The Castle (Oxford World's Classics) - Softcover

9780199238286: The Castle (Oxford World's Classics)
View all copies of this ISBN edition:
 
 
Kafka's last novel, The Castle is set in a remote village covered almost permanently in snow and dominated by a castle and its staff of dictatorial, sexually predatory bureaucrats. The novel breaks new ground in exploring the relation between the individual and power, asking why the villagers so readily submit to an authority which may exist only in their collective imagination. Published only after Kafka's death, The Castle appeared in the same decade as modernist masterpieces by Eliot, Joyce, Woolf, Mann and Proust, and is among the central works of modern literature. This new translation by prize-winning translator Anthea Bell follows the German text established by critical scholarship, and mentions manuscript variants in the notes. The detailed introduction by Ritchie Robertson, a leading Kafka scholar, explores the many meanings of this famously enigmatic novel, providing guidance without reducing the reader's freedom to make sense of this fascinating novel. In addition, the edition includes a Biographical Preface which places Kafka within the context of his time, plus an up-to-date bibliography and chronology of Kafka's life.

About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

Review:
They are perhaps the most famous literary instructions never followed: "Dearest Max, my last request: Everything I leave behind me ... in the way of diaries, manuscripts, letters (my own and others'), sketches, and so on, [is] to be burned unread...." Thankfully, Max Brod did not honor his friend Franz Kafka's final wishes. Instead, he did everything within his power to ensure that Kafka's work would find publication--including making some sweeping changes in the original texts. Until recently, the world has known only Brod's version of Kafka, with its altered punctuation, word order, and chapter divisions. Restoring much of what had previously been expunged, as well as the fluid, oral quality of Kafka's original German, Mark Harman's new translation of The Castle is a major literary event.

One of three unfinished novels left after Kafka's death, The Castle is in many ways the writer's most enduring and influential work. In Harman's muscular translation, Kafka's text seems more modern than ever, the words tumbling over one another, the sentences separated only by commas. Harman's version also ends the same way as Kafka's original manuscript--that is, in mid-sentence: "She held out her trembling hand to K. and had him sit down beside her, she spoke with great difficulty, it was difficult to understand her, but what she said--." For anyone used to reading Kafka in his artificially complete form, the effect is extraordinary; it is as if Kafka himself had just stepped from the room, leaving behind him a work whose resolution is the more haunting for being forever out of reach.

From the Publisher:
"The new Schocken edition of The Castle represents a major and long-awaited event in English-language publishing. It is a wonderful piece of news for all Kafka readers who, for more than half a century, have had to rely on flawed, superannuated editions. Mark Harman is to be commended for his success in capturing the fresh, fluid, almost breathless style of Kafka's original manuscript, which leaves the reader hanging in mid-sentence."
--Mark M. Anderson, Columbia University

"The Castle, published here for the first time in 1930, was the first Kafka to arrive in America. After the war, Hannah Arendt remarked that The Castle might finally be comprehensible to the generation of the forties, who had had the occasion to watch their world become Kafkaesque. What will the generation of the nineties make of The Castle, now that its full message has arrived? Here is the masterpiece behind the masterpiece."
--Elisabeth Young-Bruehl, Haverford College

"Sparkles with comedy, with zest, and with a fresh visual power, which in the Muir translation were indistinct or lost. This is not just a new, brilliantly insightful, sensitive, and stylish translation, it is a new Castle, and it is a pleasure to read."
--Christopher Middleton, University of Texas at Austin

"This is the closest to Kafka's original novel and intention that any translation could get, and what is more, it is eminently readable. With this exceptional translation, the time for a new Kafka in English has finally come."
--Egon Schwartz, Washington University, St. Louis

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.

Top Search Results from the AbeBooks Marketplace

Seller Image

Kafka, Franz; Bell, Anthea (TRN); Robertson, Ritchie (EDT)
Published by Oxford University Press (2009)
ISBN 10: 0199238286 ISBN 13: 9780199238286
New Softcover Quantity: 5
Seller:
GreatBookPrices
(Columbia, MD, U.S.A.)

Book Description Condition: New. Seller Inventory # 6099474-n

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 12.09
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 2.64
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Kafka, Franz
Published by OUP Oxford (2009)
ISBN 10: 0199238286 ISBN 13: 9780199238286
New PAP Quantity: 7
Seller:
PBShop.store US
(Wood Dale, IL, U.S.A.)

Book Description PAP. Condition: New. New Book. Shipped from UK. Established seller since 2000. Seller Inventory # GB-9780199238286

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 14.74
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Kafka, Franz; Bell, Anthea
Published by Oxford University Press (2009)
ISBN 10: 0199238286 ISBN 13: 9780199238286
New Softcover Quantity: 1
Seller:
GF Books, Inc.
(Hawthorne, CA, U.S.A.)

