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The Trial
The Trial
The Trial
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The Trial

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On the day after his thirtieth birthday, Josef K, a bank teller, is arrested by two mysterious agents of an unspecified organization. Confused and shocked, Josef inquires about the crime he is being accused of, but the agents will not answer, leaving Josef to decide what he feels most guilty for. Though he is not imprisoned, Josef is told to await further instructions. Tortured by the unknown, Josef returns to his home and tries to guess what he could be charged for. His landlady, Frau Grubach, feels amicably about Josef despite the arrest and wishes to help. She speculates that he is likely being punished for his promiscuous behavior involving one of his neighbors. Josef is unable to confirm this, but he does go to his neighbor, Fraulien, for comfort. While she does accept his affection and kiss at first, Fraulien later rejects Josef’s advances. When he returns home, he is given unclear instructions for his court appearance. With an address, but not a specific report time, Josef arrives late to his trial, angering the assembly. When Josef vents his frustrations about the absurdity of the trial, he upsets the court even more. Still unclear on the charges he faces and the possible punishment, Josef feels the weight of guilt and the immeasurable high stakes as the trial proceeds. While he is thrown in a whirlwind of chaos and uncertainty, Josef pleas his innocence as he still investigates what crime he is being tried for.

Through brilliant symbolism and excellent characterization, The Trial by Franz Kafka is an intelligent and intriguing perspective on the innerworkings of the justice system, told from the point of view of the guilty or accused. Published posthumously in 1925, The Trial has become one of Franz Kafka’s most popular works, and has been adapted for film, radio, and theater. With several interpretations and possible meanings, Franz Kafka’s The Trial provides a thrilling and thought-provoking reading experience for contemporary audiences.

This edition of The Trial by Franz Kafka is accessible for modern readers with features such as its new, striking cover design and the stylish, readable font it is printed in.

LanguageEnglish
PublisherMint Editions
Release dateFeb 9, 2021
ISBN9781513265537
Author

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka (Praga, 1883 - Kierling, Austria, 1924). Escritor checo en lengua alemana. Nacido en el seno de una familia de comerciantes judíos, se formó en un ambiente cultural alemán y se doctoró en Derecho. Su obra, que nos ha llegado en contra de su voluntad expresa, pues ordenó a su íntimo amigo y consejero literario Max Brod que, a su muerte, quemara todos sus manuscritos, constituye una de las cumbres de la literatura alemana y se cuenta entre las más influyentes e innovadoras del siglo xx. Entre 1913 y 1919 escribió El proceso, La metamorfosis y publicó «El fogonero». Además de las obras mencionadas, en Nórdica hemos publicado Cartas a Felice.

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Rating: 3.865979381443299 out of 5 stars
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  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    A story of half-blind justice from all viewpoints.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Listening to unabridged audio.
    23 Feb 11: Praise be. I'm done listening to this. It was torture. I get (I think) what Kafka was trying to say that the law is so complex at times that it is completely inaccessible to 'normal' people, even smart successful ones. Or maybe he wasn't trying to say anything at all.

    Like I said before, I disliked the characters - all of them - and I found the on-going conspiracy - reaching the edges of everything - irritating.

    Has anyone else read this one? Maybe they want to explain it to me?
    18 Feb 11: Ch. 7? 8? : I totally hate all the characters. This may be part of the reason I'm feeling lethargic about law school -- it reads a bit like 'Alice in Wonderland'... in court.

  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    I couldn't understand Kafka 30 years ago & he makes no more sense nowRead in Samoa May 2003
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    ugh. but good anyway.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    At least as I understood it, The Trial is a black comedy that contrasts the disconnectedness of individuals from larger societal agencies. As governments and corporations have become larger and more powerful, the world has become increasingly Kafkaesque, surreal and full of bewildering mini-trials to accompany their big-brother trials. Humans evolved under social conditions where tribal elders were accessible, but mass culture leaves people isolated without power, and unable to form relationships of reciprocal influence. Kafka portrays all this in a way that reveals the absurdity of the modern individual's plight.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Look, it's a classic. It's not the most scintillating read, and I think I would have enjoyed it more had I read it when I was a 20 year old English major. But it's fine, and it paved the way for a whole host of really great slightly surreal, absurd stories that deliver a bleak message in a readable package.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    The Trial reveals how we are the ultimate creators of our realities. Both consciously and unconsciously, our deemed realities are based off of delusions and phantasy. "Reality" is that which we choose to perceive. There's a tendency to blame tangible, external occurrences for our condition when, in truth, the crimes and punishments reside within ourselves. We are the prosecutors, the judges, the jury, the criminals, the victims, etc.

    This is a vivid portrayal of the agonizing sufferings one experiences when all they strive for is to get away from the terror that surrounds them, only to realize that this terror 'is' them. Protagonist and antagonist become one in a battle of self-conflictions.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This book hits me in places no other book touches. Reading it generally means locking myself up in my house alone for a few days. It is terrifying and effective and funny and paralyzing.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    The Trial by Franz Kafka is one of the masterpieces of existential literature. Or so it is said. Since I'm not up to date on my existential philosophy, the book was largely wasted on me. It's always a challenge to read books that come at life from a different world view than one's own, but to give them a fair chance requires wrestling with their philosophical underpinnings. I'm not at a point in my reading life or my intellectual life where I'm interested in exploring the existential experiences described by Franz Kafka in The Trial.Kafka certainly knows how to create atmosphere and bring a story to life, but the problems for me were the absurdist plot and the unappealing main character, Josef K. While I admire Kafka's craft as a writer, and acknowledge The Trial as an important work of literature, it's simply not to my taste at this stage of my life.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Great, definitely helped me appreciate "The Prisoner" better
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is the third work I've read from Kafka (after The Metamorphosis and The Hunger Artist). I enjoyed the other two more, but I think The Trial had some things stacked against it. First, it was uncompleted, or maybe just the revisions Kafka might have undertaken had been left undone. Second, I feel it was a much more intricate work than the prior two. Parts of this novel seem to hint at religion. Especially the parable about the man and the guard at the door. Can it be that K is in purgatory? It seems like that answer would fit so nicely into the story. I haven't read the reviews of others on this yet, but I'm sure someone else has advanced that idea. If that's the case, you have my total endorsement!In my copy of the book, I have a pro and con. The con is the preface - I have a big problem with prefaces going into plot details of the book. Chances are, the author provides those plot details better than the individual introducing - let the author do his or her job! I don't want a spoiler at the beginning of a book. Discuss plots and so forth at the end of the book to avoid creating a bias or stunting critical thinking. I usually read EVERYTHING in a book - fly leaf, about the author, even the paragraph about the typeset - but I skipped the preface when I started picking up on some spoiler info and I decided not to return to it because I was annoyed.That being said, I did read the notes after the story ended and I read sections that had been deleted by Kafka or portions that had been taken out following his death because a chapter was unfinished. This was great to read - for the deleted materials, I saw a glimpse of an even better novel had he time to polish the final work. For the additional information about Kafka from his friend, it's always interesting to me to read about how close to oblivion particular great works were at one time or other. Kafka's works apparently were close - or in some cases, they were destroyed. That puts them up there with the near demise of Bram Stoker's Dracula and (ok maybe this is a stretch, but it's near and dear to my heart) Wilson Rawl's Where the Red Fern Grows.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The Trial is a compelling read, but also frustrating. Questions are never answered and your left scream WHY???? K wakes up to find out he is being arrested, he is never told why, he is free to go about his daily life as long as when he is summoned to the court he comes. He tries to dismiss the trial as nothing more than a shady court system trying to get a bribe out of him. More people learn of his trial and he begins to take it more serious. K explores options and meets other people on trial. The ending will mess you up.

    So what is the point of The Trial? There are lots of meanings that can be placed to what is read. Bureaucracy, a variety of metaphors the trial represents, or simply nothing but the text that is provided. Either way its a great short read that is interesting til the end. I didn’t know how I felt at the ending, was just kind of lost for a feeling, but I think that feeling of not know what I am feeling fits well with The Trial.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Re-reading The Trial in the Breon Mitchell translation of the restored edition was a big improvement over the original Muirs' translation. Although I still prefer Kafka's shorter, published work like The Metamorphosis, In the Penal Colony and The Hunger Artist, all of which seem perfect to me while The Trial has a lot of rougher edges. One can only wonder what Kafka would have done with them if he actually published the work.

    This reading of The Trial also had considerably more farce and humor, especially in all of the descriptions of minutiae, and felt more like a successor to Gogol than I had previously remembered. And it is also a reminder that just about everything that anyone terms Kafkaesque is capturing at most one or two facets of the very multidimensional, strange original combination that Kafka himself provided.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    It's a mind-warp. The ending feels so profound. And, yet, the hopelessness of it all...
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    The question ‘Have you read Kafka?’ can now be answered in the affirmative for our group, much to our relief. No one found Mr K’s story comfortable, and the absurdity of the whole situation confusing and bizarre. This could well have been the author’s intention, and if so, he certainly succeeded!There were some who found the use of language clever, with economical sentences and a few well conceived lines that went directly to the point. But to truly understand what was happening and why, was a difficult task. The lack of information (both to Mr K and the reader) was a challenge for all of us, and if we thought everything would become clear in the end … well ... think again!Was Kafka sending a warning of what was to come in Germany? The Trial was written in 1914 and published in 1925, so Hitler’s reign was yet to come, but the clear government control and insane bureaucracy seems too prophetic to be a coincidence. There are moments when you are not even sure Mr K is sane, or even if he is caught in a nightmarish dream. Our curiosity led to some interesting research on Kafka himself and one brave soul even dove into a second Kafka story, America, simply to see if there was another side to his peculiar style. Apparently not.The Trial has been listed under a number of genres, including philosophical fiction, Dystopian, Absurdist or even Paranoid fiction. After our discussion, we could safely say any or all would fit, and the most intriguing part of reading Kafka is … why?
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    First thing.. this book was unfinished and published after his death, and it reads that way. I can't imagine this is what Kafka would have wanted the world to read. But here we are. The only thing I would like to add to what has been written already is that our protagonist K's behavior is rarely mentioned. He's an idiot. The system he is in is oppressive and capricious but his own behavior is inexplicable and frustrating. I can appreciate this book for its historical context in literature but it's not a "good read".
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This review is based on Breon Mitchell's translation, published by Schocken Books, 1998. Having the right translation of a foreign language book always matters and Mitchell lucidly explains how the translation of nuances of Kafka's diction (i.e., word choice and expressive style) can strongly influence the reader's interpretation.Josef K. is arrested for an unspecified crime he may or may not have committed and faces an extra-legal process, not involving the usual court system, with unwritten rules and procedures. K. at first does not take the process seriously, but becomes totally consumed over the course of several months. He attends initial inquiries, his uncle introduces him to a lawyer, his bank client introduces him to a friend of the court and his bank president artfully arranges for him to meet the prison chaplain. K. realizes that the trial is indeed serious business, but that none of these advisers can directly influence the outcome of the process. Even the functionaries of the quasi-court who handle his case do not make the final decision--that is made at a higher level, so high that no one can even say who is involved or how they make the decision. K.'s life unravels as the process unfolds, especially after he fires his lawyer and takes control of the case himself. He is confident of his ability to manage the process, perhaps buoyed by the advice given by the friend of the court that, if he is truly innocent, he needs no help from anyone and acquittal is assured. As the trial takes over his life, his one area of success, his banking career, sinks under the weight of his despair. He feels "the trial is positively closing in on me in secret." A year after his arrest, on the eve of his 31st birthday, he discovers the final verdict.The bare facts of the plot make for a nightmarish scene of a man's lonely fight against an unseen bureaucracy. But the nuances of the story contain a deeper layer that suggests that K. has more control of his destiny than seems apparent. He himself has the largest influence on how the process plays out. It was his choice to pursue acquittal, but a better strategy may have been to pursue protraction, an indefinite deferral of judgment suggested as an option by the friend of the court.It is on Day 1 of the trial, his thirtieth birthday, that two minions arrest K., gently confining him to his bedroom with "Wouldn't you rather stay here?" and, after he ventures into the living room, "You should have stayed in your room!" K. considers leaving the premises to force the issue of his arrest, but instead returns to his room, "without a further word," else "they might indeed grab him, and once subdued he would lose any degree of superiority he might still hold over them."Meanwhile, a third minion, the inspector, has set himself up in Frau Burstner's room, and calls for K. to be brought in. The inspector tangentially brings up the matter of K.'s arrest, gives him friendly advice to "think less about us and what's going to happen to you, and instead think more about yourself." Later he says, "that's not at all to say you should despair. Why should you? You're under arrest, that's all." K. is free to go his job as chief financial officer of his bank, the arrest is "not meant to keep you from carrying on your profession. Nor are you to be hindered in the course of your ordinary life."This is a strange sort of arrest, hardly more than a wake-up call, an injunction to "think more about yourself," arresting his attention so as to encourage an examination of his life in the Socratic sense.On Day 365 of the trial two other minions, "old supporting actors," have come to take K. away. Throughout this engagement, the two guards are tentative in their roles, not well-rehearsed in the script of the process. On their journey, the three perform a delicate dance, the guards locking arms with K. using a straight-arm entwining that makes them a single, comical unit. It is K. who takes the lead in this dance. At one point K. stops and says, "I'm not going any farther." The guards are ineffectual in getting K. to move, and it is only with the sudden appearance of Frau Burstner that K. gives up his resistance. It is K. who then chooses to follow her, who abandons the quest when she turns down a side street, who later rushes the three-in-one unit past a policeman who might have intervened if K. had given a sign of distress.Their journey ends at a quarry outside the city where the guards continue to be tentative in their actions. It takes them some time to find a suitable location and position for K. One guard unsheaths a butcher's knife, but they seem uncertain how to proceed as they pass it back and forth between themselves. "K. knew clearly now that it was his duty to seize the knife as it floated from hand to hand above him and plunge it into himself. But he didn't do so [...]." So one guard held him "while the other thrust the knife into his heart and turned it there twice. With failing sight K. saw how the men drew near his face, leaning cheek-to-cheek to observe the verdict. 'Like a dog!' he said; it seemed as though the shame was to outlive him.""Like a dog." K.'s assessment, not the plunge of the knife, is the verdict. A self-verdict on his (now) examined life, not an indictment of the manner of his death. The knife was his final wake-up call and the guards attend closely to hear the verdict that K. quickly reaches under the ultimate stress of approaching death.His conduct of the trial is like a dog begging at the dinner table: when no morsel appears from a diner--when no tidbit of advantage accrues from the landlady (Frau Grubach), the washerwoman, the merchant (Block), the lawyer--K. abandons them, dismisses them, and moves on to the next diner. K. does not use his human capacity for reasoning, but, like an animal living unaware and only in the moment, "He'd always tended to take things lightly, to believe the worst only when it arrived, making no provision for the future, even when things looked bad." He had no social competence, evidenced by his first encounter with Fraulein Burstner: "K. [...] rushed out, seized her, kissed her on the mouth, then all over her face, like a thirsty animal lapping greedily at a spring it has found at last."K. had rapid success in his career, but none at all in his life. His professional colleagues had sailboat, car, villa, and a social life, while he lived in a boardinghouse, had no friends among his contemporaries, had shut out his relatives, had no prospects of finding a life partner. K.'s lilfe was controlled by fear of exposing any weakness, of losing any perception of advantage he had over others. The washerwoman's husband, the court usher, provides K. with a hint to a solution as they discuss the wife's abduction by the law student, Bertold. "'Someone needs to give the student, who's a coward, a thorough flogging the next time he tries to touch my wife [...]. Only a man like you could do it.' 'Why me?' asked K. in astonishment. 'You are a defendant, after all,' said the court usher. 'Yes,' said K., 'but I should fear his influence all the more [...]. Then he gazed at K. with a look of trust he hadn't shown before, in spite of all his friendliness, and added: 'People are always rebelling.'"The verdict exposes his shame and it is, of course, too late for any recourse. Too late for K. to thrash Bertold or to take any of the other forks in his path which led away from the quarry.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A whole host of interpretations of this book are out there, which is not surprising given it was unfinished by the author and the chapters are likely out of order. An interesting read, one of those stories where what you get out of it depends in part on your life experiences, your world view and beliefs.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This was quite a unique book in the way the author describes the events surrounding the main character. Very surreal in a way and you get the impression that the author is trying to show his impression of things in more ways than the direct occurrence of what he's writing about. It's not an easy read but I found many of the passages very interesting and absorbing.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Although confusing and rather abstract, requiring deeper concentration than most books, The Trial is a rough draft masterpiece. One only has to wonder what might have come of it had Kafka actually finished the work to his satisfaction.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I was introduced to Franz Kafka the writer by my Younger Uncle who himself had read in his college days many of the writer's works but gave Kafka up to concentrate on law & finance. I read him because I was fascinated by his personality & the fact that he possessed a schizoid personality disorder whose writings I wished to study carefully. Before I could read Kafka's works however, I made sure that I did a bit of research on the man & that took me a while which is uncommon in me. But Kafka is a great writer to reckon with, & `The Trial' is a book which left me quite perplexed.

    Franz Kafka was a Jew born in Prague, & who spoke in German. Most of his works were published posthumously by his friend Max Brod who I indirectly admire for doing so & gifting Franz Kafka to the world of literature & philosophy. Kafka wrote mostly short stories but he wrote a few novels like `The Trial' but most of them were left incomplete due to his untimely death. `The Trial' is also incomplete but mind you that adds to the beauty of the work in a peculiar way.

    The story is about the unseen or invisible court & justice system of the Austro-Hungarian period. It was a novel useful to me not only where literature was concerned but also, to enhance my understanding of the situation of Austria & its neighbours before the rise of Adolf Hitler in Germany. It is also stated that Kafka through his writings almost prophesized the merciless extermination act against the Jews (he succumbed to Tuberculosis before Hitler came on the scene). `The Trial' is the story of an innocent man by the name of Josef.K. who has been charged of a crime by the invisible court which he has definitely not committed. The novel goes on to show how K tries to fight for justice & instead is killed ultimately in the end without being proven innocent.

    The beauty of it all is that, the charge against K is not mentioned at all during the whole narrative & yet, the indignation that K feels when his lawyer does not aid him or when he is unjustly sort of arrested one fine morning on his thirtieth birthday is felt by the reader as well. This was an early warning given by this master of modern 20th century literature to the whole world about the evil of the invisible court. This novel prophesizes the death of many Jews in concentration camps for a crime they have not committed as well as the killings of innocent Russians during Stalin's era. The novel prophesizes the death of liberty at the very hands that shaped it, the hands of justice.

    Kafka shows through the example of the businessman Block, whose case had been going on for five years, how he was now a mere shadow of his former self & now was only concerned about his case which according to Titorelli, the Painter would never end in absolute justice & freedom. Block to this extent even stays like a slave in the house of his lawyer who calls for him at odd hours & who treats him like a worm. K did not want the service of such a lawyer & to be grovelling like Block....& therefore meets his end in an abandoned quarry.

    The character in the novel I admire the most is the painter Titorelli who is a court painter & who lives in a dilapidated shamble of a studio. He amuses me thoroughly when he explains to K about the different ways he could help him & also the way he suffocates K in his room by not opening the window or doors of his ill ventilated studio. The novel infact is suffocating thanks to the vivid descriptions & master storytelling. The heat felt in the artist's studio is not only felt by K but also by us the readers as well as those readers who are aware of the faulty system of justice even in our own present `democratic' times.

    `The Trial' gave me a glimpse of the futility of justice in the modern world where everything is like a riddle with many interpretations, just like the riddle told by the prison priest to K in the novel, about the door keeper. The novel shows how justice can be manipulated & how a case can go on for years & years while the lawyers & judges make merry. According to Titorelli, perfect justice is a legend while Block states that a great lawyer is never found (as in honest). All this rings a bell, in the sense....it is happening even today, in India itself.

    The Austrian Hungary bureaucratic system is also ridiculed & dry humour which is my favourite is also at times evident in the novel especially in the first part when the innocent K is arrested & his breakfast is eaten up by the wardens who come to arrest him. Leni is another character in the novel who interests me. She is the nurse of K's lawyer is madly in love with K.....because she finds all condemned men very attractive. Infact, K's senile lawyer even gives K a detailed description about how people who are involved in a case seem to the judges to also look very attractive which disgusts K.

