - explains the animosity between the two thusly: Musil believed Broch to be an amateurish writer and was suspicious that Broch could claim to have "solved" the ideas presented in his works so quickly ("The Unknown Quantity" was written in six months while Musil's own opus went unfinished after a lifetime of work). Broch believed Musil a "king of a paper empire" whose life's work mirrored the chaotic unfathomability of the time. This writer's spat aside, I think that it illustrates Broch's conclusion, perhaps his "solution" to the Unknown Quantity.
Broch suggests that the missing element in the equation of Richard Hieck's life is simply love: "an awkward kiss released from all willing, released from Being, upborne by a wave of darkness." p.132 When Hieck accepts that there are no answers to be discerned from the infinity of stars above, when he allows himself to recognize the beauty that is next to him in the person of the devoted Ilse Nydhalm, when he understands that he cannot make himself desireless - only then is Richard Hieck saved from the world of pure knowledge. "[I]n the lonliness of the heart everything is absolute, in the heart there are no statistically approximate values, there the law is valid, and that is all that there is to say." p.176 The Unknown Quantity is elusive for Richard, but it is also his salvation.
I recommend this novel as a fine introduction to Hermann Broch, who is at his most accesible in this, his fourth work (published in 1933). It presents many of the same themes which dominate Broch's works, from his "Sleepwalkers" trilogy down to "The Guiltless." A challenging writer and a satisfying read.

Check Your Review of
Collected Stories (Everyman's Library)
by Franz Kafka, et al

Here is your review the way it will appear:

= ÊÊ the Muir's in tux and bow tie
Reviewer: Michael Sympson from Florida
It has become customary for a current translator to preface his production with a little critique of his predecessors, especially the Muirs Ð after all we are not supposed to put our light under a bushel, but just between you and me: a great translator is just as rare as a great author, there might be billions and quadrillions of stars in the Universe, but the nights are still dark and the zodiac shows the same old signs since the countdown began at 11.00 am on Sunday, April 27th, 3877 BC. (central European time). Perhaps if the pay would be better there would be more stars in the firmament over Grub street.

So, since this is not the best of all worlds, only the best of all possible worlds, if not the only possible world, we better brace ourselves for surprises when a latter day translator of some repute allows to compare the "Country Doctor," perhaps Kafka's finest achievement, in his new version, with the established rendition of the Muirs. The very first sentence draws the line. Neugroshel (ÒThe Metamorphosis, in the Penal Colony, and Other StoriesÓ) thinks he knows better than the author and trims the sentence to bite-size:

"I was in a great predicament: an urgent trip lay ahead of me; a dangerously ill patient awaited me in a village ten leagues away; a heavy blizzard filled the vast space between me and him; I did have a wagon, lightweight, with large wheels, just the right kind of wagon for our country roads. Bundled up in my fur coat, holding my instrument bag, I stood in the courtyard, ready to travel; but the horse was lacking, the horse." But Kafka didnÕt write for the ÒToronto StarÓ and felt no obligation to chop his sentences to anemic tidbits for the weak digestion. The Muirs thought so too:

"I was in great perplexity, I had to start an urgent journey; a seriously ill patient was waiting for me in a village ten miles off; a thick blizzard of snow filled all the wide spaces between him and me; I had a gig, a light gig with big wheels, exactly right for our country roads; muffled in furs, my bag of instruments in my hand, I was in the courtyard all ready for the journey; but there was no horse to be had, no horse." Perhaps not the choice of words, but syntax and rhythm are incomparably closer to the original; in fact, this sentence alone deserves to be copyrighted for eternity and should oblige every succeeding translator to quote the Muirs. And why stop with the first sentence? The entire story is coming across splendidly. And by the way, the doctor used a gig, not a wagon, Mr. Neugroschel.

