Rating: 
Summary: If you have to read Kafka...
Review: If you like Kafka, you'll like this book. Otherwise, probably not. Of his works, The Castle is more fully developed, less hectic, and generally a much better read than most. He takes the same themes he used throughout his life and delves in deeper and with a more human touch, sparing us the full extent of his obsessions, pretentiousness, and paranoia; the very things that make his work original and, to some, compelling. This tempered presentation of these same themes actually makes them more powerful and engaging. That said, it's worth noting that the book [stinks].
Rating: 
Summary: Kafka's most complete
Review: In terms of novels, unfortunately, when we hear the name Franz Kafka, our first reflex is "the trial." This should absolutely not be the case, his masterpiece was "the castle," and many times it takes the back seat. "The castle" is a book that takes the dream-narrative form to its extreme height, and within its binding contains a unity which can not be said of many of his other works. This book is most emblematic of the man's life, fueled by Kafka's desire to merge the material world,(get married, work, be part of a community) and the spiritual, to be conscious of living.(i.e. the life of the poet/artist)Ironically, Because there is no difference between life and Art in this book, we learn the truth of Franz Kafka, and follow his trail to the castle.
Rating: 
Summary: Very sneaky indeed!
Review: It is a pity that it wasn't until the book's abrupt end that my interest finally piqued. So many questions unanswered. Disappointed with the verbosity and seemingly needless details throughout most of the book, I was suddenly left facing the cliff hanger of all cliff hangers! The author is dead! I will never have my pressing questions answered! It makes me wonder whether Kafka actually meant to do this. Very sneaky indeed!I know that K. must be Kafka, but what is the Castle? Acceptance as a Jew in Nazi Germany? It seems too obvious, but perhaps a simple explanation will suffice.
Rating:
Summary: Very sneaky indeed!
Review: It is a pity that it wasn't until the book's abrupt end that my interest finally piqued. So many questions unanswered. Disappointed with the verbosity and seemingly needless details throughout most of the book, I was suddenly left facing the cliff hanger of all cliff hangers! The author is dead! I will never have my pressing questions answered! It makes me wonder whether Kafka actually meant to do this. Very sneaky indeed! I know that K. must be Kafka, but what is the Castle? Acceptance as a Jew in Nazi Germany? It seems too obvious, but perhaps a simple explanation will suffice.
Rating:
Summary: An interesting Query into Truth
Review: It is quite similar to his other novel "The Trial," but I feel as though it is much more emphatic in explaining the entire quest to reach the castle, or any form of truth. The determination to reach something so uncertain, so out of reach, and I think the supposed ending gives us Kafka's sense of tragedy clearly cut; salvation always coming when it is no longer desired or possible, situations that man affronts that seem to have been in ill-regard, and out of his control. "The Trial" is more precise, but I feel the scenario in this novel is much more emphasized.
Rating:
Summary: Caught in the middle
Review: just like Kafka didn't finish writing this novel, ý haven't finished reading this novel. basic facts- you'll get bored and you'll love to get bored,creates a surreal atmosphere and setting-one which is more real than any other setting in any other book.. It's a challenge to the reader to read the book.. but it doesn't have anything mysterious to do with its title. just sit back and relax..this book cannot be finished in two days. everytime ý read a few pages, ý feel the fragments of existentialism, but not like in an Albert Camus book or a J.P Sartre book. this one is definitely DIFFERENT!!
Rating:
Summary: revealing.
Review: Kafka gives us an image of man, one hauntingly disturbed, in which forces, prevalent everywhere, and without reason, crash down upon us as we drown in a vertigo of still and silent sadness.
He relates the adventures of K., who comes to "The Castle". It seems like no one wants him, the land surveyor, there. The situations become surreal...involving a promotion to Janitor, a woman named Frieda, and a menacing Schoolteacher.
In the end, we all go away. And, while we are, it is as if we already were gone. Such is the state of mind one will find in Kafka's book, that of being insignificant in world that is hostile to our every move, that pushes us down, and only seeks to move us up when it is to its own advantage. And, the sad yet seemingly happy people we see everywhere, who come and go like seasons that never return, they serve only to remind us how love is only conditional in a `world that is a will to power, and nothing besides'. "Our only hope is blindness."
Also recommended: Toilet: The Novel by Michael Szymczyk (A Tribute to the Literary Works of Franz Kafka)
Rating:
Summary: This might be my favorite book.
Review: Kafka's book is way ahead of its time. I feel that it is as relevant today as it was when it was written. We are all like little ants in a beaurocratic world, paddling against the current.
I also kind of like the fact that the book is incomplete - it reflects the fact that the situation that this mirrors in society is also incomplete and has not been addressed.
Rating:
Summary: The Castle is Kafka's masterpiece
Review: Kafka's talent lay in his ability to load his palette with the browns, greys and blacks of his depression and paint the world precisely and compellingly as he knew it. Brod said Kafka was fun to be with, "even his hypocondria was fascinating and charming". What an apt description and how like his writing, which rather than being lugubrious and depressing is oddly uplifting and never fails to enthrall from the first sentence. There's no question that this book is a masterpiece. All of Kafka's lucidity and language fastidiousness comes through in translation very much as it must in German. I can't think of any other writer who had so much control as to maintain so absurd a world, so irrational a vision with a paradoxical logic that keeps you reading from page to page. Of his three novels, this is my favorite.
Rating:
Summary: A new and improved Kafka
Review: Mark Harman's brillant translation gave life to a novel that I one considered beyond my realm of understanding. "The Castle" is now both readable and intriguing!
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