WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS
"Kafka has become the ubiquitous icon [of Prague]. His melancholy portrait is inescapable, adorning T-shirts, coffee mugs, posters, shopping bags, puppets and above all, graffiti. . . .
"Franz Kafka’s world was the world of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, long before the horrors his writing seemed to anticipate had occurred. But in his personal habits, he would have fitted well into the style of the next turn of the century and the modern-day Prague that holds him in iconic esteem."
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The setting of Kafka's novel, The Castle, could be a symbolic labyrinth of the mind; some remote haunted fortification known to Kafka or imagined; the actual and omnipresent Prague Castle (Pražský hrad); or, less precisely but more accurately, it could be the entire Castle District (Hradčany), which -- if you make your way up the hill -- you will find to be remarkably similar to the "village" described by Kafka in the early pages of the novel:
" . . . up on the hill everything soared light and free into the air, or at least so it appeared from below.
"On the whole this distant prospect of the Castle satisfied K.'s expectations. It was neither an old stronghold nor a new mansion but a rambling pile consisting of innumerable small buildings closely packed together and of one or two stories; if K. had not known that it was a castle he might have taken it for a little town. There was only one tower as far as he could see . . . Swarms of crows were circling round it. . . .
"With his eyes fixed on the Castle, K. went on farther, thinking of nothing else at all. But on approaching it, he was disappointed in the Castle; it was after all only a wretched - looking town, a huddle of village houses, whose sole merit, if any, lay in being built of stone; but the plaster had long since flaked off and the stone seemed to be crumbling away. K. had a fleeting recollection of his native town. It was hardly inferior to this so-called Castle, and if it was merely a question of enjoying the view, it was a pity to have come so far; K. would have done better to revisit his native town, which he had not seen for such a long time." (pp 11 - 12)
by Franz Kafka (1883 – 1924)
[previous posts on this blog]
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In the Old Town (Staré Město) as well as the Castle District, I was lost so often it was ludicrous! Admittedly, I am not the most spatially oriented person, but even with the best sense of direction in the world, wandering around Prague is truly like being inside the pages of The Castle, searching for the elusive Klamm, back and forth, around and through endless mysterious passageways. Yet, one way or another, we always arrived at our desired, designated destination. One foot in front of the other. As Kafka writes in the Eight / Blue Octavo Notebooks, "The history of mankind is the instant between two strides taken by a traveler."
Kafka Square is at the intersection of Kaprova & Maiselova
(at back of of the "Astronomical Clock" arrow):
Next Fortnightly Post ~ More Searching For Kafka!
Thursday, November 28th
Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts ~ Still Small Snow
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com
Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading ~ Books That Affect Us Like a Disaster
www.kittislist.blogspot.com
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