Chapter 53 Castle of the Soul - The Origin of the Castle
When all the reasons for "life" are all denied, and people themselves have sentenced themselves to death (as in the week of "Judgment Yesterday", the biggest problem that people face is the imperishable impulse in the body. A person in such a Under the circumstances, if he is not willing to die, but still impulsive, for him, the outline of the castle will first appear on that mountain. Since there is no reason, man creates a reason for himself, and the reason fights against nothingness with its own purity In fact, in the previous negation, the castle was being built at the same time, but K didn’t know it. From this point of view, the castle originated from man’s negation of his own reality, that is, from self-examination. The whole part depicts how K tried in vain to find reasons for his dark and humble "life". It was his arduous search that proved the existence of that powerful law, and validating the law meant building a castle. When the law defeated On the day when the man was born, the basic construction of the castle was completed, but the castle was still hidden in the clouds and mist, waiting for an opportunity for K to discover it. So on a snowy night, K broke into him in a daze. A colossus that he had built up with countless pains, despairs, and terrors. He didn't fully recognize it, but he felt vaguely familiar with it; he regarded it as his opponent from beginning to end, but he went to it to find a reason to continue living; (once upon a time He negated life, and now he negates death by action.) He deceives it, violates it, in order to gain its approval, to strengthen its connection with it. We may say that the law is the negation of life, and the castle is The basis for life. K, who has denied life, is still living. Of course, he needs a basis. We can all see that similar cognitive demeanor in all characters. It is a merciless, even cruel, self-critical demeanor, a determination to strictly confine oneself to a narrow range of life, from which The smell of the castle pervaded it, reminding people of the secret about the origin. The castle opened up life, but also restricted life. People under it can only live for it, and any other kind of life is suffering. To see its negation, just because it is yourself. There are only two choices left for K who meets the castle: either die or stay in the castle to play the trick to the end. It is impossible for the awakened K to return to the previous state of ignorance Isn’t all the struggles and struggles in the past just for today’s sobriety? Obviously, after the completion of the spiritual leap from bank assistant to land surveyor, the reality shows a kind of clarity in the chaos. Actions are more difficult than before, the things that people can obtain are decreasing, and desires are increasing inversely. It is "lack" that stimulates people's impulses. On the other hand, the stimulated K His exuberant energies had a much wider scope for use. With no inner limitations, he could now improvise and incorporate into his castle whatever unimaginable situation and whoever he encountered. In the realistic reality, he performed a live performance. The former helplessness gradually turned into a proactive attack.
We can still vaguely feel the origin of the original castle from every encounter that K suffered, which is like recreating the scene at that time on a higher level.The castle mechanism that replaced the law was as indestructible as the law, but by this time, it became more flexible (or K became flexible), and the expression was more twisted and obscure.Superficial rejection always implies inner temptation. Self-examination is no longer as fatal as it used to be, and it is so desperate that it will suffocate immediately, but it always leaves room for people to live.After being familiar with this set of actions, K's behavior reveals the style of "I can't die anyway", and he no longer has the restraint of the past.His cynicism is a very serious kind of cynicism, and its essence is still self-examination, a self-examination at an advanced stage, a self-examination that overcomes vulgarity, and it is also the continuation and development of the atmosphere when the castle originated.As long as you review the words that the proprietress taught K, you can clearly appreciate the process of self-examination, and appreciate the difference between self-examination before the law and self-examination before the castle.The ambiguity of the proprietress stems from the twists and turns of the castle method, that is, on the one hand, no matter how impossible it is, people always have to live; on the other hand, no matter how people live, it is always impossible to achieve pure "live".Then K, in order to achieve pure living, the only way is to live on.In short, the premise is to deny death.The castle has already been produced, the castle was produced at the end of life, and now it has become the premise for the resurrected K to live on, and K can only enrich it with life.Its mechanism presents the present K's will, which excludes all renunciation.What is life?Life is a struggle with death, and the origin of the castle is also the origin of new life.The proprietress uses the aggressive method of the castle to stimulate the movement of life in K's body step by step, so that it develops, makes it constantly collide under unimaginable circumstances, and uses this collision to open up space.The proprietress was a great master at this, a know-it-all in castle affairs. K's rational understanding is always behind her, but K's spontaneous actions are just in line with her expectations. The secret of the castle's origin is in her heart. Turned into a castle-like real life.It can also be said that she is the interpreter of the meaning of K's actions.The proprietress has a bloated body and has long passed the attractive age. Those conflicts in the past have become memories, or the body has become pure spirit.What she can do now is only through her students Frieda and K (an unwilling student), she draws nourishment from their inner conflicts and keeps her ideal tree evergreen.How colorful and incomprehensible is the life of the castle beyond the stage of death.However, no matter how incomprehensible the living method is, doesn't it all evolve from the principle of cell development?
