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Le Château
464 pages
Published May 16, 2024
13 people are currently reading
39 people want to read
About the author
Franz Kafka
3,288 books39k followersFranz Kafka was a German-speaking writer from Prague whose work became one of the foundations of modern literature, even though he published only a small part of his writing during his lifetime. Born into a middle-class Jewish family in Prague, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Kafka grew up amid German, Czech, and Jewish cultural influences that shaped his sense of displacement and linguistic precision. His difficult relationship with his authoritarian father left a lasting mark, fostering feelings of guilt, anxiety, and inadequacy that became central themes in his fiction and personal writings.
Kafka studied law at the German University in Prague, earning a doctorate in 1906. He chose law for practical reasons rather than personal inclination, a compromise that troubled him throughout his life. After university, he worked for several insurance institutions, most notably the Workers Accident Insurance Institute for the Kingdom of Bohemia. His duties included assessing industrial accidents and drafting legal reports, work he carried out competently and responsibly. Nevertheless, Kafka regarded his professional life as an obstacle to his true vocation, and most of his writing was done at night or during periods of illness and leave. Kafka began publishing short prose pieces in his early adulthood, later collected in volumes such as Contemplation and A Country Doctor. These works attracted little attention at the time but already displayed the hallmarks of his mature style, including precise language, emotional restraint, and the application of calm logic to deeply unsettling situations. His major novels The Trial, The Castle, and Amerika were left unfinished and unpublished during his lifetime. They depict protagonists trapped within opaque systems of authority, facing accusations, rules, or hierarchies that remain unexplained and unreachable. Themes of alienation, guilt, bureaucracy, law, and punishment run throughout Kafka’s work. His characters often respond to absurd or terrifying circumstances with obedience or resignation, reflecting his own conflicted relationship with authority and obligation. Kafka’s prose avoids overt symbolism, yet his narratives function as powerful metaphors through structure, repetition, and tone. Ordinary environments gradually become nightmarish without losing their internal coherence. Kafka’s personal life was marked by emotional conflict, chronic self-doubt, and recurring illness. He formed intense but troubled romantic relationships, including engagements that he repeatedly broke off, fearing that marriage would interfere with his writing. His extensive correspondence and diaries reveal a relentless self-critic, deeply concerned with morality, spirituality, and the demands of artistic integrity. In his later years, Kafka’s health deteriorated due to tuberculosis, forcing him to withdraw from work and spend long periods in sanatoriums. Despite his illness, he continued writing when possible. He died young, leaving behind a large body of unpublished manuscripts. Before his death, he instructed his close friend Max Brod to destroy all of his remaining work. Brod ignored this request and instead edited and published Kafka’s novels, stories, and diaries, ensuring his posthumous reputation.
The publication of Kafka’s work after his death established him as one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century. The term Kafkaesque entered common usage to describe situations marked by oppressive bureaucracy, absurd logic, and existential anxiety. His writing has been interpreted through existential, religious, psychological, and political perspectives, though Kafka himself resisted definitive meanings. His enduring power lies in his ability to articulate modern anxiety with clarity and restraint.
Kafka studied law at the German University in Prague, earning a doctorate in 1906. He chose law for practical reasons rather than personal inclination, a compromise that troubled him throughout his life. After university, he worked for several insurance institutions, most notably the Workers Accident Insurance Institute for the Kingdom of Bohemia. His duties included assessing industrial accidents and drafting legal reports, work he carried out competently and responsibly. Nevertheless, Kafka regarded his professional life as an obstacle to his true vocation, and most of his writing was done at night or during periods of illness and leave. Kafka began publishing short prose pieces in his early adulthood, later collected in volumes such as Contemplation and A Country Doctor. These works attracted little attention at the time but already displayed the hallmarks of his mature style, including precise language, emotional restraint, and the application of calm logic to deeply unsettling situations. His major novels The Trial, The Castle, and Amerika were left unfinished and unpublished during his lifetime. They depict protagonists trapped within opaque systems of authority, facing accusations, rules, or hierarchies that remain unexplained and unreachable. Themes of alienation, guilt, bureaucracy, law, and punishment run throughout Kafka’s work. His characters often respond to absurd or terrifying circumstances with obedience or resignation, reflecting his own conflicted relationship with authority and obligation. Kafka’s prose avoids overt symbolism, yet his narratives function as powerful metaphors through structure, repetition, and tone. Ordinary environments gradually become nightmarish without losing their internal coherence. Kafka’s personal life was marked by emotional conflict, chronic self-doubt, and recurring illness. He formed intense but troubled romantic relationships, including engagements that he repeatedly broke off, fearing that marriage would interfere with his writing. His extensive correspondence and diaries reveal a relentless self-critic, deeply concerned with morality, spirituality, and the demands of artistic integrity. In his later years, Kafka’s health deteriorated due to tuberculosis, forcing him to withdraw from work and spend long periods in sanatoriums. Despite his illness, he continued writing when possible. He died young, leaving behind a large body of unpublished manuscripts. Before his death, he instructed his close friend Max Brod to destroy all of his remaining work. Brod ignored this request and instead edited and published Kafka’s novels, stories, and diaries, ensuring his posthumous reputation.
