The Trial — Franz Kafka
BOOK REVIEW • “Someone must have slandered Josef K., for one morning, without having done anything wrong, he was arrested.”
Kicking off October with this strange story about a man (Joseph K.) who wakes up one day to find he's being accused of a crime that he knows nothing about... *shudder*
K. seems to spend the entire novel trying to gain insight into what exactly he’s being accused of and how he can go about proving his innocence through the ever-elusive court system. He is torn between a desire to ignore the problem until it goes away or deal with it head on. K. ultimately comes to symbolise futility before the law and its bureaucratic intricacies.
Full disclosure, this was a very difficult read. The sentences are complex and contradictory. Descriptions of setting are puzzling. And the characters K. interacts with are annoyingly ambiguous. I had to keep going back to reread whole sections every time I paused and came back to the book a few days later. When I finally reached the end, I was left in a state of dissatisfied horror. Even though this was a frustrating journey, I LOVED IT. The book left me with questions and insights about “the system” that only the greatest writers can summon and get away with.
‘The Trial’ is definitely worth a read on your own but don’t expect to understand it right away. I feel you’d get more out of it if you have a chance to read it in a class where it can be properly examined in close reading and discussion. Check out Alessandro Novelli’s short animation ‘The Guardian’ for a modern day intro to Kafka’s literature.