Therefore, no matter how advanced and complex the mechanism of the castle is developed, no matter how dazzling its manifestations are, it always gives us the impression of "everything remains the same".All events are inseparable from the gloomy introspection of complete denial.The miracle achieved without stopping after complete negation is a further extension of the principle. That strange meeting between K and the castle officials should be said to be an attack where K used the brute force of a foreigner to attack the center, but Bigger's explanation was enough to completely dispel his original intention.There is only one truth that Bigel wants to explain to K: castles can never tolerate real life, and the stench from people will make officials faint. Doomed to fail, without a shred of hope.There is no difference between this principle and the kind of introspection in the book, the only difference lies in the form in which Beagle expresses it.When Bigger said these words, he did not drive K away, but let K stay in the guest room, and let K wrestle with his logic in his sleep while expounding, let K experience overthrowing logic, defeating death, The thrill of creating miracles.The principle remains the same: K must never meet the castle directly, and all efforts are equal to zero.But this contact with the lower-level officials of the castle, and K's behavior in the whole process, didn't he show the invincibility of "life" through his confrontation from beginning to end?Didn't the death-like officials have to make that strange cry?Of course, without the death that was completely denied at the beginning, there would be no miraculous life today.Bigger brought K into a life-and-death struggle, experiencing the wonderland of life while on the verge of death, and squeezed out the power in his body to the limit.K, who has gone through all this, should be said to be not far from enlightenment, and his later calmness and ease with the situation also confirmed this point.That kind of enlightenment is not born, but to continue to fight, seize every opportunity to take the initiative, roll in the mire, entangle yourself with yourself, and make yourself nowhere to go.A person like K, since he has already died once, all subsequent developments can only be miracles, he will always live in his own whimsy, and from every whimsical creation, you can see the core , the source of life.