ÒEvery author creates his own pedigreeÓ says Jorge Luis Borges; and we know from KafkaÕs own testimony whom he had chosen as his models. Charles DickensÕ white hot fusion of language and imagery left its mark on ÒAmerica;Ó Flaubert taught Kafka the discipline to say extraordinary things in ordinary language and seek for the one befitting word; and late in his life, Heinrich von KleistÕs marvellous economy of structure and style left an indelible impression on Kafka. To some extent, Kafka even appreciated Friedrich Nietzsche. Just recall the rants and paragraphs of endless to-and-fro soliloquies in Ôlegalese,Õ KafkaÕs variety of the interior monologue.

Such were, what Kafka himself had recognized as formative influences. His friend Max Brod however, preferred to add Kierkegaard to this list and to belittle Nietzsche. BrodÕs view prevailed with the critics of his generation. KafkaÕs work drifted into the murky neighborhood of existentialism and of nebulous metaphysics for the secular seeker. For most critics and many readers, Kafka had turned from an artist to a saint. Regrettably the Muirs picked up on this trend and this sometimes slanted their choices in the phrasing - notice ÒI had to start an urgent journey ... :Ó Neugroschel was right to play it down in his rendition. Against all appearances, Kafka is not a latter day John Bunyan.

According to Stephen King (you are right, how could I sink so low) the two most important ingredients of fiction are empathy (the readerÕs) and the ability to hypnotize (on the authorÕs part). The man is right, and Kafka does possess hypnotic powers if the reader is willing to yield to his magic. KafkaÕs stories are dreams, not more real than fairy tales, and full of symbols as confusing as in a nightmare. The Muirs had enough artistic instinct to actually perceive that, and all things considered, produced a translation, which will remain the standard for still a very long time to come.

This is my absolute favorite book by my favorite writer, Kafka. As a 17 year old student at a boarding high school, my writing teacher lent me her copy of "The Metamorphosis" (the Muir translation), which I instantly fell in love with. I immediately bought the Everyman's Library edition of Kafka's Collected Stories, which I believe to be the best collection of Kafka's stories out there. There is a controversial topic over which translator best captures Kafka's intent, this book uses the Muir translation in the first half which I believe, though it may not be as accurate as the Corngold translation, flows better languistically and is easier to read. The book, while visually pleasing, arranges the stories in the most sensible way: instead of placing the stories in alphabetical order, like the other books, it arranges them chronologically in the book they were originally in (e.g. stories that were published in "Meditations" are in the Meditations section and not scattered about). Choice stories include "In the Penal Colony," "Report to an Academy," "The Metamorphosis," and, the most heart-wrenching and simply beautiful, "Josephine the Singer or the Mouse Folk," which was arguably the last story Kafka wrote before his death in 1924. The book also contains a number of unpublished stories (make that 'unfinished,' as unfortunately many break off mid-text, contain a note of 'two pages missing...' and then continue on, leaving the reader a little baffled), which will content those who have read absolutely everything that Kafka published. While it does not contain "The Trial," "The Castle," or "Amerika" (although it has the first chapter, "The Stoker"), it contains, I'm pretty sure, everything else. The book also has a lengthy introduction, but I would advise the reader to first read the book and then the introduction, because the intro alludes to stories in the book and is confusing unless you have read the story that they're talking about. A short literary chronology is also included. This book is well worth the money and I highly recommend it. This is possibly the most beautiful collection of stories I have ever read.

Kafka's insight into human nature is amazing. Truly amazing! His stories connect to us, how we're feeling, and what we're feeling. They incapsulate the sometimes futile nature of life, and the underlying guilt of it all. A definite must read!

Comparing these translations to other versions, these translations are horrible. With Kafka, even just one word can change the entire meaning of his work. I would recommend Malcolm Pasley's translations of Kafka instead.

I really enjoyed this book as it was focused on plants and animals. My favorite chapters were "The Water Ouzel" (a bird) and "Stickeen" (a dog). However, the whole book was interesting and enjoyable, including chapters about different people he met along the way ("The Robber" and "The Blacksmith"). This book is titled as "a selection from his collected work." I enjoyed his writing so much that I will look for a complete volume of his works so I don't miss out on any other great stories.

