From the author of The Metamorphosis and The Trial, and one of the greatest writers of the twentieth Arriving in a village to take up the position of land surveyor for the mysterious lord of a castle, the character known as K. finds himself in a bitter and baffling struggle to contact his new employer and go about his duties. Arriving in a village to take up the position of land surveyor for the mysterious lord of a castle, the character known as K finds himself in a bitter & baffling struggle to contact his new employer & go about his duties. As the villagers & the Castle officials block his efforts at every turn, K?s consuming quest?quite possibly a self-imposed one?to penetrate the inaccessible heart of the Castle & take its measure is repeatedly frustrated. Kafka once suggested that the would-be surveyor in The Castle is driven by a wish ?to get clear about ultimate things,? an unrealizable desire that provided the driving force behind all of Kafka?s dazzlingly uncanny fictions.