The Sister Amarie incident also illustrates the same thing, which is not only the contradiction at the time of reappearing the origin, but also the display of the development of the contradiction.From a common point of view, Amalini seems to be a person who has seen through the red world and understood the secrets of life. Such a person should no longer have illusions.All strange things happen in the castle, and the magic of the castle is to turn the most impossible into reality.So this castle girl not only had dreams that were completely out of character for her, but she also realized her dreams by herself, and stood proudly in the terrible reality transformed from dreams, silently, continuing her impossible dream.Dreams, only silent and transparent dreams, are her only weapon against the reality she casts aside.We can say that she was ashamed (no longer hopeful about reality), but this kind of ashes is completely different from the usual renunciation. It is an extremely stubborn persistence, a calm and sober consistency. live, and experience the ideal dream.Such a heart is always young.Among the characters in the castle, the most amazing thing is this Amarine. People can live like her. Such a split is like splitting people in two, and the two parts have nothing to do with each other. Her own appearance It is the product of genius.Through her exciting love affair, we see what kind of reconciliation the so-called "reconciliation" reached between the poet and reality is.It was a kind of "reconciliation" that never reconciles, a posture of a fighter who never changes. Although this fighter no longer actively expands outwards, her posture has solidified into a statue, and her enthusiasm has been transformed into The solid ice that can burst into sparks.From the moment the soul really begins to divide, the burden falls on the person, and the more complete the division, the heavier the burden.The image of Amali Niu reflects the limit of human beings, that is, they can bear anything, that is, no matter what kind of division they are, they are divisions in the whole.It can be inferred from this that the connection between the two parts of the split exists objectively even to the point of being invisible.In the territory of the castle, once there is an origin, the trend of development is unstoppable.The moment Amariniang cast her eyes on Sotini, the split in her heart began; the subsequent series of evolutions and climaxes were all within her conscious awareness, and all she did was to endure the pain of splitting.The journey of her and her family condenses the process of the castle from its origin to its development and growth, and shows that the castle was born out of the need for the division of human souls.Only a divided soul is a living soul, a soul that can develop.After colliding with the castle (Sotini), Amariki, who is full of youthful passion, behaves essentially the same as K who broke into the village late at night. Both of them have established the castle as the goal of life in their hearts. All subsequent actions are to experience it, pursue it, and connect with it. The superficial distance and estrangement just mean closer and more frequent connections.The truth is terrifying, and the eyes to see the truth are bestowed by the castle. After the castle born in the collision and division bestows special eyes on its subjects, it retreats into obscurity, allowing the subjects to use their desperate collision To energize it so that it will appear stronger and clearer in the next round, and even if it does not appear, this strength must be felt.Sodini never appeared again after he left Amarini. His method was the same as that of Amarini, that is, one used to refuse to live to survive, and the other used not to show up to control the whole situation.The land living in the castle on the hillside, and her who is hiding in the dark hut, have forever formed an indissoluble bond, forming two conflicting parties.It dawned on us: these two people are two parts of one person!Amalini is the provider of vitality to the pale and premature Sortini, and Sortini is the source of light in the dark brain of Amarile's mute.Here the principle repeats itself again: whoever chooses the castle, the castle will always choose him!
Why do all the residents in the castle seem to be unable to live without looking for troubles and pains for a day?The reason for this is still contained in the mystery of that origin.Self-examination, and only self-examination, is the driving force for their living, and this motivation has nothing to do with the outside world, and must be born on their own.For this reason, the proprietress is testing her loyalty to Klamm in a self-abuse way all the time; the village chief is caught in the entanglement that drives him crazy, and makes him fall ill on the bed, still obsessed with it; The theory of thinking was tortured beyond reason, and she completely lost her innocence as a child; Frieda took giving up as a gain, and made a living out of pain; K rushed here and there, turning her personal life into a mess; Barna Not to mention the Bass family, they all look like masochists.Just imagine what would happen to these people if they calmed down their inner conflicts and gave up self-examination?Once the source of vitality and nourishment is cut off, will the castle on the hill still exist?It is precisely because of that unbelievable piety that people always struggle with themselves, and use the inner war of the soul every day to gain the feeling of existence.To penetrate into the soul of any one of them is to enter into an entangled contradiction, an inextricable chain, which takes various shapes but has the same beginning.When K said naively when he first entered the castle: "I can't adapt to the life in the castle above, I want to be free forever." The boss reminded him: "You don't understand castles." What the