Whether you are interested in John Muir specifically or just want to read about an interesting life, this book is an excellent place to start.

John Muir had an incredible and important life, and it is told here succinctly in his own words, excerpted to emphasize the profound. It is a glimpse into a lifestyle 99.9% of us will never know, yet it is truly important to our times. His love of nature, adventure and exploration is a reminder of why we need to experience more than our 9 to 5 workdays and why we need to apply ourselves to the protection of the Earth.

Muir was a gentle but strong man, a genius with simple needs, solitary yet influential. This book is a terrific way to look into his life and his time and to gain some inspiration into our lives and our times.

I am often asked for a recommendation of what among Muir's writings, or writings about him, one should first read. After spending more than 30 years appreciating both his writings and most of the books about Muir that have been published during that time, and after ten years editing the John Muir Exhibit online, I can only turn to the same book that originally enthalled me with John Muir: The Wilderness World of John Muir, edited by Edwin Way Teale.

This book was edited by someone who was himself an able naturalist and nature-writer, and therefore someone who could understand Muir in a way that most academics, whether professors of literature or historians, cannot. Edwin Way Teale (1899-1980), has been ranked as a nature writer with been ranked with Henry David Thoreau, John Burroughs, as well as John Muir himself. His honors include being elected as a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, receiving the John Burroughs Award in 1943, and the Pulitzer Prize in 1966. He was the author of 32 books. Teale's sympathy for Muir's message is shown in the book's Dedication page, which is "Dedicated to The Sierra Club, The Wilderness Society, The National Parks Association, and all those who are fighting the good fight to preserve what John Muir sought to save."

This book serves as both an anthology of the very best of Muir's writings, and also a biography, compellingly provided by Teale.

The biographical value of this work is often under-stated, even by the publisher. The book is typically viewed as an anthology, and indeed it is, primarily; but it also contains a wealth of biographical information, far more than the typical anthology.

Teale commences his book on John Muir with an authoritative 10-page Introduction, that not merely identifies the key events in Muir's life, but provides an assessment and perspective of how Muir stacks up with other nature writers. He provides facts you won't find elsewhere: "While visiting friends, Muir sometimes would talk four hours at breakfast." Teale, writing in 1954, was able to talk with several people who knew Muir personally. He noted that everyone he talked to had a different view of which phase of natural history held first importance in Muir's mind. Some thought it was trees; another thought it was geology, another plants. Teale points out the fourth view, probably the nearest right of all: "... the whole interrelationships of life, the complete rounded picture of the mountain world. Today, Muir probably would be called an ecologist." Teale 's assessment of Muir as an "ecologist" pre-dates the "ecology movement" of the 1970s by at least 15 years. Teale admirably tells of the scope of the places, glaciers, plants, and animals named after him, and Muir's contributions to science and conservation. Although public appreciation for Muir has grown dramatically since Teale's book was first published in 1954, The Wilderness World of John Muir still provides the best introduction to Muir's life and writings.

Following the admirable Introduction, each of the 51 excerpts from Muir's writings commences with a preface by Teale, of up to a page in length, presenting in chronological order the story of Muir's life, and putting each of Muir's writings into context.

Although serving as a biography, the Wilderness World is, in fact, primarily a superb anthology. Rather than simply re-printing the full text of such of Muir's works as The Story of My Boyhood and Youth, A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf, My First Summer in the Sierra, Travels in Alaska, Our National Parks , and the Journals, Teale provides short snippets from the best of Muir's writings, arranged into seven broad categories:

I. Memories of Youth - reprints Muir's writings about his boyhood in Scotland, life on the Wisconsin Farm, seeing immense flocks Passenger Pigeons, nearly dying of choke-damp while digging a well, his inventions, and his enrollment at the University of Wisconsin.

