The Trial by Franz Kafka Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Trial
Book Review: A quintesential view of the Twentieth Century
Summary: 5 Stars
"The Trial" ranks with Hana Arendt's study of Fascism as oneof the emblematic texts of the Twentieth Century. Like Arendt, Kafka
provides us with an illuminating view of the efficient evil of
buraucracy.
In the novel, Joseph K is an ordinary and unimportant
office worker who is arrested and put on trial for a crime that is
never identified. After his arrest, K is released and placed under
surveillance until his trial. As he continuously encounters the
aparatus of state, K realizes that his fate and his identity are
entirely defined by someone else.... K...wonders if the movements of
a bystander have any meaning at all. Is the person greeting him,
expressing alarm at his fate, cheering the process, or doing something
completely unrelated to his murder? Individuals and the legal
aparatus in this book are not concerned with justice so much as
process process.
To anyone who finds this story too byzantine and
confusing, just read a few pages of "The Gulag Archipelago"
or read the account of a surviving political prisoner of any
country. In most cases, the arrested person has no idea of his/her
crime and is coersed into accepting a fate that bears no relation to
his/her action. The individual in this case is not a human being but
an inanimate unit controlled or disposed of by others.
Kafka
examined the peculiar Twentieth Century phenomenon of depersonalizing
and disposing of a human being with no apparent justification. Where
some writers have chronicled this from a political and historical
perspective, Kafka examined it from a psychological one. He took us
into the thoughts and fears of a prisoner of the state.
Book Review: A terrifying vision of the legal bureaucracy gone mad.
Summary: 5 Stars
This story, about a man who is charged with something he cannot get any information about, is truly one of the most surreal, horrifying tales I've ever read. One reads this story thinking that it is only a dream, that this poor man will, at some point, wake up and end the nightmare presented to him. This is no nightmare, however, at least not in the classical sense. A wonderful, scary ride through one man's terrible encounter with a legal system that just won't let go.Book Review: A very compelling novel
Summary: 4 Stars
Although, the novel can be hard to understand at times, it attracted my attention right from the start. It starts off with a bang, with Joseph K. getting arrested in the first chapter. This is a very good novel, but it is not a novel that is recommended by everyone. It is also not an excessively addictive story. The novel is very suspenseful also. Even though the reader and K. never figure out why he is arrested in the first place, it is an overall good book. The only con about the novel is that the novel itself, as well as some chapters, are never completed. It also contains underlying polical information. I would recommend this book to all Kafka's fans and anyone interested in a suspenseful and court-set novel.Book Review: Absurd and Kafkaesque
Summary: 5 Stars
Franz Kafka's "The Trial" is a novel about how the machinery of bureaucracy marches on in perpetuity without regard for the reasons why. In the novel the character "K." is arrested for a crime the nature of which is never explained to him. K. must live each day with the burden of his supposed guilt. Day after day he is hounded by the courts in a process that rolls on with no apparent logic carrying it along. The burden of this wears the character down until it becomes almost unbearable... My favorite scene in the novel is where K. goes to the court to seek the ear of the magistrate. Hours go by as the court ever so slowly deals with case after case. K.'s case seems lost in the docket and we despair with him.
"The Trial" is just like another Kafka's novel "The Castle". There a character, also named K., tries without success to see a city leader with whom he has a supposed contract to do some work. The reader and the character anguish at the mindless nature of the obstacles put up in his path. K. never gets to see the city official and Kafka seems to give up in despair too when he leaves the novel unfinished. In "The Trial" we try to cast off the mindless bureaucracy. In "The Castle" we try to navigate it.
The situation in both novels is absurd. The keyword here is "absurb" and has been latched onto by Kafka devotées. In Praque there is a theater called "Theater of the Absurd" where I saw two of Vaclav Havel's plays. No doubt this name is homage to Franz Kafka and his work. I am sure that Kafka influenced Havel. The word "Kafkaesque" has also been added to the language courtesy of Kafka. It has come to symbolize any extremely mindless matter or ludicrous situation. The whole of Chech culture under communism was an absurdity that was cleverly forecast by Franz Kafka himself. This was what Vaclav Havel wrote about in his plays and essays.
Some people might find "The Trial" a little difficult to read. Paragraphs consume whole pages. There is very little dialogue which, in my mind, makes it easier to follow. Still I read it twice-not to understand it better but to enjoy it once again.
Kafka wrote his novel in German. This is somewhat remarkable because he was a Jew living in Chechoslovakia. You would think that he would have written in Yiddish or Chech. That his novel was written in German maybe helped him gain a wider audience in the West. His book did not achieve wide acclaim until it as promoted by a friend after Kafka's death.
Book Review: Ahhh...What would Harold Bloom say?
Summary: 5 Stars
Or Judy Blume, for that matter. What is there to say? What Kafka gives rise to here is beyond the chemistry of Rilke, surpasses Schroedinger's equations, and dwarves Boyle's simple yet unparalleled brilliance. It is drinking tea with Bernstein, but without the symphony as a topic of discussion. And logic? To take the words out of the prophets mouth, "Logic is doubtless unshakable, but it cannot withstand a man who wants to go on on living." Logic is not needed here, for it is everywhere, and Kafka sees to its prosperity. His logic defies logic itself, thus becoming logic as we know it; the logic to end all that is illogical. The problem is no longer a problem, and the solution is only a distant memory, ringing in the craniums of our elders, but ringing ever so softly. When first asked by the author himself to read the work, fear inevitabley crept in. Was this his farewell to life's harbor, or just a gob of spit in the face of mankind? Could he have spent the most creative years of his life on his own practical joke? But as the pages turned themselves, so did doubt turn itself away. Imagine Judas and Milton wiling the night away by candlelight, and still that horribly does inadequate justice to this novel to end all novels. If fear did have a sound, it would sound like this, and if Bernstein or any other maestro has a piece to offer in the midst of thunder crashing, so be it. Andrew Marvel may have done it more beautifully, but interpretations of materials only familiar to those who masquerade through life wearing the costume of contentment know that beauty is dated, as are Descartes' astute observations. Whether in the Ptolymic universe or in that of Newton's, it is certain that truth answers only to itself, but through "The Trial", may it console Kafka in his grave, and haunt all us in our most terrible dreams. Donne would have it no other way, and for that matter, neither would I. Emma Burger, will you marry me?