The Castle by Franz Kafka, 3

In reality Hans was looking for K.'s help against his father, it was as if he had deceived himself, for he had thought that he wanted to help K. whereas what he had truly wanted, since nobody in their old circle could help them, was to determine whether this stranger, whose sudden appearance even Mother had noted, might perhaps be able to help them. (147)

Yet another interpretation of K's struggles around the Castle was messianism, the belief in a savior or redeemer. K. was ostracized by some Castle villagers and not given a chance to practice as a surveyor, but he was also embraced by others as someone who could be the answer to some of their problems. The Landlady, the Chairman, and the Teacher were the ones who wanted to drive him out. Hans, Barnabas, Frieda, and Olga, all seemed to need something from K.

With K.'s unannounced arrival, the deep rifts among the villagers and their back stories were brought back to the surface. He was seen as a kind of an answer to some of their problems. Consulting with K., the characters appeared to carry the burden of their existence. In the the same way K. wanted to establish himself in the village, they wanted something from him. While speaking to him, they were either solicitous and extremely cautious of the Castle's power over them, or they were prone to badmouthing and backstabbing others. They seemed to be emboldened by K.'s presence.

This K.-type messianism was exaggerated and used more overtly in Kazuo Ishiguro's novel The Unconsoled, wherein a pianist was assaulted by requests from different personages left and right prior to his performance.

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“Surveyor, in your thoughts you may be reproaching Sordini for not having been prompted by my claim to make inquiries about the matter in other departments. But that would have been wrong, and I want this man cleared of all blame in your thoughts. One of the operating principles of authorities is that the possibility of error is simply not taken into account. This principle is justified by the excellence of the entire organization and is also necessary if matters are to be discharged with the utmost rapidity. So Sordini couldn’t inquire in other departments, besides those departments wouldn’t have answered, since they would have noticed right away that he was investigating the possibility of an error.”

   “Chairman, allow me to interrupt you with a question,” said K., “didn’t you mention a control agency? As you describe it, the organization is such that the very thought that the control agency might fail to materialize is enough to make one ill.”

   “You’re very severe,” said the chairman, “but multiply your severity by a thousand and it will still be as nothing compared with the severity that the authorities show toward themselves. Only a total stranger could ask such a question. Are there control agencies? There are only control agencies. Of course they aren’t meant to find errors, in the vulgar sense of that term, since no errors occur, and even if an error does occur, as in your case, who can finally say that it is an error.” (64-65)

K. is the typical outsider. His arrival at the Castle has upset some kind of balance in the Castle's domain. He is like a brand new idea that is stubbornly rejected by tradition, someone who dared to ask questions and hence must be put in his proper place. His very presence is attributed to a clerical error. He is even reproached for being "a total stranger".

The Castle is necessarily an unattainable goal. Based on the characters' description of its inner workings, even if K. is granted audience by the Castle authorities, the layers of bureaucracy and red tape will not take him further afield. His journey or wandering is presented as Sisyphean. In that case, his desired destination (the Castle), as well as his starting point, does not matter; only his journey is important. This worldview is one shared by Javier Marías who said in an interview, "Conclusions and final explanations are often the most irrelevant—and disappointing—parts of a novel. What counts the most—and what we remember the most—is the atmosphere, the style, the path, the journey, and the world in which we have immersed ourselves ... What matters, then, is the journey along the horizon—in other words, the journey that never ends." Another modernist novelist, João Guimarães Rosa, put it another way: The truth is not in the setting out nor in the arriving: it comes to us in the middle of the journey. The novel being an unfinished novel already implies that Kafka didn't care in the least how the story proceeds. He has already written the meat of his vision through K.'s eternal struggle to settle down in the village despite being prevented from doing so.



(Note: This post is benefited by an online discussion of the novel.)