“It was late at night when K. arrived. The village was buried in snow. The hill of the Castle was not visible, mist and darkness wrapped it from all sides, and not a faint light showed that the great Castle was there. K. stood for quite some time on the wooden bridge that leads from the main road to the village, looking up at the deceptive void.”
The novel The Castle begins with a series of enigmas: why does K. come to the village, why does he want to reach the Castle at all costs, and why does everything and everyone seem to conspire against him? Instead of progressively providing answers to these questions, Kafka calls into question every assumption and every piece of information revealed throughout the work, creating contradictions and obscuring the facts.
The structure of the narrative, which he has shrouded in mystery, is to be reconstructed by the reader in an endless process; thus, the usual static binary relationship between author and reader, productive and receptive act dissolves. Anyone who wants to decipher Kafka’s text and fill in its “gaps” must actively participate in the game.
[Excerpt from the text on the back cover of the edition]