II. University of The Wilderness - Excerpts from A Thousand Mile Walk, including people by the way, camping among the tombs of Bonaventure Cemetery in Savannah, Georgia, and Muir's visit to Cuba and New York.

III. The Range of Light - Muir's adventures in the Sierra, including his first glimpse from Pacheco Pass and crossing the bee pastures of the Central Valley, his first visits to the High Sierra, climbing on the brink of Yosemite Falls above the Valley, tributes to wildlife including bears and grasshoppers, and his telepathic experience sensing the presence of his former University Professor Butler in the Valley.

IV. The Valley - Muir's glorious tributes to Yosemite Valley's waterfalls, the water ouzel, the earthquake, and Ralph Waldo Emerson's visit.

V. Forests of the West - Including Muir's adventure high atop a Douglas fir during a wind-storm, and writings about Silver Pine, the Douglas Squirrel, Sequoia, Nevada Nut Pines, and Muir's clarion call to protect the forests, "Any Fool Can Destroy a Tree."

VI. Glacier Pioneer - Muir's discovery of the Sierra glaciers, his climb of Mount Ritter, his perilous night on Mount Shasta, and his travels in Alaska, including his discovery of Glacier Bay and his adventure with Stickeen.

VII. The Philosophy of John Muir - excerpts from many scattered sources focusing on Muir's views on mankind's relationship to Nature. For many, this is the favorite part of the book, the part one returns to again and again for inspiration.

Despite this, the book does have some failings. The book belies the importance of Muir's family and friends, which becomes so evident upon reading his extensive correspondence. Nor does the book do more than barely mention some important places in Muir's life, such as his global travels to such places as the glacial mountains of Europe, the forests of Siberia, the Himalayas and forests of India, Australian and New Zealand forests, and, the fulfillment of his life-long dream, his last trip to see the forests of South America and Africa. The book emphasizes Muir's appreciative writings about Nature, and only briefly mentions the conservation battles which consumed so much of his life, including his long campaign to protect Hetch Hetchy. To obtain a whole picture of Muir, the reader will need to also read another work about Muir's conservation campaigns, such as Roderick Nash's chapter on "John Muir: Publicizer" in Wilderness and the American Mind, Stephen Fox's John Muir and His Legacy: The American Conservation Movement, or John Muir and the Sierra Club: The Battle for Yosemite by Holway R. Jones.

Since the book was originally published in 1954, it is not informed by some of the more recent research resulting from Muir's unpublished journals and correspondence, published in the John Muir Papers in 1980. Given the popularity of this book, fifty years after its first publication, the publishers should consider a second edition, again using a nature writer rather than a literary critic or historian to update the book.

Overall, in this book Muir comes alive, as someone who can can at once write inspiringly and poetically about trees, storms, mountains, glaciers, and forests, but yet also show the attention to detail of an analytical scientist. Muir is revealed as adventurer, a lover of nature, a person who can still excite the imagination of readers. As Teale concludes, "Rich in time, rich in enjoyment, rich in appreciation, rich in enthusiasm, rich in understanding, rich in expression, rich in friends, rich in knowledge, John muir lived a full and rounded life, a life unique in many ways, admirable in many ways, valuable in many ways.... In his writings and in his conservation achievements, Muir seems especially present in a world that is better because he lived here."

August, 2004

Kafka is one of my all time favorite writers, but try as I might, I can't get through the Mark Harman translation of The Castle ... it comes across like a laundry list of details, at least compared to the other versions I've read.
A tour de force of literal accuracy, perhaps, but it just isn't funny.

Hearing about Kafka's work is not enough: you really need to read it and experience it yourself. It's hilarious, and unfortunately all too true.

