The Trial (1925)

I listened to the audio book narrated by someone Degas. I found the whole book extremely annoying. I probably missed lots of deep and meaningful stuff, but I found K annoying and selfish and I didn't like the way nearly all the women were falling over themselves to help him. I found there was a lot of "K thought x. It was of course true that blah, blah, blah. However, K still thought x."

I might have appreciated the book more if I had read it rather than listening to the audio book. However, the library only had the audio book. ( )

Full review to come! ( )

This was pretty wild. Surprisingly funny and very readable (and listenable). Much more about the idea than the characters and the unfinished nature of the book leads to some dead ends. The Cathedral chapter was a a bit dense and the ending abrupt but the world is fantastic and weird and beautifully frustrating. ( )

Well, I read it. A very strange story. I found it hard to care about K and his problems. ( )

"The Trial" is a work of byzantine bureaucracy, contradictory and meaningless rules, and inescapable dilemmas. It is widely viewed as a powerful statement about judicial systems in autocratic societies, and Kafka is sometimes credited with prescience in having foreseen what was to come in the dictatorships of Germany and the Soviet Union. Innumerable works of literary analysis have analyzed the work's nature, organization, history, and diverse translations.

I experienced this work as an audiobook, translated by Breon Mitchell and narrated by George Guidall. I consider this audio version as a good way to experience Kafka's novel. That's not to say that is interesting or enjoyable (after all, Kafka's work is read more for its literary value than for the purposes of enjoyment). Frankly, I thought the work overly long, and repetitious in theme. One gets the entire idea of the plot (such as it is) from the first few chapters -- along with a full sense of the tragicomic nature of the predicament in which "K" finds himself. But despite a fine narrator, I found that the tale grew wearisome and am not sure I followed it all, until, that is, its shocking ending. ( )