    Franz Kafka really brings out truth in this work which ignites one to think about the past, present & future of one's government & especially ones justice system. He aids us to take a long & careful look at our bureaucracy & how will the future define its justice system. Will justice be equal & available to all, or will all citizens who approach justice be suffocated the way K was suffocated when he entered the attic filled with court offices ? Only time will tell whether K's story will also be repeated in the 21st century......or will something worse take place which we all will have to endure.
    An appreciation By Fiza Pathan
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    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.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is more difficult to review than Kafka's 'The Metamorphosis' as it is fragmented and incomplete, though, strangely, Kafka gave it an ending. In fact, everything is strange about the book, which is Kafka's intention - it's clear that he wants the reader to feel as disoriented as the 'hero' Josef K, a successful senior bank official who wakes up one morning to find his lodgings invaded by secretive policeman, come to inform him he is being arraigned for trial for some nameless crime.We never get to a trial as such, only a sort of preliminary hearing. The court and all its officials are housed in a tenement block in a poor part of town, where living quarters and offices of court are merged into one another or linked by mysterious corridors, some of which seem to open up unexpectedly, like a darker version of Lewis Carroll's Wonderland. At K's office, too, bizarre scenes and exchanges take place at the opening of a door. It all contributes to a sense that nothing is quite what it seems, and everything is menace. We can't even be sure of K; all we know about him is by his own reckoning, and although he is, in the early stages of the book, very pleased with himself there are hints of character traits which are very unpleasant, not least his lecherous and vaguely misogynistic attitude to women.The power of the novel comes from K's growing obsession and sense of foreboding about the trial. We see him gradually disintegrate before us. The more he seeks to know the less he knows. The characters around him seem at once to know everything and nothing. The threat is claustrophobic and, like his supposed crime, nameless. The ending that Kafka gives us is ritualised and solemn - perhaps in the way that executions are universally, whether they be labelled 'legitimate' or 'illegitimate'. The symbolism is political, but the shiver is deeply and unforgettably personal.Reviewer David Wiliams writes a regular blog Writer in the North.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    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!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The following excerpts sum up the book perfectly: K.: How can I go in to the bank when I'm under arrest?Supervisor: It's true that you're under arrest, but that shouldn't stop you from carrying out your job. And there shouldn't be anything to stop you from carrying on with your usual life. In that case, it's not too bad, being under arrest, said K. I never meant it should be anything else, said the supervisor. It hardly seems to have been necessary to notify me of the arrest, said K. K.: "Your question, my Lord, as to whether I am a house painter - in fact even more than that, you did not ask at all but merely imposed on me - is symptomatic of the whole way these proceedings against me are being carried out.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Well, I read it. A very strange story. I found it hard to care about K and his problems.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    By the most shallow interpretation this is a pessimist's simple metaphor for life: we are born/arrested without consent, then subjected to unfairness beyond our control unto death. The introduction would have me look more deeply for Judaic-Talmudic references (wouldn't know one if it slapped me), messages about sexuality (I do tend to see those), or a prophetic rendering of the fate of Jewish citizens in Eastern Europe during World War II. It would also not be difficult to read several of the characters as self-doubt personified, reflecting the way each of us is prone to criticize or overthink our own actions in an adverse environment.The plot wasn't so dull as I feared it might be, since Joseph K. has freedom of movement and makes the most of it. He tries every emotional response to his straits but to no avail. Whether he rails against the irrationality of his captors or attempts to reason with them, it's all for naught. He comes on too strongly with women and is too self-centered, sometimes aggressive with those he judges inferior, but there's never any clue dropped to suggest what he's charged with. He never aggressively seeks his right to know, but that's of a piece with the metaphor: once it is determined that life is unfair, there's little point in asking why.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    "Like a dog!" Never has a final line been so memorable, or so quotable. I was blown away when I first read "The Trial," arguable Kafka's greatest novel (though I personally have a soft spot for "The Castle"). Bureaucracy has never been quite so frightening!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I'm not quite sure what this novel was meant to be, is it a satire of the legal system or the fascist state, a psychological novel composed around a purposely incomprehensible conspiracy, a religious or philosophical allegory, or none or all of these things? Whatever it was meant to be, the story has very much the feel of Roald Dahl's Tales of the Unexpected, sharing the confusion and surreality of the plot, while all the while the reader cannot ignore the background impetus toward something happening, something that is going to be at least a little bit shocking. It also reminded me of Borges' short stories, where profound and paradoxical ideas are combined with plain but expert writing to produce a story that is not only memorable but thought provoking and entertaining.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Fascinating commentary on what happens when a culture bureaucratizes law to the point that no one involved in the legal process has any idea how it works. Also reinforces just how important habeas corpus is (and what can happen when that right is eroded, which makes this a particularly important book for Americans to read in 2012). Having read Philip K. Dick and William S Boroughs before getting to Kafka, I was prepared for the...surrealist(?)...which is the best term I can think of for it...plot structure and characterization. They were nodding to him in that way. Very important proto-dystopian work. I wish I could recommend this book, because it's important, but ultimately too alienating to be accessible to most.

Book preview

The Trial - Franz Kafka

I

ARREST - CONVERSATION WITH MRS. GRUBACH - THEN MISS BÜRSTNER

Someone must have been telling lies about Josef K., he knew he had done nothing wrong but, one morning, he was arrested. Every day at eight in the morning he was brought his breakfast by Mrs. Grubach’s cook - Mrs. Grubach was his landlady - but today she didn’t come. That had never happened before. K. waited a little while, looked from his pillow at the old woman who lived opposite and who was watching him with an inquisitiveness quite unusual for her, and finally, both hungry and disconcerted, rang the bell. There was immediately a knock at the door and a man entered. He had never seen the man in this house before. He was slim but firmly built, his clothes were black and close-fitting, with many folds and pockets, buckles and buttons and a belt, all of which gave the impression of being very practical but without making it very clear what they were actually for. Who are you? asked K., sitting half upright in his bed. The man, however, ignored the question as if his arrival simply had to be accepted, and merely replied, You rang? Anna should have brought me my breakfast, said K. He tried to work out who the man actually was, first in silence, just through observation and by thinking about it, but the man didn’t stay still to be looked at for very long. Instead he went over to the door, opened it slightly, and said to someone who was clearly standing immediately behind it, He wants Anna to bring him his breakfast. There was a little laughter in the neighbouring room, it was not clear from the sound of it whether there were several people laughing. The strange man could not have learned anything from it that he hadn’t known already, but now he said to K., as if making his report It is not possible. It would be the first time that’s happened, said K., as he jumped out of bed and quickly pulled on his trousers. I want to see who that is in the next room, and why it is that Mrs. Grubach has let me be disturbed in this way. It immediately occurred to him that he needn’t have said this out loud, and that he must to some extent have acknowledged their authority by doing so, but that didn’t seem important to him at the time. That, at least, is how the stranger took it, as he said, Don’t you think you’d better stay where you are? I want neither to stay here nor to be spoken to by you until you’ve introduced yourself. I meant it for your own good, said the stranger and opened the door, this time without being asked. The next room, which K. entered more slowly than he had intended, looked at first glance exactly the same as it had the previous evening. It was Mrs. Grubach’s living room, over-filled with furniture, tablecloths, porcelain and photographs. Perhaps there was a little more space in there than usual today, but if so it was not immediately obvious, especially as the main difference was the presence of a man sitting by the open window with a book from which he now looked up. You should have stayed in your room! Didn’t Franz tell you? And what is it you want, then? said K., looking back and forth between this new acquaintance and the one named Franz, who had remained in the doorway. Through the open window he noticed the old woman again, who had come close to the window opposite so that she could continue to see everything. She was showing an inquisitiveness that really made it seem like she was going senile. I want to see Mrs. Grubach…, said K., making a movement as if tearing himself away from the two men - even though they were standing well away from him - and wanted to go. No, said the man at the window, who threw his book down on a coffee table and stood up. You can’t go away when you’re under arrest. That’s how it seems, said K. And why am I under arrest? he then asked. That’s something we’re not allowed to tell you. Go into your room and wait there. Proceedings are underway and you’ll learn about everything all in good time. It’s not really part of my job to be friendly towards you like this, but I hope no-one, apart from Franz, will hear about it, and he’s been more friendly towards you than he should have been, under the rules, himself. If you carry on having as much good luck as you have been with your arresting officers then you can reckon on things going well with you. K. wanted to sit down, but then he saw that, apart from the chair by the window, there was nowhere anywhere in the room where he could sit. You’ll get the chance to see for yourself how true all this is, said Franz and both men then walked up to K. They were significantly bigger than him, especially the second man, who frequently slapped him on the shoulder. The two of them felt K.’s nightshirt, and said he would now have to wear one that was of much lower quality, but that they would keep the nightshirt along with his other underclothes and return them to him if his case turned out well. It’s better for you if you give us the things than if you leave them in the storeroom, they said. Things have a tendency to go missing in the storeroom, and after a certain amount of time they sell things off, whether the case involved has come to an end or not. And cases like this can last a long time, especially the ones that have been coming up lately. They’d give you the money they got for them, but it wouldn’t be very much as it’s not what they’re offered for them when they sell them that counts, it’s how much they get slipped on the side, and things like that lose their value anyway when they get passed on from hand to hand, year after year. K. paid hardly any attention to what they were saying, he did not place much value on what he may have still possessed or on who decided what happened to them. It was much more important to him to get a clear understanding of his position, but he could not think clearly while these people were here, the second policeman’s belly - and they could only be policemen -looked friendly enough, sticking out towards him, but when K. looked up and saw his dry, boney face it did not seem to fit with the body. His strong nose twisted to one side as if ignoring K. and sharing an understanding with the other policeman. What sort of people were these? What were they talking about? What office did they belong to? K. was living in a free country, after all, everywhere was at peace, all laws were decent and were upheld, who was it who dared accost him in his own home? He was always inclined to take life as lightly as he could, to cross bridges when he came to them, pay no heed for the future, even when everything seemed under threat. But here that did not seem the right thing to do. He could have taken it all as a joke, a big joke set up by his colleagues at the bank for some unknown reason, or also perhaps because today was his thirtieth birthday, it was all possible of course, maybe all he had to do was laugh in the policemen’s face in some way and they would laugh with him, maybe they were tradesmen from the corner of the street, they looked like they might be - but he was nonetheless determined, ever since he first caught sight of the one called Franz, not to lose any slight advantage he might have had over these people. There was a very slight risk that people would later say he couldn’t understand a joke, but - although he wasn’t normally in the habit of learning from experience - he might also have had a few unimportant occasions in mind when, unlike his more cautious friends, he had acted with no thought at all for what might follow and had been made to suffer for it. He didn’t want that to happen again, not this time at least; if they were play-acting he would act along with them.