Book Description Condition: New. Book is in NEW condition. Seller Inventory # 0199238286-2-1

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 15.55
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Kafka, Franz; Bell, Anthea
Published by Oxford University Press (2009)
ISBN 10: 0199238286 ISBN 13: 9780199238286
New Softcover Quantity: 1
Seller:
Book Deals
(Tucson, AZ, U.S.A.)

Book Description Condition: New. New! This book is in the same immaculate condition as when it was published. Seller Inventory # 353-0199238286-new

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 15.56
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Seller Image

Franz Kafka
ISBN 10: 0199238286 ISBN 13: 9780199238286
New Paperback Quantity: 1
Seller:
Grand Eagle Retail
(Wilmington, DE, U.S.A.)

Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. 'K. kept feeling that he had lost himself, or was further away in a strange land than anyone had ever been before' A remote village covered almost permanently in snow and dominated by a castle and its staff of dictatorial, sexually predatory bureaucrats - this is the setting for Kafka's story about a man seeking both acceptance in the village and access to the castle. Kafka breaks new ground in evoking a dense villagecommunity fraught with tensions, and recounting an often poignant, occasionally farcical love-affair. He also explores the relation between the individual and power, and asks why the villagers so readily submit to anauthority which may exist only in their collective imagination. Published only after Kafka's death, The Castle appeared in the same decade as modernist masterpieces by Eliot, Joyce, Woolf, Mann and Proust, and is among the central works of modern literature. This translation follows the text established by critical scholarship, and manuscript variants are mentioned in the notes. The introduction provides guidance to the text without reducing the reader's ownfreedom to make sense of this fascinatingly enigmatic novel. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around theglobe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more. Kafka's story about a man seeking acceptance and access to the mysterious castle is among the central works of modern literature. This translation follows the German critical text and includes a detailed introduction and notes to this famously enigmatic novel. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability. Seller Inventory # 9780199238286

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 15.59
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Seller Image

Kafka, Franz
Published by Oxford University Press (2009)
ISBN 10: 0199238286 ISBN 13: 9780199238286
New Soft Cover Quantity: 10
Seller:
booksXpress
(Bayonne, NJ, U.S.A.)

Book Description Soft Cover. Condition: new. Seller Inventory # 9780199238286

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 16.66
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Franz Kafka, Anthea Bell, Ritchie Robertson
ISBN 10: 0199238286 ISBN 13: 9780199238286
New paperback Quantity: 1
Seller:
Blackwell's
(Oxford, OX, United Kingdom)

Book Description paperback. Condition: New. Language: ENG. Seller Inventory # 9780199238286

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 11.68
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 5.68
From United Kingdom to U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Kafka, Franz
Published by Oxford University Press, USA (2009)
ISBN 10: 0199238286 ISBN 13: 9780199238286
New Softcover Quantity: 1
Seller:
Ergodebooks
(Houston, TX, U.S.A.)

Book Description Softcover. Condition: New. Critical ed. Kafka's last novel, The Castle is set in a remote village covered almost permanently in snow and dominated by a castle and its staff of dictatorial, sexually predatory bureaucrats. The novel breaks new ground in exploring the relation between the individual and power, asking why the villagers so readily submit to an authority which may exist only in their collective imagination. Published only after Kafka's death, The Castle appeared in the same decade as modernist masterpieces by Eliot, Joyce, Woolf, Mann and Proust, and is among the central works of modern literature. This new translation by prize-winning translator Anthea Bell follows the German text established by critical scholarship, and mentions manuscript variants in the notes. The detailed introduction by Ritchie Robertson, a leading Kafka scholar, explores the many meanings of this famously enigmatic novel, providing guidance without reducing the reader's freedom to make sense of this fascinating novel. In addition, the edition includes a Biographical Preface which places Kafka within the context of his time, plus an up-to-date bibliography and chronology of Kafka's life.About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more. Seller Inventory # DADAX0199238286

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 18.05
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Franz Kafka
Published by Oxford University Press (2009)
ISBN 10: 0199238286 ISBN 13: 9780199238286
New Paperback / softback Quantity: 5
Seller:
THE SAINT BOOKSTORE
(Southport, United Kingdom)

Book Description Paperback / softback. Condition: New. New copy - Usually dispatched within 4 working days. Seller Inventory # B9780199238286

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 11.00
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 11.29
From United Kingdom to U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Franz Kafka, Anthea Bell
Published by OUP Oxford (2009)
ISBN 10: 0199238286 ISBN 13: 9780199238286
New Paperback Quantity: 7
Seller:
Monster Bookshop
(Fleckney, United Kingdom)

Book Description Paperback. Condition: New. BRAND NEW ** SUPER FAST SHIPPING FROM UK WAREHOUSE ** 30 DAY MONEY BACK GUARANTEE. Seller Inventory # 9780199238286-GDR

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 11.19
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 11.34
From United Kingdom to U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds

There are more copies of this book

View all search results for this book