The Castle

Franz Kafka · 1883–1924 · Czechia (Bohemia)

Originally Das Schloss (German)

Why it matters

A land surveyor arrives in a village to serve a Castle that never admits him: striving as a condition, arrival as a mirage. Unfinished, like its hero's errand; the bleakest and funniest of Kafka's three novels.

At a glance

Long, circular paragraphs and an unresolved, unfinished plot deliberately deny closure.