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3.71 AVERAGE
3.71 AVERAGE
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
slow-paced
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I was sitting in my office’s kitchenette, reading this book while stuffing sushi in my mouth. A colleague of mine walked by and asked me what the book was about, so I told him “It’s about a guy who gets arrested for an unspecified crime he doesn’t know he committed, and tries to untangle the bureaucratic net he’s been caught in.” My colleague asked me if it was inspired by real events. I predictably replied: “Sure, it was inspired by what it’s like to work here.” As you may guess, I am my office’s joker.
Anyone who has ever worked in a large corporation is probably vaguely familiar with the headspace that the unfortunate protagonist of “The Trial”, Joseph K., finds himself in: everything is complicated, everyone is working on it, but at the same time, nothing seems to get done, the information is always insufficient or not filed according to procedure… At the end of that day, you feel like you have worked so hard and somehow, nothing is really resolved and you wonder why you spend so much physical, emotional and intellectual energy on this thing… Kafka wrote this novel almost a hundred years ago and yet this weird dysfunctional grind could not sound more contemporary.
As I was reading « The Trial », it was impossible for me not to visualize the events as if they were taking place in a Wes Anderson movie. Something about the general absurdity, the almost caricatural descriptions of the various characters, and that formal but un-hinged tone just brought that visual style to my mind. Certainly, the subject matter is not funny in and of itself: bureaucracy is a fascinating and horrifying machine that does its best to crush the human spirit in its cogs, but there is definitely a point at which the only sane reaction is to laugh.
My husband and I are currently waiting for his permanent residency application to be finalized by the Canadian government, and the convoluted, inexplicable and often arbitrary sounding procedures the poor K. must follow was an interesting reminder of the various hoops we have had to jump through in the past year. It was all a pain in the ass, but now we mostly just look back on it laughing, and congratulating ourselves we survived the process.
I’ve read many theories that address the metaphors to be found in “The Trial” and while I think they are fun to think about (the German word for trial is the same word they would use for “process”, so maybe the book is about an internal psychological process; the arrest is on the morning of K.’s thirtieth birthday, so maybe this is about the endless complications of adulthood; life is just a series of senseless trials and tribulations… I could go on, but you get the idea), I also didn’t enjoy the experience of reading this book enough to indulge in them too much. It was a fast and easy read, and while I am aware that it meandered and droned on completely deliberately, to put the reader in K.’s head, I was glad to get it over with. I still think it belongs on my “mandatory reads” shelf, if only because this book is so seminal, and referred to ad nauseum in both literature and pop culture: you need to read this so you can be obnoxiously accurate when you declare that something is Kafkaesque.
Anyone who has ever worked in a large corporation is probably vaguely familiar with the headspace that the unfortunate protagonist of “The Trial”, Joseph K., finds himself in: everything is complicated, everyone is working on it, but at the same time, nothing seems to get done, the information is always insufficient or not filed according to procedure… At the end of that day, you feel like you have worked so hard and somehow, nothing is really resolved and you wonder why you spend so much physical, emotional and intellectual energy on this thing… Kafka wrote this novel almost a hundred years ago and yet this weird dysfunctional grind could not sound more contemporary.
As I was reading « The Trial », it was impossible for me not to visualize the events as if they were taking place in a Wes Anderson movie. Something about the general absurdity, the almost caricatural descriptions of the various characters, and that formal but un-hinged tone just brought that visual style to my mind. Certainly, the subject matter is not funny in and of itself: bureaucracy is a fascinating and horrifying machine that does its best to crush the human spirit in its cogs, but there is definitely a point at which the only sane reaction is to laugh.
My husband and I are currently waiting for his permanent residency application to be finalized by the Canadian government, and the convoluted, inexplicable and often arbitrary sounding procedures the poor K. must follow was an interesting reminder of the various hoops we have had to jump through in the past year. It was all a pain in the ass, but now we mostly just look back on it laughing, and congratulating ourselves we survived the process.
I’ve read many theories that address the metaphors to be found in “The Trial” and while I think they are fun to think about (the German word for trial is the same word they would use for “process”, so maybe the book is about an internal psychological process; the arrest is on the morning of K.’s thirtieth birthday, so maybe this is about the endless complications of adulthood; life is just a series of senseless trials and tribulations… I could go on, but you get the idea), I also didn’t enjoy the experience of reading this book enough to indulge in them too much. It was a fast and easy read, and while I am aware that it meandered and droned on completely deliberately, to put the reader in K.’s head, I was glad to get it over with. I still think it belongs on my “mandatory reads” shelf, if only because this book is so seminal, and referred to ad nauseum in both literature and pop culture: you need to read this so you can be obnoxiously accurate when you declare that something is Kafkaesque.
adventurous
challenging
dark
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
N/A
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
N/A
Franz Kafka's work is characterized by anxiety and alienation, and his characters often face absurd situations.The Trial, is one such story, in which a man is charged with a crime that is never named.
While the plot itself is rather slow, Kafka simply discovers more about the trial process, rather than enacting a fast-paced adventure scheme to overthrow the court – it is worth reading for the important and interesting concepts Kafka raises.
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I read this the first time when I was sixteen and I loved it then.. I still find it a good novel, although the fact that it somewhat unfinished cannot be denied...
Verdict: A tome of existentialist tripe so bleak and pointless there isn’t even a trial.
There comes a point in the evolution all art; visual, literary, musical, wherein those who create it eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil and become too self aware. ‘Look at this medium,’ they proclaim. ‘We have been following rules, society imposed rules limiting what our work can be, limiting what *we* can be!’ It shines suddenly and clearly before them, conventions that were never questioned are suddenly dissolved, exploded. The artist is then free to write, to draw, to compose with a clear head and a fresh soul. It is this Übermensch moment that led Duchamp to graffiti an upturned urinal and display it in the Academy. It is what led to the design of the Barbican. It is what led Kafka to write The Trial. It is a horrible, horrible moment.
I won’t mince words; I loathe this book. It manages to be all the worst parts of self-indulgent, self-effacing, ponderous and pointless. It is a hateful book. This too was forced upon by the Texas Independent School District as part of their on-going campaign to Stop Kids Reading. Up until then I had read only decent books and it was a shock to realize any crap could be a classic as long the author was foreign and the subject was avant garde. The Trial isn’t so much a story as a needlessly complicated suicide note.
A man is informed he is on trial, but not for what. Throughout the chapters he is gradually (and by his own stupid volition) separated from his friends and family. Each chapter he meets a set of unsettling people and they talk mildly depressing gibberish before disappearing from the story forever. At the end, the main character ends up in some sort of newly surreal, inexplicable and unexplained hall of light where he dies in a similar fashion. I’d call that a spoiler but there was never really another way for this book to go. There is no trial. That, more than anything really pissed me off.
Nothing occurs in this book. It’s just a collage of conversations Franz has had with the nihilistic voices in his head. They should have been put down in a diary and read by a reputable psychoanalyst, not published in 37 languages and crammed down the maw of 16 year olds. God is dead. Choice is an illusion. Reason and logic are comforting lies we tell ourselves and death is the only certainty. This is nothing we hadn’t heard before from My Chemical Romance so why our teachers thought we needed additional reasons to cut ourselves and go overboard on eye-makeup I’ll never know. Existentialism is and forever will be a dirty word to me and The Trial gets a 1.
#26
Title The Trial by Franz Kafka
When Autumn 2002
Why Read for sophomore English
Rating 1
There comes a point in the evolution all art; visual, literary, musical, wherein those who create it eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil and become too self aware. ‘Look at this medium,’ they proclaim. ‘We have been following rules, society imposed rules limiting what our work can be, limiting what *we* can be!’ It shines suddenly and clearly before them, conventions that were never questioned are suddenly dissolved, exploded. The artist is then free to write, to draw, to compose with a clear head and a fresh soul. It is this Übermensch moment that led Duchamp to graffiti an upturned urinal and display it in the Academy. It is what led to the design of the Barbican. It is what led Kafka to write The Trial. It is a horrible, horrible moment.
I won’t mince words; I loathe this book. It manages to be all the worst parts of self-indulgent, self-effacing, ponderous and pointless. It is a hateful book. This too was forced upon by the Texas Independent School District as part of their on-going campaign to Stop Kids Reading. Up until then I had read only decent books and it was a shock to realize any crap could be a classic as long the author was foreign and the subject was avant garde. The Trial isn’t so much a story as a needlessly complicated suicide note.
A man is informed he is on trial, but not for what. Throughout the chapters he is gradually (and by his own stupid volition) separated from his friends and family. Each chapter he meets a set of unsettling people and they talk mildly depressing gibberish before disappearing from the story forever. At the end, the main character ends up in some sort of newly surreal, inexplicable and unexplained hall of light where he dies in a similar fashion. I’d call that a spoiler but there was never really another way for this book to go. There is no trial. That, more than anything really pissed me off.
Nothing occurs in this book. It’s just a collage of conversations Franz has had with the nihilistic voices in his head. They should have been put down in a diary and read by a reputable psychoanalyst, not published in 37 languages and crammed down the maw of 16 year olds. God is dead. Choice is an illusion. Reason and logic are comforting lies we tell ourselves and death is the only certainty. This is nothing we hadn’t heard before from My Chemical Romance so why our teachers thought we needed additional reasons to cut ourselves and go overboard on eye-makeup I’ll never know. Existentialism is and forever will be a dirty word to me and The Trial gets a 1.
#26
Title The Trial by Franz Kafka
When Autumn 2002
Why Read for sophomore English
Rating 1
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated