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Summary: If You're Really Interested...
Review: If you are interested in novel like "The Trial," I cannot promise these are Existential - but, you can try Ayn Rand's "We The Living" and "Anthem." There is also "1984" by George Orwell, and an essay by Michel Foucalt called "Panopticism." All these deal with the interference of powerful outside forces monitoring us in a free society.
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Summary: Travel through the maze of an absurd justice system
Review: Kafka tells the story of Josef K. who is arrested, tried, and sentenced with not one ounce of jurisprudence. The absurdity of the court and endless conversations are maddening. (one of Kafka's greatest abilities) It is a frightening novel of political satire
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Summary: Indeed, a very, VERY disturbing and FRIGHTENING book ...
Review: This is by far the most frightening book I've ever read (and I was REQUIRED to read it for a class on Existentialism FIVE YEARS AGO -- and yes, I still turn pale thinking about it). Here's the premise: K. is awakened, harassed, arrested, questioned, sentenced, imprisoned, tried, and executed, but at no time are we ever told what his crime was (the burden of due-process, to be sure); more frightening yet, K. is never told, either !! Kafka, I think is playing on the idea that we're all guilty of something, and that we're all withholding something from everyone else. K is maddened to the point of believing his end is the "final solution" (not his words, but Hitler's plan to destroy the agents of a morality-inducing deity). I apologize if I'm deconstructing what Kafka was trying to convey in this story, but this is the only way I can make sense of this very un-entertaining book.One heck of a read, though ... it's like suggesting someone to view "Schindler's List" or read John Fullerton's "Monkey House."
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Summary: The Limits of Moral Thought
Review: It was Albert Camus who said that with Kafka's works we are taken to the limits of human thought. This is especially true of The Trial. But I would add that The Trial takes us to the limits of MORAL thought. When reading The Trial, think about what disturbs you about the book and why. What values are highlighted negatively? Because Kafka highlights certain values that I hold dear by fictionally violating them, I am more convinced that these values are absolute than before I read his works, especially The Trial. This is one of the most profound books, fiction or nonfiction, that I have ever read. Although some would argue that Kafka's works are difficult to understand, I would say that one is better off FEELING one's way through them. Kafka's works are MYSTICAL!
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Summary: The Moral Limits of Human Thought
Review: It was Albert Camus who said that with this novel we are taken to the limits of human thought, to the absurd. I agree. But I would add that it is to the limits of MORAL thought. The moral axiom of this novel is that "Ignorance is Innocence." We feel the disturbance, the violation of this axiom, in the first sentence. The innocent (and ignorant) Joseph K is treated as guilty, and power is on the side of his accusers who, paradoxically, may be as innocent as he is. The tension mounts throughout the novel by the sustained violation of this moral axiom... all the way to the haunting conclusion. Society's Law says "Ignorance of the Law is no excuse." The Individual's Conscience says the opposite. But unless the individual is more powerful (or has a more powerful ally than his accuser... be it God or man), the makings of a moral tragedy are given. This is one of the most profound books, fiction or nonfiction, that I have ever read. Although some would argue that Kafka's works are difficult to understand, I would say that one is better off FEELING one's way through them. I read somewhere that Kafka incorporated some of the ideas of the Kabbalah (the mystical tradition of the Jews) into his writings. So, I ordered the book "Kafka and Kabbalah" by Karl-Erich Grozinger. I suspect that this book will open new avenues to existential understanding.
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Summary: A terrifying vision of the legal bureaucracy gone mad.
Review: 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.
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Summary: The greatest book I have ever read.
Review: When I finished reading the last word of "The Trial" I was amazed. This is the mose briliant book I have ever read in my life. Kafka words are so powerfull and the story is very deep, disturbing and clever. It gives people a all new prespactive to look at life.
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Summary: Very, very disturbing book
Review: This is the most depressing book I've ever read. From the moment it starts to the very last page, there isn't one pleasing image. After I finished reading it, I felt like burnig this book. Books like this may introduce concepts in our brains, but this is one that will give you nightmares for days. I think I am different now, after reading this book, in a very negative way. It gives you a different, and a frightening, persepective on life. I think that my life has become worse after reading this book.
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Summary: Still captivating
Review: When I first read this book 4 years ago, I thought it was the best book I have ever read. It had intrigued me like no other book. As a current freshman in college, I have read many books since (including Kafka's other classics The Castle and Amerika) and still, no book can capture me the way Kafka has in the Trial. The story of Joseph K. is a story for the ages. The complete confusion and naivety in Joseph K.'s life as well as his futile attempts to understand it pull the reader in and makes us look at things from his point of view. It is this ability that I love so much in Kafka. I have read The Trial many times, and each time I am just as entwined in the the confusion and suffering as the first time. A must read for any Kafka lover or any lover of literature for that matter. B.Nichols
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Summary: A most disturbing and significant book
Review: When I was a child, I used to have a reaccuring nightmare; that my head was so heavy I couldn't hold it up, that my neck would be straining and my eyes were cemented shut and my mouth felt full of cotton. Helpless; all my senses were closed off to me in this nightmare. THE TRIAL is like this, only it is the more adult, sophisticated senses that Joseph K. is forced to abandon. His sense of reason, justice, community, responsiblity, sexuality and family duty are all indefinably and unceremoniously yanked from him by an errie, invisable, unnamed but powerful system of judgement. Claustrophobic feelings of growing helplessness and desperation emminate so strongly from Kafka's prose that you could cut it with a knife. I seem to get headaches and a sore neck everytime I read this story. Definately worth it, though. Kafka is brilliant. Average, even mediocre Joe's who always try to do the right thing have their deepest psychological nightmares projected into reality, and are destroyed by them. Everyone can relate to that on some level or another.
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