The Trial (1925)

Reading this book felt like being an observer to someone's bizarre dream, or rather nightmare. Josef K wakes up one day to find that he is under arrest for an unspecified crime. He is allowed to stay at home while he awaits his trial. What follows is a surreal story that follows Josef through the court system. Neither the reader nor Josef ever discovers the crime he is accused of.

I'm not sure if I enjoyed this book - I'm not even sure that I could coherently explain the plot. But I occasionally come across the adjective 'Kafkaesque' to describe something unbelievable or nightmarish. Now I have a better understanding of what that means! Excellent audiobook narration by George Guidall. ( )

Why was Joseph K taken, enough to keep you gripped. Luckily there is no such thing as rendition in these enlightened days! ( )

I read this for the first time at school in German for A level several decades ago now. The bleakness and fatalism had a profound effect on me as a rather Pollyanna-ish teenager, especially as I was also reading Camus for the first time.
If I say I can still quote verbatim chunks from the book that should suggest the impact of it(and provide a tribute to my German teacher!).
I think the effort of reading it in German meant I missed some of the surreal(albeit still bleak) humour first time round. I still wouldn't recommend it if you are depressed!
( )

I started reading this aaaages ago, and finally finished it by skimming through. I don't know what it is -- maybe the translation, maybe just Kafka's style -- but I found it more infuriating and frustrating than anything. I enjoyed the dark humour, but I don't think this style of completely absurd situation is for me, and I couldn't judge on the quality of Kafka's writing from this translation. Maybe if, someday, I learn German...

It probably doesn't help that I'm in bed recovering from food poisoning, so perhaps you should take my opinion with a pinch of salt. Still, however important it is in a literary sense, I can't say I enjoyed it. ( )

The back cover of this translation of The Trial reads, "Whether read as an existential tale, a parable, or a prophecy of the excesses of modern bureaucracy wedded to the madness of totalitarianiasm..." it's not these things. The effort to find specific meaning is as pointless as the debate over precisely what Moby-Dick is. Neither book means any one thing. They're about everything. They're about your whole life. Both are beautiful, maddening lurches into the impossibility of meaning.

If it is about everything, I'm not sure what to make of the book's portrayal of women, which is...ambiguous? Nearly every woman in the book is hypersexualized, and K. generally has some sort of adversarial, predatory relationship with all of them. He makes advances on his fellow lodger, Fraulein Burstner, that are described in aggressive terms and don't seem fully wanted by her. Later he falls into an uncomfortable relationship with his lawyer's nurse, Leni, and toward the end of the book there's a weird encounter with a 13-year-old girl on a staircase in which she lifts her skirt at him. This essay says that "Most of the women in K’s society are prostitutes in one form or another," which seems close. I found it very weird. Apparently there's been some controversy over Kafka's sexuality, for what that's worth.

This is an unfinished novel, and it does end abruptly. There is an ending, at least, which makes it a bit more satisfying than the other great unfinished novel I'm familiar with, Pushkin's Eugene Onegin. It's as though Kafka realized he wasn't really going to finish this, so he quickly jotted down the ending he knew he was working towards.

It's always pleasant to read, and, like Moby-Dick, it's not a book that I think you should analyze overmuch as you go. Don't stress out about what the hell Kafka's banging on about. Just go ahead and breeze through it and let it catch up with you later, which it probably will. ( )