The Complete Works with Interpretations Part Four The Human Universe The Castle

Description

Scholars of Kafka’s “literary continent” unanimously agree that his writings are poetic creations, just as Shakespeare’s plays and Goethe’s novels are. Poetry can take the form of a poem, a play, a story, or a reflection and still remain poetry. Poetry possesses a hidden language that reveals the inner and the implicit. In this sense, The Castle is a long poem and a monumental work of art.

Only through shocking imagery does the hidden truth appear directly and clearly, for the distinctive characteristic of Kafka’s poetic images lies in their striking correspondence with the hidden truth, not the externally apparent one. Unlike other creators, Kafka is not content to remain within the realm of the experiential or to cherish boundless sensations or visions. Rather, he instantly transforms this truth into a concrete image, and this concrete image appears itself as an experiential reality. Thus, it inevitably strikes the reader like a hammer blow, leaving no escape, forcing them to take a stand against a truth that defies interpretation (Wilhelm Emmerich, Kafka’s foremost scholar).

In *The Castle*, time, space, and the body are subject to the laws of alienation, as in *The Trial*. In *The Castle*, Kafka also reveals himself as a master organizer, transforming elements of the external world into phenomena of psychological states (Peter-André Alt, Kafka’s biographer and former president of the University of Berlin).

“Kafka is a great master; his texts never age or rust; they speak to timeless experiences” (Rainer Stach, Kafka’s biographer).

“I believe that the greatest novel in the world is Kafka’s *The Castle*” (French film director Jean-Marie Straub).

This fourth volume of Kafka’s *Complete Works* includes:

1. The text of *The Castle* according to the manuscript edition.

2. Three studies of the novel.

3. An appendix: A discussion of Kafka; an overview of Kafka’s life and works; Kafka the hobbyist. The Arab Kafka in 2049.

This book represents a new approach to introducing a world-renowned writer to Arab writers, critics, and readers. It also demands a new way of reading.

Reading the novel “The Castle” and the studies surrounding it is an unparalleled reading adventure. At first glance, the novel appears enigmatic and full of mysteries, but the studies serve as the key that unlocks the labyrinth of its themes and resolves its many puzzles and complexities.