In this book, a surveyor, named K., arrives in a village and tries to get in to the castle in order to get permission to stay there and do his work, but falls into a quagmire of disfunctional bureaucracy. This may sound like a dreary read, but the book is really very funny, and reminded me too much of the real world. K spends most of the book on a fruitless quest to meet an official named Klamm who might be able to help him get into the castle. I laughed out loud at some of the ridiculous conversations he has with some of the villagers, and later I gasped in amusement and dismay as I learned more about this twisted world.

Kafka never finished writing this book, and the restored text, of which this is a translation, ends in the middle of a sentence. However this doesn't really make it any less satisfying to read. While it is not clear where the last couple of pages are going, just before that there is a long paranoid rant by one of the villagers which is great.

This translation seems to be more accurate than the older, Muir translation. There are some things that sound kind of weird here, but they sound weird in the original too.

I offer the startling proposal that Franz Kafka's The Castle is, after all, about life as it is lived by all of us.

The novel is difficult for us "post post moderns" for several reasons.

The first is that the action is set in a time and place which no longer exist: Prague in the Austro-Hungarian Empire before and possibly during World War I.

Kafka's readers were familiar with the social structure and physical description of the village and Castle of his story. But it is not easy for us to understand the relative rank and relationships between the Count Westwest, the Count's authorities, the villagers, peasants, officials, stewards, substewards, lawyers, domestics, gentlemen, chairmen, chamber maids, coachmen, school teachers, innkeepers, land surveyors, gentleman's servants, fire chiefs, shoe makers, and so forth. But we have to form an imaginative relationship with and between all of them so that we can enter into the complex of social and psychological relationships presented in the book.

The geography of the village and especially of the Inn, with its corridors, tap room, etc. is presented in vivid detail but is unlike anything we are likely to encounter in modern life, and therefore it seems almost dreamlike even though it was obviously part of Kafka's daily experience and is in no way "Kafkaesque."

A third difficulty is the extraordinarily dense nature of the story. The plot of The Castle has been described as simple, and in fact it is simple. But the story has layers and layers of detailed information that interweave, are clarified and sometimes contradicted by the skein of events, and detailed reactions to the events, that run through 25 chapters. We need a map of characters and their relationships with each other to separate the planned ambiguities from the unplanned. Otherwise we quickly become lost in maze of detail, which was not Kafka's intention.

A fourth difficulty is the humor. Humor does not usually travel well, either in time or space. But whether we get all the jokes or not, it is obvious that The Castle is full of humor, from slapstick and pranks all the way to paradox, the absurd, high irony and self-mockery. We need to be on the lookout for humor, everywhere.

Kafka loved Charlie Chaplin and we should not forget that fact while reading The Castle. Chaplin's film, The Tramp, opens with tramp walking down a dusty road with a walking stick and a small -- do we dare say "rucksack?" I would bet that Kafka was inspired to open The Castle with the same image. Chaplin's film, A Dog's life, opens with a tramp gazing up at what looks like a castle with a flag flowing over its crest, and I would wager that Kafka's The Castle was influenced by that film and its opening image as well. To get into the right mood for reading The Castle, I recommend watching both of these silent movies.

Ludwig Wittgenstein once said that "a serious philosophical work could be written that would consist entirely of jokes." The Mathematician John Allen Paulos points out a relationship between the humor of Groucho Marx and the philosophical work of Bertrand Russell and George Pitcher in "Wittgenstein, Nonsense, and Lewis Carroll" shows the same relationship between the humor of Carroll and the philosophy of Wittgenstein. I propose, for someone else to show with quotations, that Kafka does the same with the thought of the Danish thinker Soren Kierkegaard. In fact, the entire novel, The Castle, seems to me to be an absurd and often humorous meditation on the famous saying of Kierkegaard "Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards."

