The Trial (Penguin Modern Classics)

Good translation. Very readable which is great because Kafka can be convoluted and obtuse. Nicely designed and bound cover.

Kafka goes off on tangents throughout the book which makes the story readable.In fact that is the essence of the book. I loved the way the women and seemingly random people get woven into it showing how the legal system is so corrupt and how K tries to get these seemingly superfluous characters to help him rather than going the traditional route The ending was a surprise to me

Kafka is just so.....Kafkaesque!

My son is a book over to read and I encourage it. He been researching books and this was one that was on his list.

Water stained.

Absolutely wonderful. 🩷🩷

Our protagonist, Joseph K. finds himself accused of a crime and awaiting trial, although he is not formally charged and does not even know the nature of the crime he has been charged with. What follows from this absurd premise is that Joseph K. finds himself entangled in a surreal and confusing process where he is trying to defend himself not only against a charge he is ignorant about, but also a charge, that in all likelihood, he can never get acquitted for. There is no shortage of analyses on what "The Trial" is about: living with bureaucracy, understanding the nature of truth and goodness and so on, but for me personally, a psychoanalytic interpretation seems to be the most fitting analysis. Joseph K. spends much of his time pursuing women while others see that he should be pursuing his case. Those who are seeking to both defend him and condemn him seem unimpressed by his arrogance and his tendency to go around chasing women. Unlike with the absurd situation of Joseph K, society does not need always explicitly put people on trial in order to get people to conform and behave. Very often our own conscience will do this for us. Joseph K. stands on trial to his guilty conscience, yet by choosing to repress his guilty conscience, he finds himself increasingly feeling judged by the world as his repressed Jungian "Shadow" finds expression in an increasingly hostile external world. For Joseph K., the only way out of this mess is to engage in self-knowledge and self-understanding, beating the court system is not about finding a good lawyer/advocate, it is about finding a good therapist, or, as is in the case of the novel, finding a priest. Unable to understand himself, Joseph K. eventually engages in the ultimate act of self-sabotage, acquiescing to his executioners for a crime he did not know he committed. Although it is a classic, I don't feel the book needed to be any longer than it was and although it is likely there was more to this unfinished work than has been recovered from Kafka's notes, I think this novel is one that needed to be kept brief. If you want more of this kind of stuff, go read Dostoevsky. This novel seems kind of eerie when one considers that some thirty years later, Kafka's poor sisters were murdered in the Nazi concentration camps. It just goes to show that the absurdism and the cruelty of real life can be even worse than anything dreamt up in a Kafka novel.

The book was received in horrible condition. The cover was torn and the entire book had severe water damage. Unreadable.

What a truly “bonkers”, absurd novel. I will need to digest it before posting a review that makes any sense at all. I was captivated but confused. I can’t say any more just now.

I love kafka work

Phenomenal

Schnelle Lieferung war ein Geschenk für meine Schwester hat sich sehr gefreut

ある日突然何の前触れもなく当局に捉えられた有能な銀行マネージャーである主人公K.。当局の実態とK.の罪名が一切記述されず、よってK.にも分からず、小説は展開する。捉えられたものの、彼の日常生活は変わらず、たまに求めに応じ当局の裁判所へ行くのが義務。但し、「捉えられた」事は直ぐに同じアパートの住民、職場、親族が知り、何故彼らが自分以上の事をしっているのか？ｋ.は目に見えず彼しか分からない意味不明の恐怖に捕らわれる。彼らに勧められ、これまた実体のない擁護者、画家、弁護士とその愛人、商人などに救いを求めるが報われず。最後に牧師と出会い、宗教に救われたと思うのだが？「自分だけが知らない」と言う「見えない恐怖」と主体性を失った人々の無責任な行動。100年たった今でも通用する主題です。