K is plunged into confusion and frustration when he arrives in a village to take up the job of a land surveyor; a job that no-one seems to know anything about. He goes to the castle which rules over the village, but the castle turns out to be an impenetrable fortress containing a never-ending paper chain of bureaucracy and inscrutable officials. Kafka's novel expresses the anxieties of modern life with a healthy dose of black comedy.