He still had time. Allow me, he said, and hurried between the two policemen through into his room. He seems sensible enough, he heard them say behind him. Once in his room, he quickly pulled open the drawer of his writing desk, everything in it was very tidy but in his agitation he was unable to find the identification documents he was looking for straight away. He finally found his bicycle permit and was about to go back to the policemen with it when it seemed to him too petty, so he carried on searching until he found his birth certificate. Just as he got back in the adjoining room the door on the other side opened and Mrs. Grubach was about to enter. He only saw her for an instant, for as soon as she recognised K. she was clearly embarrassed, asked for forgiveness and disappeared, closing the door behind her very carefully. Do come in, K. could have said just then. But now he stood in the middle of the room with his papers in his hand and still looking at the door which did not open again. He stayed like that until he was startled out of it by the shout of the policeman who sat at the little table at the open window and, as K. now saw, was eating his breakfast. Why didn’t she come in? he asked. She’s not allowed to, said the big policeman. You’re under arrest, aren’t you. But how can I be under arrest? And how come it’s like this? Now you’re starting again, said the policeman, dipping a piece of buttered bread in the honeypot. We don’t answer questions like that. You will have to answer them, said K. Here are my identification papers, now show me yours and I certainly want to see the arrest warrant. Oh, my God! said the policeman. In a position like yours, and you think you can start giving orders, do you? It won’t do you any good to get us on the wrong side, even if you think it will - we’re probably more on your side that anyone else you know! That’s true, you know, you’d better believe it, said Franz, holding a cup of coffee in his hand which he did not lift to his mouth but looked at K. in a way that was probably meant to be full of meaning but could not actually be understood. K. found himself, without intending it, in a mute dialogue with Franz, but then slapped his hand down on his papers and said, Here are my identity documents. And what do you want us to do about it? replied the big policeman, loudly. The way you’re carrying on, it’s worse than a child. What is it you want? Do you want to get this great, bloody trial of yours over with quickly by talking about ID and arrest warrants with us? We’re just coppers, that’s all we are. Junior officers like us hardly know one end of an ID card from another, all we’ve got to do with you is keep an eye on you for ten hours a day and get paid for it. That’s all we are. Mind you, what we can do is make sure that the high officials we work for find out just what sort of person it is they’re going to arrest, and why he should be arrested, before they issue the warrant. There’s no mistake there. Our authorities as far as I know, and I only know the lowest grades, don’t go out looking for guilt among the public; it’s the guilt that draws them out, like it says in the law, and they have to send us police officers out. That’s the law. Where d’you think there’d be any mistake there? I don’t know this law, said K. So much the worse for you, then, said the policeman. It’s probably exists only in your heads, said K., he wanted, in some way, to insinuate his way into the thoughts of the policemen, to re-shape those thoughts to his benefit or to make himself at home there. But the policeman just said dismissively, You’ll find out when it affects you. Franz joined in, and said, Look at this, Willem, he admits he doesn’t know the law and at the same time insists he’s innocent. You’re quite right, but we can’t get him to understand a thing, said the other. K. stopped talking with them; do I, he thought to himself, do I really have to carry on getting tangled up with the chattering of base functionaries like this? - and they admit themselves that they are of the lowest position. They’re talking about things of which they don’t have the slightest understanding, anyway. It’s only because of their stupidity that they’re able to be so sure of themselves. I just need few words with someone of the same social standing as myself and everything will be incomparably clearer, much clearer than a long conversation with these two can make it. He walked up and down the free space in the room a couple of times, across the street he could see the old woman who, now, had pulled an old man, much older than herself, up to the window and had her arms around him. K. had to put an end to this display, Take me to your superior, he said. As soon as he wants to see you. Not before, said the policeman, the one called Willem. And now my advice to you, he added, is to go into your room, stay calm, and wait and see what’s to be done with you. If you take our advice, you won’t tire yourself out thinking about things to no purpose, you need to pull yourself together as there’s a lot that’s going to required of you. You’ve not behaved towards us the way we deserve after being so good to you, you forget that we, whatever we are, we’re still free men and you’re not, and that’s quite an advantage. But in spite of all that we’re still willing, if you’ve got the money, to go and get you some breakfast from the café over the road.

Without giving any answer to this offer, K. stood still for some time. Perhaps, if he opened the door of the next room or even the front door, the two of them would not dare to stand in his way, perhaps that would be the simplest way to settle the whole thing, by bringing it to a head. But maybe they would grab him, and if he were thrown down on the ground he would lose all the advantage he, in a certain respect, had over them. So he decided on the more certain solution, the way things would go in the natural course of events, and went back in his room without another word either from him or from the policemen.

He threw himself down on his bed, and from the dressing table he took the nice apple that he had put there the previous evening for his breakfast. Now it was all the breakfast he had and anyway, as he confirmed as soon as he took his first, big bite of it, it was far better than a breakfast he could have had through the good will of the policemen from the dirty café. He felt well and confident, he had failed to go into work at the bank this morning but that could easily be excused because of the relatively high position he held there. Should he really send in his explanation? He wondered about it. If nobody believed him, and in this case that would be understandable, he could bring Mrs. Grubach in as a witness, or even the old pair from across the street, who probably even now were on their way over to the window opposite. It puzzled K., at least it puzzled him looking at it from the policemen’s point of view, that they had made him go into the room and left him alone there, where he had ten different ways of killing himself. At the same time, though, he asked himself, this time looking at it from his own point of view, what reason he could have to do so. Because those two were sitting there in the next room and had taken his breakfast, perhaps? It would have been so pointless to kill himself that, even if he had wanted to, the pointlessness would have made him unable. Maybe, if the policemen had not been so obviously limited in their mental abilities, it could have been supposed that they had come to the same conclusion and saw no danger in leaving him alone because of it. They could watch now, if they wanted, and see how he went over to the cupboard in the wall where he kept a bottle of good schnapps, how he first emptied a glass of it in place of his breakfast and how he then took a second glassful in order to give himself courage, the last one just as a precaution for the unlikely chance it would be needed.

