Like George Orwell, Franz Kafka has given his name to a world of nightmare, but in Kafka's world, it is never completely clear just what the nightmare is. The Trial, where the rules are hidden from even the highest officials, and if there is any help to be had, it will come from unexpected sources, is a chilling, blackly amusing tale that maintains, to the very end, a relentless atmosphere of disorientation. Superficially about bureaucracy, it is in the last resort a description of the absurdity of 'normal' human nature.Still more enigmatic is The Castle. Is it an allegory of a quasi-feudal system giving way to a new freedom for the subject The search by a central European Jew for acceptance into a dominant culture A spiritual quest for grace or salvation An individual's struggle between his sense of independence and his need for approval Is it all of these things And K Is he opportunist, victim, or an outsider battling against elusive authority

Literature - Classics / Criticism FICTION / Classics World Literature - Czech Republic