Review of The Castle (Penguin Modern Classics)

A Perplexing Read

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I feel like I've been reading this book for 6 months when in actual fact it has been just under a month and after much struggling and determination I just can't keep reading it anymore and yet a part of me wants to keep reading it even though it's a torment. I feel as though if I stop reading I'm letting myself down and missing something. Perhaps it's because I want to know what's so good about Kafka. Why do I always seem to hear Kafka praised and nothing badly said about his writing? I have no idea, especially after reading this. I won't go as far as to say this was a waste of my time or a bad read it's just after reading 250 pages you'd like there to be some sort of point reached or what seems like a way to the point being made but I didn't feel like that. The characters are all mental and I felt that they were all just going around in cirlces. Then there's the dialogue. These are the longest conversations about the same thing said in a different way every few lines that I have ever read. Torment is the word for it and torment isn't the reason I read.

Comments

Dionysian Child

Posted : 4 weeks, 1 day ago at Aug 8 14:29

I was just going to review this book, but for the moment at least it seems pointless, as everything I was going to say, you already have.

I spent more time reading this book than any other, it wasn't enjoyable and yet I couldn't stop.
drawing closer to the end I could smell the victory and then it abruptly stopped mid sentence...

No conclusion nothing. In a way the perfect ending. Making the whole book feel rather like an apt and complete comment on life itself.

Added by Midnight 8 months ago on 6 January 2008 11:54