READERS HAVE LONG PUZZLED over the profession of the protagonist of Kafka’s Das Schloß (The Castle). Why does Kafka choose to make the faceless hero of his most mysterious novel a land surveyor (“Landvermesser”)? Since K. never actually does any surveying in the novel (he doesn’t even possess any surveying equipment), the choice of profession might seem to be relatively unimportant. But is it? K. is defined throughout by this putative career, which effectively replaces his name. To the other characters (and to the reader), he becomes “Herr Landvermesser,” the “ewige [eternal] Landvermesser” or simply “Landvermesser” (thus the capitalization in the English translation). Critics seem to agree on the importance of unraveling K.’s profession, but their efforts have led only to suggestive yet widely differing metaphorical readings. Does surveying signify artistic ambition: observing, writing, and drawing (Robert 18)? The process of reading: delimiting semiotic difference (Bernheimer 198)? Messianic promise: rebuilding Zion (Göhler 52; Robertson 228–35)? Some readers have questioned K.’s profession even further: claiming that he is not a surveyor at all but rather an impostor (Sokel 403–5). As the son of a Castle sub-secretary assumes at the onset, K. could well be a “Landstreicher” (vagabond) and not a “Landvermesser.” Others point out that the term “Vermesser” is already undermined by a grim Kafkaesque irony: it signifies audacity and hubris (“Vermessenheit”) and, most importantly, the possibility of making a mistake while measuring (“sich vermessen”; Heller 70). Thus, if we take K.’s profession seriously — as I propose we do — then we must acknowledge that this designation persists only in the likelihood of its own error. (The “Vermesser” is “vermessen” and therefore possibly “vermisst sich”: misestimates himself).

Such metaphorical and etymological interpretations have greatly enriched readings of Das Schloß (I will return to the crucial connection between surveying and reading in the final section of this essay). For the moment, however, one cannot help but wonder whether critics, confronted by the opacity of K.’s profession, have missed the trees for the forest.