After receiving an official summons, the land surveyor K. travels to a distant village, where he expects to be admitted to the castle that towers over the region. Upon arrival, however, K. finds that he can neither enter nor even approach the castle, and his attempt to find out why unfolds here as a parable of modern bureaucracy. First published two years after Franz Kafka's 1924 death, this darkly comic novel traces K.'s progress—or lack of it—as he contends with the amorous barmaid, Frieda; the castle's distinctly unhelpful bureaucrat, Klamm; and two inept yet sinister assistants who have been assigned to him.