Help understanding 全然そうはいかなかった

Question

I am triing to understand how the following sentence

全然そうはいかなかった

Could translate into

But this was entirely impractical

It's part of Metamorphosis (Kafka). The narrator wakes up transformed into a bug and is thinking

Why don't I keep sleeping for a little while longer and forget all this foolishness.

I understand the whole meaning of the sentence but i have 2 questions :

1. 全然そう being marked as the theme of the sentence is bothering me since it's an adverb + a na-adjective and not a noun or a sentence. Can we consider it as a sentence all by itself ? Is this usual and i'm just overthinking it ? Secondly is this a contrastive は ? (would make sense with the previous sentence)

2. The sentence seems to translate like "but thinks didn't go like that" whereas the translation sounds more hypothetical to me. Is there some kind of conditional implied in the japanese sentence ? Wouldn't a と conditionnal be appropriate ? (like to emphasize the result of an hypothetical thinking)

Thanks for helping me clarify all this ;)

Answer 1

全然そう being marked as the theme of the sentence...

You don't seem to be parsing the sentence correctly, I'm afraid.

The 全然 continues to the negative ない in いかなかった. 「全然...ない」 means "not ... at all". For more on the usage of 全然+ない, see:

• The reason for using 何も+negative, but 何でも+positive
• 全然 {ぜんぜん} with positive adjective / na-adjective
• How to interpret 全然 + positive adjective + とは思わない

So you should parse the sentence as:

「全然 + （そうは）いかなかった。」 rather than 「（全然そうは）+ いかなかった。」

And it literally means "(It/things) didn't go that way at all."

The は is the contrastive は, often used with a negative word (～ない). Here it marks the scope of negation. For more, see:

• Why is the topic marker often used in negative statements (ではない, ～とは思わない)?
• には contrast in following sentence

　

Answer 2

Keep in mind that the English is not a translation of the Japanese. The English is a translation from German. The Japanese is also a translation from the German. It may help having the English and Japanese side-by-side but don't rely on any deep correspondence there.

It's important to realize that the reason why going back to sleep is impractical is given in the next three sentences.

というのは、彼は右下で眠る習慣だったが、この今の状態ではそういう姿勢を取ることはできない。いくら力をこめて右下になろうとしても、いつでも仰向あおむけの姿勢にもどってしまうのだ。

Notice the final のだ. This is showing that what's been presented is a reason why 全然そうはいかなかった

There's nothing hypothetical here though. He wants to roll back over and fall asleep to forgot the nightmare he woke up into. But he can't do this.

全然そうはいかなかった

Here は is emphasizing (this is contrastive は) that "that just wouldn't work". Note that は can be tagged onto many different parts of speech, particularly when it's been used to draw a contrast.