ignorant K imagined That kind of freedom is just the opposite of the freedom of the castle, which is the freedom of pursuing what can never be pursued, the freedom of self-torture, just like K waiting for Klamm and Barnabas to find Klamm on a snowy night as experienced.What the boss said has another meaning, that is, once a person is brought into the orbit of the spiritual life of the castle, he will forever lose the "freedom" in the secular sense, and from then on he will start a new life that is harsh and impersonal. There will never be true inner peace in life, and the strings will only become tighter and tighter. There is often a bigger conspiracy hidden behind the temporary peace, and all people can do is to fight against the conspiracy.And all this is exactly what K is subconsciously pursuing!From a nature point of view, no one is willing to suffer for a long time. It is a human instinct to get rid of "pain".The magic of the castle is that it makes people voluntarily remain in its domain to suffer.As long as K does not leave for a day, the pain will always come one after another, and after getting rid of the old, there will be new and more severe pains waiting for him, as if the previous liberation was to meet a greater blow.What kind of attraction does this hopeless life have for K?This has to trace K's inner journey again. K's previous history determines his pursuit today, and he can no longer change himself, because the transformation has already been completed.A person with a sensitive and passionate personality, who strives to be a noble person since childhood.When he found that no matter what he did, he could not become a noble person, and could only be a "little person", and the ideal of being a noble person would never disappear, which forced him to feel ashamed and condemned himself severely, so that in the end When he has sentenced himself to death mentally, at this time, if the noble ideal still stays in his soul, the ideal will only be separated from reality.The separated ideal rose into the air and turned into an illusory castle, and the pursuit distanced itself from then on.People finally know at this time that life is the pain of separation, so while doing "bad things" every day and feeling the pain caused by this "bad things", they are still constantly dreaming of castles and perfection.The castle originated from the division within man and materialized that division. However, the struggle K carried on in the castle was a continuation of the previous struggle.K who does "bad things" in the castle is much calmer than K who does "bad things" in the castle. He is used to thinking that since people are alive, they must do "bad things", and since every "bad thing" he does If they are all connected to the castle, there is no other choice but to continue these "bad things".Of course, every "bad thing" will still cause pain, but the pain will not be really fatal, and he can already bear any pain.Just think that the holy place on the hillside still belongs to him, what pain can't be overcome?This is the magic of the castle, K really can't live without it for a moment, only this place is his real hometown and destination.He trekked into what he had built for so long.A phantom fable, constantly enriching this fable with his own blood, this is what he has been pursuing all his life, what he loves most, and that is almost godlike.
Going back to the time when the castle originated, you will find that the K at that time and the K now are actually doing the same thing, which is to move towards the perfect dream with the movement of the mutilated limbs.K, who had broken through the blindness of vanity, now saw more and more clearly his own incompleteness and incompetence, and he was no longer ashamed of this incompleteness, because it was useless to be blindly ashamed, and his immediate priority was to do what he could do.Since he has been dividing himself into two from the very beginning, since he has never been at ease with secular interpretations of his soul, and since he wants to clarify and pursue all matters related to the soul, even today, he is also Only by continuing the struggle with the castle, this is the foundation of human beings.The complex mechanism of the castle was not formed in one or two days, it is the product of K's history, and now it is not only K's close quarter, but also K's stage, it depends on how K performs.When K launched a desperate attack in the face of this colossus, we might be amazed: once the human spirit is released from the body, it can develop into such an incredibly complex independent world!How powerful this world is, and how precisely the sound of its growth responds to K's pulse!On the surface, it turns its face and refuses to recognize anyone, but secretly hides the desire to win over K. K has no choice but to "resolutely" resist it in order to win its trust.And the castle's trust in it can only be expressed in the form of turning its face and denying people, in order to maintain K's resistance.Rebelling against the castle is a form of movement that denies itself. This movement from the core is endless, and it evolves into a variety of patterns, and the castle grows quietly among these patterns. What K is fighting against is exactly what he loves the most and what he wants; if that absolute love does not disappear, the struggle will continue.The kindness and resentment between him and the castle, the kindness and resentment between him and Frieda, and the kindness and resentment between him and everyone in the village are all manifestations of absolute and holy love.He experienced the perfect dream in the tear of masochism, and that dream was a part of himself.
The castle, of human origin, is of course the most human; it is the allegory of humanity through which the most unfortunate lost finds a spiritual escape, most fortunately.
February 9, 1998, Yingcai Garden