The publication of Kafka’s work after his death established him as one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century. The term Kafkaesque entered common usage to describe situations marked by oppressive bureaucracy, absurd logic, and existential anxiety. His writing has been interpreted through existential, religious, psychological, and political perspectives, though Kafka himself resisted definitive meanings. His enduring power lies in his ability to articulate modern anxiety with clarity and restraint.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
July 24, 2025
Une histoire aussi compliquée qu’une demande de permis en mairie
October 1, 2025
Dans Le Château, Kafka conte les aventures de K., le géomètre appelé en mission dans le village au pied du château. Ce château, siège de l’autorité du village n’est accessible qu’aux fonctionnaires dûment accrédités et aux messagers. Barnabé est le messager de K. et lui délivre des messages venant du château. K. attend désespérément des instructions sur son rôle de géomètre qui ne viennent jamais. Il est affublé de deux assistants qui l’exaspèrent. Pour tenter de contacter le château, K. tombe amoureux de Frieda, la serveuse de l’auberge des Messieurs, qui est la maîtresse de Klamm, un haut fonctionnaire du château. K. tente vainement de rencontrer Klamm, rencontre qui devient une obsession pour K.
La relation entre K. et Frieda permet à K. d’être enfin reconnu et accepté dans le village.
Ce livre est envoûtant : on se demande si le château existe vraiment, le fonctionnement très bureaucratique de l’autorité est souvent incompréhensible, la notion de temps est perdue. Au milieu de toutes ces bizarreries, K. résiste et son originalité parvient à intéresser certains d’entre les villageois.
La relation entre K. et Frieda permet à K. d’être enfin reconnu et accepté dans le village.
Ce livre est envoûtant : on se demande si le château existe vraiment, le fonctionnement très bureaucratique de l’autorité est souvent incompréhensible, la notion de temps est perdue. Au milieu de toutes ces bizarreries, K. résiste et son originalité parvient à intéresser certains d’entre les villageois.
November 13, 2025
A été très long à lire mais j'ai su comprendre toute l'histoire (par rapport à ma première tentative il y a 3 ans), et les longs discours finissent toujours par avoir du sens. Très fière de cette lecture.
December 23, 2025
déso Kafka mais c'était un supplice
version wish de "Le Procès", supplément le livre est pas terminé parce que t'es mort avant bon...
mon premier une étoile et ça me dépite, je comprends les petites morales et tout mais j'étais pas dedans la team
version wish de "Le Procès", supplément le livre est pas terminé parce que t'es mort avant bon...
mon premier une étoile et ça me dépite, je comprends les petites morales et tout mais j'étais pas dedans la team
September 15, 2025
Le livre ne répond pas à la promesse de l'inatteignabilité du château à laquelle on s'attend tel Le Procès. Travail inachevé inutile à lire.
May 17, 2025
Il ne faut pas avoir peur du nombre de pages: j’ai bien plus galéré à terminer le procès (200 pages de moins) et j’en garde un meilleur souvenir.
Quitte à rester dans la comparaison (évidente cela dit) je pense que toutes les personnes qui ont lu ce livre diront qu’il met une vitesse monumentale à l’autre manuscrit de Kafka, tant dans le style que dans les idées.
Encore une fois, ce livre est un manuscrit inachevé publié à sa mort par l’ami de Kafka Max Brod (contre sa volonté). Cependant on s’approche bien plus d’un « vrai » livre que dans le procès: déjà les chapitres sont dans l’ordre (mdr), ensuite l’histoire suit une trame chronologique sans grosse zone d’ombre et reste cohérente du debut à la fin.
Du côté de l’histoire, on va suivre K qui se retrouve pris au piège au sein d’un enfer administratif suite à un quiproquo avec une mystérieuse et inaccessible administration. Si en surface tout nous rappelle le procès, en réalité l’histoire y est racontée très, très différemment.
Le seul point d’ombre est cette fin très frustrante bien qu’on pardonnera facilement cet écart parce que, bah, il est mort quoi
En bref c’est pour moi le meilleur livre écrit par Kafka (il me reste seulement America à lire) et de loin, et il mérite d’être bien plus connu!
Quitte à rester dans la comparaison (évidente cela dit) je pense que toutes les personnes qui ont lu ce livre diront qu’il met une vitesse monumentale à l’autre manuscrit de Kafka, tant dans le style que dans les idées.
Encore une fois, ce livre est un manuscrit inachevé publié à sa mort par l’ami de Kafka Max Brod (contre sa volonté). Cependant on s’approche bien plus d’un « vrai » livre que dans le procès: déjà les chapitres sont dans l’ordre (mdr), ensuite l’histoire suit une trame chronologique sans grosse zone d’ombre et reste cohérente du debut à la fin.
Du côté de l’histoire, on va suivre K qui se retrouve pris au piège au sein d’un enfer administratif suite à un quiproquo avec une mystérieuse et inaccessible administration. Si en surface tout nous rappelle le procès, en réalité l’histoire y est racontée très, très différemment.
Le seul point d’ombre est cette fin très frustrante bien qu’on pardonnera facilement cet écart parce que, bah, il est mort quoi
En bref c’est pour moi le meilleur livre écrit par Kafka (il me reste seulement America à lire) et de loin, et il mérite d’être bien plus connu!
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews