The Trial

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Summary: A Bewildering Process Wrapped in a Masterpiece
Review: Kafka's The Trial is a testament to those like Joseph K. who are ensnared in endless legal proceedings. Part dream, part comedy, part tragedy, part satire, Kafka works a masterpiece out of the tribulations of a common man. Joseph K. is on trial but is never informed of the charges. He is represented by an attorney, but the lawyer seems useless. He attends proceedings that go on endlessly with no apparent purpose. A host of unforgettable characters throughout the book add to his paranoia. Joseph K. finally meets his end in an execution appalling in its polite savagery. Through works like The Trial, Kafka's name became synonymous for those drifting though bizarre persecutions. A fascinating book.

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Summary: 'The Trial' a masterful piece of literature.
Review: The Trial is not just a book. It's a prophecy, not only of Hitler and the cruel SS in Germany, but also of an absurd legal system that some argue still exist today. As with most of Kafka's work, almost everything is revealed in the first sentence. Joseph K. gets arrested, but he doesn't know why. When the book closes, we still don't know why. Yes, Kafka never finished the The Trial, but I don't think it would made much difference. The Trial was never supposed to be finished. In actual fact, The Trial is not about the trial, but of the workings of Joseph K., a seemingly innocent clerk. Preparing his defence, K. meets one absurd character to another, and it's through these conversations that you'll come to love the great Kafka. He's funny, he's depressing, he's lonely, he's lustful, and, he's a dog. He's just like a dog (read the last sentence. Thanks to Max Brod, Kafka's only true friend, we have the privilege to see a great artist at work. The Trial is a work of genius. Enjoy.

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Summary: Ironically Pleasant
Review: This is only the second Kafka book that I've read, and I must admit that I read it due in part to the reference Jasper Fforde gave it in his Thursday Next series. Kafka is a masterful writer, if not always understandable or prone to explanation. "The Trial" is a prime example of this.

The reader is immediately introduced to Joseph K., our main character, who is awakened one morning to find himself under arrest. Throughout the whole process of finding a lawyer, going to trail, etc..., K. is never told what he has been accused of, and neither is the reader. Yet he is tried and convicted just the same.

So many reviewers talk of what a great piece of existential writing this is. However, it is also a supremely ironic look at the way the legal system works. Kafka's description of K's trial is at times so absurd as to be unbelievable. His settings and characters fluctutate between the two-dimensional to utterly vivid. Throughout the novel, K. never once searches to find the cause of his guilt - he seems to willingly accept his fate, even if he is uncertain of his crime. Perhaps that is what gives "The Trial" a sense of universality.

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Summary: One of the 5 most illuminating books of modern literature
Review: "The Trial" is considered "One of the five most illuminating books of modern literature" (Writer's Diary, 2004). The other four books were: "Invitation to a Beheading" (Nabakov), "Crepuscule" (Roman Payne), "Hunger" (Knut Hamsen), & "The Plague" (Camus) ... In many ways, "The Trial" is the most original of these.

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Summary: It may be the book for you...
Review: In the novel, The Trial, by Franz Kafka, a thirteen-year-old bank official, named Joseph K., is suddenly arrested in his own home and with no idea of what he is being accused of. It is placed in the early 1900's. Although he thinks has done nothing wrong, he is being harassed, and being accused of a crime he should not have been committed. K. is angry, because no one will tell him what he has done to deserve to be arrested. No one will tell him, which makes him worse. The reader also has no idea what kind of "crime" J.K. has committed.

The Trial is a book that tells about the case of Joseph K. The author tell about how K struggles though being arrested and being accused of a crime that he did not do. It is an account of J.K.'s trial and how it psychologically affects him through the pages of this book. You are put through quarry throughout the book and to me, that can be boring after a while. This book might be good for a person that likes a suspenseful mystery without too much suspense. Joseph K. trial effects his friends and strangers. Since he is accused of a crime, which he does not know what it could be, his friends and family act strangely about it. His uncle suddenly shows up and tries to help him with getting him a lawyer. J.K. decides later to dismiss his lawyer from his case. His neighbor who he loved, Fraulien B., has left him. In time the time that he needed her to listen and comfort him, she does not believe him and leaves, only leaving him a message from another woman about things not working out. His landlady, who almost comes to tell him what he is accused of, barely talks to him and is somewhat afraid of him.

He meets certain people throughout the book that fall in love with him. Leni is one of the characters that for some reason falls in love with him. Joseph K. is not even looking for love at the time, and this woman distracts him from his lawyer's meeting to try to make love to him. This book as you can see can be confusing at times, but it can be interesting to some people. Also a woman in the courtroom who wants to help him falls in love with him. She wants to help him in his case by sleeping wit the Magistrate and to try to con him into going easy on K at the trials.
People who like a good mystery without a "happily ever after" ending, this is the book for you. I did not like this book because of the ending it gives and how it drags you throughout the book. It can confuse you at times, but if you are really into the book, this could be the book for you.

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Summary: Krapka
Review: Please don't disregard this review as childish schlock because of the title, it's usage could not be avoided the moment it appeared in my mind in all it's hilarity-inducing glory. What do I have to offer above the countless analyses and reviews of this book present here? How about intelligence and originality for starters, haha (jk).

Ok, to the book. One review that caught my eye was the one entitled 'Joseph K is %100 guilty'. I believe it is around number 36. I agree with this reviewer that this was most likely the intention of the author. The court is one that judges on a moral basis, and in this light K's selfish and condescending behaviour throughout the novel cannot be ignored. However, allow me to offer an extension to this interpretation: perhaps K has already died, and the trial serves only as his final judgement? This would of course explain the seeming infallibility of the court, the futility of K's appeals and his seeming ineluctable conviction. Just as he unfairly persecutes others who he deems inferior to him, the court now targets him for reasons he cannot understand. Under this pressure, the callous impudence of his perception of reality falters, and with it his ability to think and defend himself. His submission is imminent, if viewed from this perspective, as everyone is made to feel powerless against the omni-potent.

Of course the whole idea of religion is ridiculous, and I believe none of it. As we enter the 21st century, I believe people will come to recognize religion for what it is: a fabricated delusion that seeks to avoid the intrinsic absurdity of our lives. As more people realize this, literary works that rely heavily on the the teachings of religion will lose their literary merit.

I believe The Trial is slightly bloated, and that the succintly told parable in the 9th chapter exposes the book's own poor size to substance ratio. Fortunately, the anomalous originality of Kafka's style - along with the parable - is almost reason enough to read it.

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Summary: The Trial
Review: On his thirtieth birthday, Joseph K wakes up to find that two men are waiting for him in the living room, and that he is under arrest. They won't tell him why he is under arrest, what he has done, under what authority he is being charged, or how to do anything about it. The two men joke at him while eating their breakfast, telling him that it doesn't really matter if he is arrested or not. K is understandably confused by all of this, considering it to be all one big joke arranged by his fellow boarders and friends.

The two warders take him to the Inspector, who explains the details of K's arrest. Again, K is more confused and repelled by all this discussion, not taking what he is being told seriously, treating the three men with no small contempt. He considers that in the country he lives, which has many laws to make certain that people are free and justly treated, such a thing as an arrest without a reason could never happen.

As the story progresses, K goes to court, where he makes an impassioned plea against the absurdity of the proceedings. He is told that what he did will only hurt his case, that he is behaving foolishly. K comes to meet various layers of Court officials; all of them appear to him to be petty and small, without power or influence over anything but themselves, and, it seems, him. He acquires an Advocate who works hard for him, toiling long into the night, for no benefit that K can see. Indeed, it seems that no matter what he - or anyone - does for his case, nothing is progressing, and nothing will ever progress. The Court system is designed to keep people occupied, to shuffle them around endless layers of bureaucracy, where every small step is made insignificant by the unknown thousands of steps still to go.

Joseph K is a not particularly sympathetic character. On the one hand, there is the natural sympathy that comes from a seemingly innocent man being arrested. On the other, K is curt, rude, governed by passions difficult to identify with, and since he considers everything to be an elaborate joke (at least at first), he can be quite flippant. This is unfortunate, but is also a staple of Kafka's characterisations. K will often react violently or out of proportion to an event, for example, when given a minor rebuke by a minor official, he would fall into a rage and start banging walls. So to for other characters in the story. Most of the time, this came across as extremely improbable, but oddly, it didn't exactly detract from the story. Because it was such a surreal experience for Joseph K, these massive outburst of emotion - usually negative - were understandable.

Another point worth nothing is the treatment of females in this book. Throughout, they fall into one of two categories. They are either shrivelled up old sticks of women, pathetic and ineffectual, such as K's boarder, or they are young girls who all but fling themselves at K for no reason whatsoever. One girl about halfway through the novel, after knowing K for an hour - and during this hour he was verbally rude to her and almost physically violent, she sits on his lap, caresses his hand and declares her undying love for him. And she is not the only one. I found this handling of female characters to be extremely uncomfortable. Not once was any woman portrayed in a positive light, even when she loved someone, it was a shallow, stupid love, or at least it was as described by K.

But the story is the most important part of the novel, and this story is near perfect. Kafka captures the essence of a man unjustly arrested with great skill. There is a feeling of claustrophobia all throughout the novel, very often we are left in the dark, just like K, searching for answers to a question that we haven't even been given. Adding to the claustrophobic feel, the paragraphs are very long and very dense, it feels as if there is no escape from the great big walls of text. Speech is not usually broken up into paragraphs, which adds to the feelings. Whatever else his flaws, Kafka was a master of creating atmosphere and mood, and The Trial is one of the better examples of this.

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Summary: I feel like I read a totally different book.
Review: After reading some of the reviews here, I feel like I read a totally different book.
I read the book only once, and a long time ago, but I will try to give my interpretation of what I remember.
First, K. is quilt, if you truly understand what the priest tells him, you will get that. He is being trial because he got to his thirties, middle age for that time, and this is his last chance to understand the truth about life and himself. (If you don't get the truth by at least your middle ages, you will probably end up a loony, in constant denial of everything, and metaphorically die.) Who judges him? Himself. Notice that K. can control everything surrounding him, but he is yet limited to talk only with the inferior court, the superior court is off limits. The lawyer and the painter are also limited to the inferior court. The lawyer can only explain the complexity of things and is completely worthless. (Can anyone remember the specific medical profession, that follows that same criteria?) The painter can only bring different types of denial. Really only K. is capable of talking to the superior court, but he doesn't do it, because he doesn't understand what is happening. (Fill people have the ability to talk with the superior court.)

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Summary: The Trial
Review: I first picked this book because I am interested in the law and figured it would be like a courtroom drama. I knew nothing about Kafka or his works so I was in for quite a surprise. At first the book was confusing with the relentless pace of the narrative. Reading this book as a young American, the details at first seemed incredible. However, once put in perspective of what can happen in a totalitarian system, K.'s nightmare becomes very real, vivid, and haunting. Kafka's vague construction of the place and time in which this novel takes place gives this story a universal and timeless quality. It would seem to apply anywhere tyranny rules. This novel is a cautionary tale about how man's inhumanity to man can run amok in the absence of an effective judicial system which guarantees basic individual rights and liberties. Even though the book has a defined ending, it leaves the reader with a sense that the story is not complete. This is a must read for every American interested in preserving our democracy and freedoms.

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Summary: Virtually Perfectly Written Novel
Review: I do not as a rule review the plot of books because I don't want to give too much away and many other people do that in their reviews. I will say what most people know, that a man is charged and later executed for a "crime" despite his innocence. To add insult to fatal injury he is never told what his crime is, and is subjected to the twisted inner workings of a secret "justice" system.

I want to give my personal thoughts on this excellent novel. It is a shame that Kafka wrote this at one of his most self-critical stages. He never fully completed the novel and that is most disappointing, but what he did leave behind is just remarkable. It is a brilliant book that is chilling and some would say prophetic. What I would like to point out, which hasn't been written in the reviews I have seen, is the brilliant and extremely subtle dark comedy. It isn't throught the whole book and on every page, but it is there and when I read it the second and the third time you can see it very clearly. It is Kafka's exceptional mind at the height of creativity. It is sprinkled through the book at the best moments and the perfect time. Often refreshing and disarming. Wonderful!

Read this book. You will not regret the time you spend, and like me you might find yourself reading it repeatedly.