"There were blessings above you, but nobody knew how to get them down." ~ Franz Kafka, The Castle
In Karl Marx's magnum opus, Capital, he wrote that a man does not enter "into the world in possession of a mirror, nor as a Fichtean philosopher who can say 'I am I', a man first sees and recognizes himself in another man."1 This means a person is only capable of understanding that they are a person through the medium of a secondary consciousness. The negative space between one person's mind and another is what constitutes the foundation of the original construction: only through mutual recognition does a man take shape. This perceived gap inevitably creates the distinction between the observer and the observed, or, alternatively, the subject and the object. Once the molten sludge of the early mind cools, hardens, and tempers itself into a fully formed subject with rigid boundaries between inside and outside, the chasm separating it and everything else takes on cosmic proportions. Some do well ignoring the infinite ocean separating them and all they know by filling their cup full of illusions and getting drunk on believing they know exactly what those others think. Some convince themselves they do not care what others think and exclaim "All things are nothing to me"2. And still there are those like Franz Kafka who cannot shake the idea that there are others in this world, and that these "thous" think thoughts most foul, strange, and unusual, thoughts that twist and curl unnaturally, thoughts that crush the "I" with an unbearable weight. The classic cry of the neurotic: "I cannot bear to know what they think yet I must".
Kafka's The Castle penetrates to the icy core of the paranoid schizoid's assumption that all those that are not me are out to get me. The text lays bare the horror of the other and illuminates the absurdity of trying to forge a path over an unbridgeable gap. When Kafka's protagonist, K., arrives at the village to the Castle, he immediately begins making demands of the apparently hapless denizens. He claims he's a land surveyor who was sent for personally by the enigmatic Count, the supposed ruler of the Castle, and should be treated with the respect typically allocated to gentleman such as himself. Instantly his bluff is called, and the villagers, unbeknownst to K., start him up on an insurmountable climb to prove his position as land surveyor and secure for himself a fresh start as an authentic member of the Castle. K.'s struggle to acquire respect and admiration leads him to entertain the company of a variety of movers and shakers within the community who all radiate variable levels of prestige and notoriety.
K. soon finds that in order to complete his quest to ascertain a position of dominance in the dreary town he must first make acquaintance with an official of great fame: that of a man simply named Klamm. K. quickly finds that Klamm is not an easy man to reach if one is not already a member of the official Castle elite. Even the trivial act of walking around the village proves itself as a mystery---K. observes that any progress towards the Castle has it receding into the distance. He recognizes that the only way for him to make any progress in achieving his aims would require him to dedicate himself to the search of Klamm. The village, the Castle, and by extension the world, begins to reveal itself as one large unraveling thread that will lead to Klamm and K.'s ultimate absolution.
K.'s search for Klamm mirrors man's search for meaning. Each interaction K. makes, each interpretation he posits, and each step he takes are all vehicles for driving headlong into a life that could be worth something someday. K. is atemporal, a proverbial Wandering Jew who has no past and appears to have no future. The mystical qualities of K.'s trek to Klamm mimic the Kabbalistic traditions of the early second century: that of the Hekhalot and Merkavah.
Hekhalot, or palace, refers to mystical literature surrounding the divine realm of God and his angels who are only capable of being visited by the most devout followers. Merkavah, or chariot, refers to similarly mystical texts about the fiery chariot that whisked Elijah up and away to the Lord. The legends of both trends can be shown to have clearly weighed, either consciously or unconsciously, on Kafka's brain through both the structure of K.'s journey and the appearance taken on by the characters he encounters (or fails to encounter).