As an example of high irony and self-mockery, one of the characters, Amalia asks K, in response to his professed interest in the Castle,

"The influence of the castle? ... do you really care about such stories? ... there are people who feed on such stories ... but you do not strike me as one of them." "Yes I am," said K, "I am indeed one of them, whereas I am not greatly taken by those who do not concern themselves with such stories and simply make others concern themselves with them." "Well yes," said Amalia, "but people are interested in different ways, I once heard of a young man whose mind was taken up day and night with thoughts of the Castle, he neglected everything else, people feared for his ordinary faculty of reason since all his faculties were always up at the Castle, but in the end it turned out that it wasn't actually the Castle he was thinking of but only the daughter of a scullery maid at the offices, he got her, and then all was fine again." "I would like that man, I think," said K, "As for your liking that man," said Amalia, "I'm not so sure about that, but you might like his wife. Now don't let me disturb you, but I am going to bed ..." p. 205 (All quotes are from the Harman translation published by Shocken Books.)

There are many examples of prankish, almost slapstick humor such as the following,

"Erlanger .. he's known for his memory and for his ability to judge people, he simply knits his brow, that's all it takes for him to recognize anyone, often even people whom he's never seen before, whom he has only heard or read about, and in my case, for instance, he could hardly have seen me before. But though he recognizes everyone right away, he asks first (who you are) as though he were unsure."
p. 238

"[Brunswick] is actually quite quick. It's one form his stupidity takes." p.68

"So you are merely acquainted with the office furnishings at the Castle?" K asked [the chairman] rudely. "Yes," said the chairman, with an ironic and yet grateful smile, "they're the most important things about it." p.67

"... and since the chair stood by the bed they stumbled over it and fell down ... She sought something and he sought something, in a fury, grimacing, they sought with their heads boring into each other's [...]; their embraces and arched bodies, far from making them forget, reminded them of their duty to keep searching, like dogs desperately pawing at the earth they pawed at each other's bodies, and then, helpless and disappointed, in an effort to catch one last bit of happiness, their tongues occasionally ran all over each other's faces. Only weariness made them lie still, and be grateful to each other. Then the maids came up, "Look at the way they're lying there," one of them said, and out of pity she threw a sheet over them. p. 46

Another difficulty that must be overcome is that there are many long speeches where it isn't certain which character is talking. Sometimes it seems as if an omnipotent narrator is telling the story but then it becomes clear, or we recall, that it is one of the characters presenting his unique point of view of events and people. Also, it is important never to forget that K (the main character) and the narrator are not the same person (and, of course, that neither is Kafka!)

Then there is the planned ambiguity. For example K has been called to the village by the Castle to be a land surveyor. But in the first chapter, this is cast into doubt by a telephone call from the Bridge Inn to the Castle, which fails to corroborate this important "fact." A few minutes later, a call comes from the Castle to the Bridge Inn to report that an error has been made and that K was, in fact, called by the Castle to be a land surveyor.

It is crucial for understanding the story that we separate the planned confusion from our own confusion that results from not understanding what we are reading. A typical reader simply concludes that his own confusion and Kafka's planned confusions are the same.

The Castle is very complex. The complexity is impossible to clarify here, obviously, but most of the complexity is not in actions and events, such as Amalia tearing up a piece of paper and throwing it at a messenger, but in the emotions and reactions produced in a family, in the entire village and even the officials of the Castle by seemingly trivial actions. Unraveling these complex emotions and relationships is the most challenging task presented to us by The Castle.

The last difficulty that I would like to point out, and perhaps the hardest one for many readers, is the problem of thinking that Kafka is not describing the world as it is but only a surrealistic, crazy world where nothing makes sense. But, in fact, Kafka is describing the world as it still exists today. He is describing the psychology of real people who are still alive and functioning in corporations, schools, churches, universities and governments in America and the rest of the world.

We must enter into the world of The Castle expecting to find ourselves and the people we've encountered in our own lives if we want to make sense of it, to appreciate it for the great work of art that it is and to appropriate it for our own needs which are immense.

