Genesis 19: 24: ‘Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven.’
117 mere children: this confirms that K. and Frieda form a kind of family, with the two assistants as children.
121 to the south of France, to Spain: these real places feel very incongruous with the geographical vagueness of the castle and village.
129 Bitter Rue: Jews are required to eat bitter herbs and unleavened bread at Passover (Numbers 9: 11). Combined with Hans’s prophecy that in the distant future K. will ‘triumph over everyone’ (p. 133), this may suggest that Kafka, at least briefly, conceived K. as liberating the village in the manner of Moses.
144 warmth of her presence: Schwarzer’s futile devotion to Gisa provides a parallel to K.’s obsession with the castle.
165 Sortini: possibly suggested by Latin sors (genitive sortis) and its derivative, French sort, ‘fate’.
3 July: Kafka’s birthday.
166 Galater: this is the German name for St Paul’s Letter to the Galatians, in which Paul opposes the divisions between some Jewish and some non-Jewish Christians; Arnold Heidsieck suggests that such divisions are repre-sented in the novel by the villagers’ ostracization of the Barnabas family, and that part of K.’s mission is to unite the village (The Intellectual Contexts of Kafka’s Fiction (Columbia, SC: Camden House, 1994), 160 – 72).
167 Turks: since the Ottoman empire formerly controlled large tracts of Eastern Europe, and besieged Vienna in 1683, ‘Turks’ have been proverbial for barbaric enemies.
190 Bertuch: the name of a publisher in Goethe’s Weimar; perhaps suggesting German Bahrtuch, ‘shroud’.
206 the brunette: an inconsistency — earlier, both sisters were said to be blonde (p. 31).
209 Erlanger: suggests German erlangen, ‘to reach, attain’.
225 Bürgel: suggests German Bürge, ‘guarantor’; cf. ‘who can guarantee everything’ (p. 234).