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Cover of The Castle by Franz Kafka

The Castle

Franz Kafka

  • 384 pages · about 6 hours
  • First published 1926
  • 166 editions
  • Free to read
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1 About this book

The Castle (original title: "Das Schloß") is the story of K., the unwanted Land Surveyor who is never to be admitted to the Castle nor accepted in the village, and yet cannot go home.

As he encounters dualities of certainty and doubt, hope and fear, and reason and nonsense, K.'s struggles in the absurd, labyrinthine world where he finds himself seem to reveal an inexplicable truth about the nature of existence. Kafka began The Castle in 1922 and it was never finished, yet this, the last of his three great novels, draws fascinating conclusions that make it feel strangely complete.

Good for readers who want: a classic and a book they can read free online.

  • Classics
  • Biography
  • Alienation (Social psychology)
  • Bureaucracy
  • Castles
  • Germanic literature
  • Austrian Authors
  • Allegories

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3 About Franz Kafka

1883–1924

Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a German-language Jewish writer from Prague. Widely regarded as a major figure of 20th-century literature, his works fuse elements of realism and the fantastique, and typically feature isolated protagonists facing bizarre or surreal predicaments and incomprehensible bureaucratic powers. The term Kafkaesque has entered the lexicon to describe situations like those depicted in his writings.

Bio adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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