The item called "The Castle (Paperback) by Franz Kafka (Author), David Fishelson (Editor), Aaron Leichter (Editor), Max Brod (Editor)" for $7.50 is NOT the novel The Castle by Franz Kafka. It is a play by Aaron Leichter and David Fishelson based on a dramatization of the novel by Max Brod. If you think you are buying the book by Kafka, you will find you are mistaken. I am not commenting on the play itself; I'm just letting you know that this is NOT the novel. It is misrepresented. Its actual title is "Franz Kafka's The Castle," which was obviously not written by Franz Kafka in this form.

Review of "The Castle" by Franz Kafka

This book made me into a Kafka admirer. He brings life to characters in otherwise drab situations and makes them seem very real. The reader feels the frustration, absurdity, the pettiness and the powerlessness in a personal way. You feel the haughtiness and aloofness of the Castle staff as if they were a part of your own community. You feel the pettiness and delusional gossip of the townspeople as if you were seeing it first hand. The story is riveting and the pace seems fast even when there is little action.

The story starts with the protagonist (identified only by his initial, K.) walking to what sounds like a routine surveying job. Soon he is frustrated by a very confusing series of obstacles. As the story develops the obstacles become more chaotic. K.'s original purpose in going to the castle is never fully elaborated and his motives seem lost or stolen. The forces acting upon K. are shrouded. It seems as if some invisible force has plotted to test K. to the limit of human endurance of tolerance of ambiguity.

Kafka combines the themes of:
social class commentary,
alienation from a heartless social system,
absence of any protective power,
salvation,
redemption,
fear of strangers,
fear of change,
search for the meaning of life,
inscrutability of authorities,
indifference of forces ruling human fate,
persistence in the face lost purpose,
abuse of power
and
acceptance of pointlessness goals.

As the plot progresses it takes on a surreal nightmare quality. Is the protagonist having a nightmare, going insane or confronting the reality of his situation?

There is no end to the frustration. We are never told if K. is having a nightmare or going insane. We never discover why K. is so determined to enter the castle that he would tolerate and even join in to the absurdity. His original purpose of doing a surveying job could never justify his struggle to gain admittance. We are left seeing K. as a perpetual outsider. Perhaps Kafka is telling us that there is no end or limit to frustration, alienation and absurdity. Those seeking an answer to the ageless enigma of existence will never find a simple resolution.

This is a disturbing work that challenges conventional notions of plot and character development while testing the readers conception of his/her purpose in life. The Castle will confront the reader in unexpected ways and raise emotional personal issues that would otherwise be repressed.

See:

The Metamorphosis

The Trial

Amerika

Collections:

The Diaries of Franz Kafka (Schocken Classics Series)

Collected Stories (Everyman's Library)

The Zürau Aphorisms of Franz Kafka

Blue Octavo Notebooks

Kafka's Selected Stories (Norton Critical Edition)

Give It Up: And Other Short Stories

Great German Short Stories (Dover Thrift Editions)

I highly recommend this book.

Kafka's "Amerika" was the first of his novels that I read following a survey of his short stories. It's a witty and charming book, even if the America Kafka presents is completely unlike any America I've ever heard of. Still, I didn't find it that engaging. I felt as if Karl, the main character, was something of a pinball, bouncing from one place and situation to another as a consequence of the seeminly random decisions of those around him. He spends an awful lot of time thinking and thinking and thinking, but in the end all his thoughts don't amount to much and he's kicked to the next event.

