The Castle

We can read “The Castle” (and “The Trial”, and “Amerika”) because of an ignoble act of disrespect for his wishes.

The story is simple: Max Brod, his best friend, confidant, and publisher, refused to follow express instructions to burn all unpublished work after his death. Instead, he decided to publish it.

"It is to him that we owe the preservation and publication of Kafka's work", it is said.

For me, it is simpler. He betrayed the wishes of his best friend. 
And we are the ones peeping through the keyhole.

"The Castle" - hospitality is not a custom here, and we do not need visitors - was published posthumously (1926), unfinished: the individual, crushed by an insurmountable authority. Absurd.

There are realities that remain inevitably incomplete.
And we have to live with that. 

Franz Kafka was born in 1883, in Prague, into a German-speaking Jewish family. He studied Law and worked for an insurance company his whole life. He wrote part-time and only published short texts during his lifetime. He died in 1924 of tuberculosis, leaving three “almost” novels: The Trial, The Castle, and Amerika.