Then he was so startled by a shout to him from the other room that he struck his teeth against the glass. The supervisor wants to see you! a voice said. It was only the shout that startled him, this curt, abrupt, military shout, that he would not have expected from the policeman called Franz. In itself, he found the order very welcome. At last! he called back, locked the cupboard and, without delay, hurried into the next room. The two policemen were standing there and chased him back into his bedroom as if that were a matter of course. What d’you think you’re doing? they cried. Think you’re going to see the supervisor dressed in just your shirt, do you? He’d see to it you got a right thumping, and us and all! Let go of me for God’s sake! called K., who had already been pushed back as far as his wardrobe, if you accost me when I’m still in bed you can’t expect to find me in my evening dress. That won’t help you, said the policemen, who always became very quiet, almost sad, when K. began to shout, and in that way confused him or, to some extent, brought him to his senses. Ridiculous formalities! he grumbled, as he lifted his coat from the chair and kept it in both his hands for a little while, as if holding it out for the policemen’s inspection. They shook their heads. It’s got to be a black coat, they said. At that, K. threw the coat to the floor and said - without knowing even himself what he meant by it - Well it’s not going to be the main trial, after all. The policemen laughed, but continued to insist, It’s got to be a black coat. Well that’s alright by me if it makes things go any faster, said K. He opened the wardrobe himself, spent a long time searching through all the clothes, and chose his best black suit which had a short jacket that had greatly surprised those who knew him, then he also pulled out a fresh shirt and began, carefully, to get dressed. He secretly told himself that he had succeeded in speeding things up by letting the policemen forget to make him have a bath. He watched them to see if they might remember after all, but of course it never occurred to them, although Willem did not forget to send Franz up to the supervisor with the message saying that K. was getting dressed.

Once he was properly dressed, K. had to pass by Willem as he went through the next room into the one beyond, the door of which was already wide open. K. knew very well that this room had recently been let to a typist called ‘Miss Bürstner’. She was in the habit of going out to work very early and coming back home very late, and K. had never exchanged more than a few words of greeting with her. Now, her bedside table had been pulled into the middle of the room to be used as a desk for these proceedings, and the supervisor sat behind it. He had his legs crossed, and had thrown one arm over the backrest of the chair.

In one corner of the room there were three young people looking at the photographs belonging to Miss Bürstner that had been put into a piece of fabric on the wall. Hung up on the handle of the open window was a white blouse. At the window across the street, there was the old pair again, although now their number had increased, as behind them, and far taller than they were, stood a man with an open shirt that showed his chest and a reddish goatee beard which he squeezed and twisted with his fingers. Josef K.? asked the supervisor, perhaps merely to attract K.’s attention as he looked round the room. K. nodded. I daresay you were quite surprised by all that’s been taking place this morning, said the supervisor as, with both hands, he pushed away the few items on the bedside table - the candle and box of matches, a book and a pin cushion which lay there as if they were things he would need for his own business. Certainly, said K., and he began to feel relaxed now that, at last, he stood in front of someone with some sense, someone with whom he would be able to talk about his situation. Certainly I’m surprised, but I’m not in any way very surprised. You’re not very surprised? asked the supervisor, as he positioned the candle in the middle of the table and the other things in a group around it. Perhaps you don’t quite understand me, K. hurriedly pointed out. What I mean is… here K. broke off what he was saying and looked round for somewhere to sit. I may sit down, mayn’t I? he asked. That’s not usual, the supervisor answered. What I mean is…, said K. without delaying a second time, that, yes, I am very surprised but when you’ve been in the world for thirty years already and had to make your own way through everything yourself, which has been my lot, then you become hardened to surprises and don’t take them too hard. Especially not what’s happened today. Why especially not what’s happened today? I wouldn’t want to say that I see all of this as a joke, you seem to have gone to too much trouble making all these arrangements for that. Everyone in the house must be taking part in it as well as all of you, that would be going beyond what could be a joke. So I don’t want to say that this is a joke. Quite right, said the supervisor, looking to see how many matches were left in the box. But on the other hand, K. went on, looking round at everyone there and even wishing he could get the attention of the three who were looking at the photographs, on the other hand this really can’t be all that important. That follows from the fact that I’ve been indicted, but can’t think of the slightest offence for which I could be indicted. But even that is all beside the point, the main question is: Who is issuing the indictment? What office is conducting this affair? Are you officials? None of you is wearing a uniform, unless what you are wearing - here he turned towards Franz - is meant to be a uniform, it’s actually more of a travelling suit. I require a clear answer to all these questions, and I’m quite sure that once things have been made clear we can take our leave of each other on the best of terms. The supervisor slammed the box of matches down on the table. You’re making a big mistake, he said. "These gentlemen and I have got nothing to do with your business, in fact we know almost nothing about you. We could be wearing uniforms as proper and exact as you like and your situation wouldn’t be any the worse for it. As to whether you’re on a charge, I can’t give you any sort of clear answer to that, I don’t even know whether you are or not. You’re under arrest, you’re quite right about that, but I don’t know any more than that. Maybe these officers

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