Also, please remember this is an unfinished novel! Unlike many of Kafka's unfinished stories, it doesn't cut off at any particular final point, it just sort of stops, and now I'm frustrated! ;-)

There is an excellent review of this book on 'The Amazon site' by AJ Feinsinger that captures the story of this work, and much of its strangeness.
I am only adding a few impressions of my own.
First I concur with the observation that this is a book written by a person who has never been in America. I remember reading it years ago, and how it seemed to me the very opposite of everything America stands for.
America in my mind then, was brightness and optimism , a new hope and a new dream. It was moving Westward, and pioneering. It was clear and simple and beautiful
Kafka's 'Amerika' is complicated and mind- ridden. It is filled with paradoxes and absurdities, with strange cruel meetings .The atmosphere of nightmare and difficulty that pervades Kafka's work was felt by me then as in absolute contradiction to the American spirit.
Of the novels , 'The Castle ' 'The Trial' and this one I find this one the least satisfying, the most incoherent. It is very much a super- incomplete work. 'Incompleteness' is of course part of Kafka's legacy and gift .But here it seems often as if there simply has not been enough time given to the text.
I am in any case a reader of Kafka's diaries, parables, stories, shorter works more than I am of his novels which I find somehow tiresome.
This is to my mind the least satisfactory of all of Kafka's work.
And yet as Kafka reveals to us our own contradictions, paradoxes and fears in a way no one else can- this work too has its meaning and instruction.

By the author's own admission, "Amerika" is a much more optimistic piece than Kafka's other works. Since Kafka was never able to finish this work, the reader is unable to read the final "happy ending" that the plot is leading toward fulfilling. Even without the afterword which alleges the eventual ending, the lack of angst and thinning sense of confusion point toward resolution.

After fathering a child in his teenage years, Karl Rossman is shipped to America to begin his life free of stigma. But getting off of the ship that brings him to America becomes a challenge that leads him to a wealthy family member in America. However, Karl's life of luxury is short-lived. After offending his uncle, he is cast out on his own. Falling in allegiance with a pair of out of work tramps, Karl hopes to start anew. Delamarche and Robinson continually take advantage of Karl's resources until work finds Karl. These two men cost Karl his job of stature and try to force him into the servitude of the obese singer that employs Robinson and Delamarche. We never learn how Karl escaped this predicament, but find Karl in the last chapter finding an apparently great opportunity in Oklahoma.

Since this is an unfinished work, there are some gaps in the story as pointed out in my review. Many have dismissed this work of Kafka as it does not fit the typical mold of his work. While the gaps in the story make it difficult for me to give this book five stars, I would recommend this book to fans of Kafka.

Franz Kafka's 'Amerika' started off, to me, with a great premise, but in the end I found the tale less than entertaining.

Karl Rossman, a teenage boy shipped off to America by his parents following an 'indiscretion' with a servant girl, finds himself in the company of an American uncle, who quickly shuns him for accepting the hospitality of one of the uncle's friends.

Rossman then 'disappears' into the poor working class landscape of America, where he encounters many less than scrupulous characters.

Much of this novel is devoted to the this 'disappearance', though the action, to me, never quite moved along...and made the story quite stale to me...

While I have not read any other works by Franz Kafka, I hope that other novels were better paced and executed. His prose is enjoyable, just not very 'lively' in this offering.

Without ever having visited America, the German-speaking Czech author, Franz Kafka, wrote a novel based on research which included an autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, travel brochures, and the stories of Europeans who had traveled to America and returned to Europe. The result was the novel, Amerika, his unique and often very unrealistic interpretation of life in America. Amerika follows an almost sixteen-year-old boy through a series of experiences and adventures. Due to misbehavior at home, Karl Rossmann is sent by his parents to New York to live with his uncle in America . Kafka's skewed view of America is immediately demonstrated as Karl is greeted by the statue of liberty holding a raised sword. Karl meets many people and discovers a life quite different than any he has ever known in Europe. Karl meets his uncle and finds himself in the midst of people who are well-off in society. Later, on his own, he discovers a different side of American life. From houses the size of castles, to unfair treatment by his employer, to an out-of-control political rally, Karl is constantly surprised by America as he experiences many bizarre occurrences. Because Kafka did not finish Amerika, the reader is left disappointed in not knowing what happens to Karl, but also hopeful for Karl's future. This book is an interesting portrayal of America from the point of view of an early twentieth-century European who had never visited America. This makes the book intriguing.