Klamm, the main aim of K.'s search, exemplifies Kafka's predilection to Kabbalistic themes. The exact position that Klamm holds remains a secret throughout the narrative, but it is obvious he commands great respect in the Castle bureaucracy. The landlady of the Gentleman's Inn thinks daily of her old romances with Klamm; Frieda, K.'s fiancée, begins the novel as Klamm's most recent mistress and draws great power from that post; Barnabas, Klamm's letter carrier, believes that being in Klamm's employ will raise his family's status amongst the villagers. Klamm appears to have an immense amount of professional capital within the Castle and yet is only seen once in the entire novel. The first and only sighting of Klamm occurs in the Gentleman's Inn when Frieda, the barmaid and K.'s eventual lover, tries to impress K. by telling him that Klamm can be seen through a peephole in the door beside the bar. K. avails himself of the small crack and:
"...through the small hole, which evidently had been drilled for the purpose of observation, he could see almost the entire room next door. At a desk in the center on a comfortable armchair sat Mr. Klamm, harshly illuminated by a lightbulb hanging in front of him. A medium-sized, fat, ponderous gentleman…[with] a precariously balanced pince-nez which reflected the light [and] concealed his eyes."3K.'s inability to directly view Klamm's image is akin to Moses' interaction with Yahweh on Mt. Sinai:
"He said, 'you cannot see My face, for man may not see Me and live.' And the LORD said, 'See, there is a place near Me. Station yourself on the rock and, as My Presence passes by, I will put you in a cleft of the rock and shield you with My hand until I have passed by. Then I will take My hand away and you will see My back; but My face must not be seen.'"4Much like the Jewish god, Klamm takes on a position of utter incomprehensibility. Even a righteous prophet like Moses is unable to see God's eyes, thus it follows naturally that a total novice like K. could never dream of looking into Klamm's pupils.
Klamm is showered with praise by every character K. encounters. His bureaucratic might is beyond legendary and he instills a great longing in K. Klamm maintains his dominant psychic presence only through his conspicuous physical absence. It is said that "[Frieda] could speak to [Klamm] whenever she wished and was allowed to use the peephole, and yet he never spoke to her."5 When K. engages the landlady in conversation about Klamm she remarks that "I shall never again speak to him, he’s completely beyond my reach…"6 Frieda eventually presses K. on his obsession surrounding Klamm and he responds that:
"It’s difficult to say what I want from him. First, I want to see him close-up, then I want to hear his voice…A number of subjects may come up, but for me the most important thing is simply to be standing there opposite him."7Klamm is spoken of like the Lord of the Hekhalot,
"He is, so to say, like usThe impossibility of seeing Klamm without mediation is precisely what allows for him to remain powerful. Olga, the sister of Barnabas, relates to K. that Klamm looks "completely different" when he's inside of and outside of the village. In fact, Klamm is "different before he has had a beer, different afterwards, different awake, different asleep, different alone, different in a conversation, and, quite understandably after all this, almost utterly different up there at the Castle."9 K. finds himself in the same position of Job, "He passes me by—I do not see Him; He goes by me, but I do not perceive Him."10
and He is greater than all
and this is His glory
which is concealed from us"8
Like any good official, Klamm cannot fulfil his role as ultimate supervisor without underlings to supervise. Both the Castle and the village is filled to the brim with servants willing to do the bidding of their bureaucratic overlords. These gentleman "are extremely sensitive" and "cannot bear the sight of a stranger."11 They are will-o'-the-wisps that float to and from their ever important jobs as protectors of the measured order of the Castle. The servants are so engrossed in their daily activities that "nowhere else had K. ever seen one’s official position and one’s life so intertwined as they were here, so intertwined that it sometimes seemed as though office and life had switched places"12; one such official remarks that "we don’t acknowledge any distinction between ordinary time and work time. Such distinctions are alien to us."13 The jobs of the officials parallels the story in the Talmud that "each day the Holy One blessed be He creates a new group of angels, and they recite a new song before Him, and they go on their way."14 They exist only fleetingly, to both serve and praise the will of the Lord.
A rigid, though mysterious, hierarchy of officials begins to take shape as K. is juggled between an ever expanding rogues' gallery of respected, and not-so-respected, gentleman. Each member of the bureaucracy is quick to perform the proper defenestration to the office above him so as not to incur the wrath given to those who stink of impropriety. When Rabbi Ishmael proved himself worthy of ascending the Merkavah and reached the seven heavens he observed a similar behaviour of the righteous angels:
The guardian of the entrance of the first palace, when they see the guardians of the entrance of the second palace they remove their splendid crown and fall prostrate. The guardian of the entrance of the third palace, when they see the guardians of the entrance of the fourth palace they remove their glorious crown and fall prostrate. The guardian of the entrance of the fourth palace, when they see the guardians of the entrance of the fifth palace they remove their splendid crown and fall prostrate. The guardian of the entrance of the fifth palace, when they see the guardians of the entrance of the sixth palace they remove their glorious crown and fall prostrate. The guardian of the entrance of the sixth palace, when they see the guardians of the entrance of the seventh palace they remove their glorious crown and fall prostrate.15The proper respect must be shown to the groundskeepers of both divine and terrestrial law. Klamm, alongside Yahweh, stands "in the divine assembly; among the divine beings."16
It becomes obvious to K. that the gentlemen possess a knowledge forbidden to those unfamiliar with the ways of the Castle. "Indeed, my Lord GOD does nothing Without having revealed His purpose To His servants the prophets."17 K.'s journey can only progress if he hones his hermeneutical skills and becomes clever enough to penetrate into the hidden secrets of the Castle doctrine. Much like the men of ancient Mesopotamia who tried to erect a great tower to reach God so as to reclaim his power18 K.'s attempt to pierce the Castle's obfuscations is one of immense vanity. He encounters every villager from the position of a helpless child evoking expressions of pity and condescension.
When K. walks into the Barnabas clan's home for the first time they immediately removed his coat and it is remarked that "K. let this happen" as if he had any choice in the matter. While verbally sparring with the landlady, K. is admonished that "[he's] been in the village a few days and already [thinks he knows] everything better than everyone [there]."19 It is clear that K. feels that the only way to acquire any solace in his life is to convince himself that he is in control at all times. At one point, K. is ordered to sit for an interrogation with an official to discuss his recent conduct with the local school's headmaster. Instead of meekly complying with the summons, K. defiantly claims that he "[has] an aversion to all manner of interrogations"20 and simply refuses to be questioned. Everyone present criticizes him for the decision, but he pays them no mind.
At all moments K. is trying desperately to understand the Castle and all that surrounds it. Every act that forces him to extrapolate the inner workings of the mind of another wounds him greatly. While speaking with disembodied voices over the telephone he feels "defenseless", and when he talks to the local school's headmaster he chalks it up as a "part of the series of life's endless little sufferings."21 Throughout the narrative every character informs K. that he has absolutely no idea what is happening. Prophetically, the landlady claims that K. "misinterpret[s] everything, even the silence. [He] simply cannot help it."22 K.'s struggle to make sense of and manipulate the people around him is part and parcel with man's battle to wrench meaning from the infinite complexities that organize the world.
Interpretation lies at the heart of the Jewish tradition. The Talmud relates a story of a gentile who came to Rabbi Hillel and asked him to teach the entire Torah while he stood on one foot. The man smugly picked up one of his feet and remained motionless goading the rabbi to respond. The rabbi said to him, "That which is hateful to you do not do to another; that is the entire Torah, and the rest is its interpretation."23 In order to make sense of the world one must look at the facts and arrange them in an intelligible manner. But what if the facts are far too numerous to view all of them at once? What if the question itself becomes impossible to comprehend?24 No matter the case it becomes intoxicating to believe that if ones does not possess the answers another must.
In the writings of the Merkavah it is taught that before any human is capable of stepping inside of the holy chariot and communing with God they must first pass a divine test. The men who make it to the threshold between earth and heaven will be presented with a great stone structure that will first appear as a bountiful fountain of water. All travellers are advised that:
"upon your arrival in the upper worlds, [when] you reach pure marble stones, do not say: Water, water, although they appear to be water, because it is stated: 'He who speaks falsehood shall not be established before My eyes.'~"25The ascendants must interpret the illusion properly before they can meet their master. K. is met with a similar challenge when a letter addressed to him, and ostensibly written by Klamm, comes into his possession. K. takes this as a sign that Klamm is on his side and may be interested in paying the new surveyor a visit. When he brings this up to the village Chairman he is immediately mocked:
"That [K.'s interpretation] is a misunderstanding…the significance of the letter hasn’t escaped me, nor am I disparaging it with my interpretation, quite the contrary. A private letter from Klamm has far greater significance than would an official letter, but not the significance you would give it."26K. then learns that him being "hired" as a surveyor is nothing more than an unfortunate consequence of a petty dispute between the top brass of the Castle.27 After discovering the absurd reality of his position K. chuckles to himself remarking to the Chairman that, "It amuses me…only because it gives me some insight into the ridiculous tangle that may under certain circumstances determine a person’s life."28 The Chairman cannot help but scoff and say, "You still haven’t gained any insight," thus stripping K. of any pleasure he may have felt from recognizing his powerlessness.
The more K. immerses himself in the daily activities of the village the more the realities of that world begin to emerge. These truths reveal themselves as distinctly social in nature, truths intimately connected to the feelings and proclivities of those around K. The shape-shifting appearance of Klamm is explained as "a product of the momentary mood, the degree of excitement, the countless gradations of hope or dispair in which the observer, who in any case is at most allowed to see Klamm only briefly, happens to find himself..."29 Klamm is not constantly altering himself in an effort to deceive the citizens of the village, but rather it is the community itself who is unknowingly infusing Klamm with a superhuman ability. Barnabas earnestly performs his letter carrying abilities for no reason on than the fact that "he wants to find honor in [K.'s] eyes by acting like a real messenger, the way he thinks real messengers act."30 K. soon opens his mind to signals he otherwise would have ignored as noise: in K.'s last conversation with Frieda, he realizes "what she was saying was not important but beneath the words she was holding a conversation with K. and this was what was important..."31 And yet K. is never able to overcome his own ego. He yells at Olga to "stop interpreting everything!"32, and he refuses to believe Pepi, the barmaid who succeeds Frieda, when she masterfully dresses him down and proves that his relationship with Frieda was a complete sham. When social constructions are mentally estranged from their material realities they pummel the observer with missiles of an undefinable oddness. Because K. cannot recognize that the Castle only receives its power from the mental conceptions of those who surround it he is incapable of ever dominating those powers and controlling his own destiny. Life will forever appears to him as an unfortunate collection of coincidences.
When Lao Tzu observed that for a wheel with "thirty spokes gathered at each hub" it is the "absence that makes the cart work"33 he identified the dialectic at play in how lack is fundamental to the daily structures of life. A chain is only a chain if there is a gap between the rings. As such, a life is only a life if there is distance between one and another. Although K. is never able to bridge the gap inherit to a distinct separation of minds, it is exactly that separation which keeps him going---there would be nothing to interpret otherwise. The horror felt by the recognition of another consciousness is necessarily a part of the establishment of consciousness in the first place.
Upon ascending to the Merkavah and walking among the angels Rabbi Akiva witnessed Metatron, the most blessed of the Lord's winged servants, attending to a great cloth. The gilded cloth measured hundreds of thousands of miles long and hung like a curtain, a pargod, dividing Yahweh from his flock. The pargod had the histories of all past and future generations weaved within it "both what is done and what will be done hereafter to all generations until the end of time."34 Rabbi Akiva immediately fell to his knees in ecstatic joy praising God for his great works and masterful omniscience. What is never mentioned in those stories is what God thinks of his radiant tapestry. A tightly knit, holy fabric that forces the creator of all things to fulfil an infinite history set in motion an eternity prior. The dull, boring drudgery associated with being the custodian of a predetermined reality is unceremoniously ignored. When Kafka sees horror in the unknown he also sees excitement. He writes:
"One’s physical strength has a certain limit, who can help it that this limit is significant in other ways, too. No, nobody can help it. That is how the world corrects its course and keeps its equilibrium. It’s certainly an excellent arrangement, always unimaginably excellent, even if in certain other respects hopeless."35The hopelessness of life, the things that cannot be done, the connections that can never be fully formed, the confusions that mask the forces that push and pull the will to act a certain way, all work to craft a hope wholly unknown to the Jewish god. Kafka alchemizes a hope from hopelessness and invites those lost in the world to remain lost as finding one's way is much more interesting than being found.