The Trial

In today’s world, which feels so much less clear and more upside down to me than the one I used to know, this book seems more prophetic than science fiction. An exploration of the absolute absurdity and uselessness of life and the total breakdown of any sensible justice system, it makes you shiver a bit. Does it make sense to struggle when there are no answers (in fact, not even questions that can be put to anyone other than yourself)? Seeking to understand what is going on around you, what is being done to you and what is expected from you is tantamount to insanity, for there are no explanations and no rules that you are allowed to know. There is less justice for those who seek to understand their human predicament, and more leniency show more for those who just happen to stumble upon the right approach or the right judge. Even the lawyers are clueless, and I don’t even want to try to make sense of how religion fails in this novel.

What, indeed, is K’s crime? It doesn’t matter. He doesn’t know what he has done, we don’t know what he has done, but living, alone, is crime enough. There is nothing to believe in in K’s world. If there are higher-ups, he is never able to reach or understand them, in fact they seem to exist in theory only. The only people he ever meets are lowly officials. If the higher powers do exist, are they of any use to him? I wonder how much of what he is saying about “higher powers” is truly Kafka grappling with the concept of God. Other people seem to believe in them, there are rumors that they have done things, made rulings, but K finds no evidence that they exist. Every person K meets is part of the court system, which must mean he is being judged by humanity itself rather than something outside of humanity.

This book is so psychologically dense and complicated that I am sure I only walked away with a fragment of what Kafka was trying to convey. It certainly serves to humble one when encountering the mind that is needed to produce such a story.

However, and this is a big however for me, I hated reading it. It pushed and pulled and stood still. I didn’t care what happened to K except in that larger sense that he seemed to represent mankind--if it can happen to him, it can happen to you. My second Kafka, and I find him far too challenging to enjoy, but important because he makes you think and will not allow you to look the other way.

If I were rating this on any pleasure grid, it would get 1-star from me. But rated on a meaning grid, it probably deserves 5-stars. I have compromised and given it 3.5. show less

Uma terrível viagem psicológica à vida de Josef K., um homem comum que acorda um dia e se vê acusado de um crime que não cometeu, um crime cuja natureza nunca lhe é revelada. Uma vez preso, é libertado, mas deve retornar ao tribunal a uma base regular - uma série de eventos que se mostra enlouquecedora, pois nada é resolvido. À medida em que cresce a incerteza de seu destino, sua vida pessoal - incluindo o trabalho num banco e suas relações com a senhoria e uma jovem mulher que mora ao lado - torna-se cada vez mais imprevisível. K. tenta ganhar o controle, mas só consegue acelerar sua própria e excruciante espiral descendente. Dá prova do gênio de Kafka, como um romancista, um humorista, um psicólogo e um humorista, a show more sua dialética do absurdo, que jamais deixa a peteca da parábola cair. Cada tipo de gesto humano e cada detalhe realista são esmiuçados conforme aquela dialética do absurdo. show less

On his 30th birthday, Josef K wakes up to officials in his apartment, there to arrest him. He doesn't know for what or how to defend himself. Over the next year, he continues his work at a bank while trying to defend himself against unknown charges in court. He learns all sorts of confusing things about how the legal system "works". Things do not end well for K.

This novel is an all-too-real-feeling look at people being controlled through chaos. If no one understands the systems they are living under, and if no one can predict who and what will be deemed illegal and dangerous, then no one is safe and secure to say what they think or be who they want to be. Pretty terrifying stuff and still oh so pertinent 100 years later.

Absurd, nightmarish, depressing and brilliant. The idea of someone being "arrested," "tried," and executed without ever being told what they did is unfortunately not as absurd as it used to be. Think this could only happen in Eastern European countries, Russia, Islamofacist strongholds? Think again.

4/5

The only thing I have read that's even remotely similar to the The Trial is The Woman in the Dunes, which I suppose should be no great surprise since it seems that without the former, the latter would never have existed in its current form.

The Trial is the story of Josef K., a middle manager at a bank who is noteworthy only because he is suddenly arrested in his apartment on the day of his 30th birthday. For what, exactly? That remains a mystery for K, as well as his captors, investigators, lawyers, judges, a clergy member, a painter, or really anyone remotely involved in K's case. Everyone follows the template for their role that they 'should' be doing without any real idea of the truth behind it.

Kafka wrote The Trial in a style show more that I would mostly closely relate to stream of consciousness. Paragraphs are lengthy, and prone to large tangents that lead to totally new thoughts of their own. I thought this prose style suited both the content and the themes that Kafka chooses to explore. This is very much a story of and about nihilism. We see K as but a passenger on the tide of his case, despite his continued efforts. His advances are denied at every turn, driving his anxiety and confusion ever higher. It's a depressing and pitch black book even if the diction doesn't always do the heavy lifting to get to that tone.

It's a surreal world that K inhabits, with lots of maze-like spaces that have no clear defining lines, one that makes the already confusing events even more unbearable. Characters are prone to wild changes in emotion and action. It reads to me as a work of proto-magical realism, which I enjoyed greatly. It's also clear that Kafka was resentful of bureaucracy, resentful of the power that untold people can have over your life. Because this system of bureaucracy employs so many, each individual is free from personal accountability for their role in K's case. We are left with the impression that the wheels of this system will continue to grind the helpless and innocent into dust. This is a world devoid of purpose or morality. There's also certainly some more religious philosophy here, but these points are less clear to me, as I don't have much in the way of a religious background.

I find it hard to criticize The Trial in meaningful ways, not because there aren't flaws (it's quite literally unfinished), but because of the circumstances behind its creation and eventual publication. Kafka hated most of his own work, choosing to burn most of it before his death. The only reason that The Trial exists today is because of his literary executor going against Kafka's wishes to publish anything of his, period. These circumstances do feel like armor protecting the work from critique. Certainly it does become repetitive, dry, and boring. Certainly it does have an abrupt ending that flows against the grain of the rest of the text. It's not hard to see why some readers simply do not connect with the novel. Even I questioned my enjoyment several times.

However, I think it's hard to deny its weight and importance, a work that is valuable both because of its impact on future literature, but also on its own merits. Much like the The Woman in the Dunes I think that I would need to read this several more times with even more detail to tease it apart in a way that I could feel happy with. As it stands, I do feel like I'm only seeing the first few feet of a very deep lake. I'm interested to read more of Kafka's work as well as a biography of his life. show less

When I first read Kafka’s The Trial I was fascinated. 40 years on I find it still as fascinating, the more so in fact, because I have had many years in the meantime to confirm how, despite its nightmarish qualities, it is a very realistic work. That is to say, it reflects very accurately the real world and the real hopes and fears we humans entertain every day.

You’ll say that I speak for myself! and that not everyone is a neurotic, or is delusional or paranoid. True. But elements of The Trial apply to most people, although I suppose there may be some who never in their whole lives have been beset by a worry that has stayed with them a considerable time, and which has grown stronger and more insidious over that time. If there are show more people like that, I haven’t met them. And I’m not one of them!

The novel is an almost clinical case study of the way an individual can be destroyed by circumstances beyond his control, especially when he begins by thinking that he CAN control events. One of the most affecting parts of the book is K’s early confidence that HE can take charge and wrap things up quickly. Hence his arrogance in addressing the ‘court, which is held in a very bizarre location: ‘He was given the number of the house where he had to go, it was a house in an outlying suburban street where he had never been before’.

As regards the ‘court’ itself, all its musty, pedantic and beaurocratic nature comes through strongly and reminds one of the ‘circumlocution office’ in Dickens’s Little Dorrit. I am not aware that Kafka (1883-1924) knew anything of Dickens (1812-1870) and so this aspect of their work would seem to be an example of two extraordinary writers ‘zooming in’ on aspect of social organisation’ with equal extraordinary effect ( though maybe Kafka has a slight edge in ‘nightmarishness’?). Both have contributed their names to the language in the form of powerful adjectives.

I have to say that this book has been a personal favorite with me over the years and when I said above that I find it ‘fascinating’ I am using the word its strict sense of ’attract or influence irresistibly’ Like everyone else, I have had some personal experience of situations in which one feels an overpowering sense of helplessness. Kafka’s device of having his character overcome by weakness and a sense of suffocation is extremely effective, not least because it reflects the actual psychosomatic symptoms that one often experiences in situation like this. There is too the feeling that anything one does will only make the situation worse, so the best idea would be to sit still and wait out events. But this is very hard to do because things may be getting worse anyway, and just BECAUSE one is doing nothing. And so perhaps one should intervene…

And so on. A really fine novel, tightly written and extraordinarily perceptive of the human condition, and one which can never be ‘outdated’. The only true parallel in my reading that I can think of is Orwell’s 1984. Humour too, though of the dark kind.

To use a word that is considerably overused and abused: The Trial is a work of genius. One of my all-time favourite novels. [Translated from the German - Der Prozess (published posthumously 1925) - by Willa and Edwin Muir (1936)]. show less

Le jour de son arrestation, K. ouvre la porte de sa chambre pour s'informer de son petit-déjeuner et amorce ainsi une dynamique du questionnement qui s'appuie, tout au long du roman, sur cette métaphore de la porte. Accusé d'une faute qu'il ignore par des juges qu'il ne voit jamais et conformément à des lois que personne ne peut lui enseigner, il va pousser un nombre ahurissant de portes pour tenter de démêler la situation. À mesure que le procès prend de l'ampleur dans sa vie, chaque porte ouverte constitue une fermeture plus aliénante sur le monde de la procédure judiciaire, véritable source d'enfermement et de claustrophobie. L'instruction suit son cours sur environ un an durant lequel l'absence d'événements est vue show more uniquement à travers les yeux de K. Sa lucidité, dérisoire et inutile jusqu'à la fin, contrairement à celle du héros de La Métamorphose, n'apporte aucun soulagement. Le Procès, pièce charnière dans l'oeuvre de ce génie de l'absurde, renonce au ressort du surnaturel pour évoquer l'angoisse de l'obsession. --Sana Tang-Léopold Wauters show less