Book Review: Franz Kafka, The Trial (trans. Willa and Edwin Muir)

flaed — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 18:11:58 +0000

Someone must have been telling lies about Joseph K., for without having done anything wrong he was arrested one fine morning.

-Opening of The Trial

The Trial documents six months or so in the life of Joseph K., an everyday Bank employee who wakes up one morning to discover himself arrested by the Court. But it’s a curious sort of arrest: he is in fact absolutely free and aside from the day of his arrest no constraints are placed on his behavior. What is his crime? They can’t tell him, and perhaps don’t even know. The courts themselves are only the attics of run-down tenements and the Law books consist of pornography. Beyond each level of the Court there is another level, but all of them are closed to Joseph K.

It’s a little bit like the climactic trial of Alice in Wonderland, except deadly serious: the Court does seem to operate on a “verdict first, trial after” basis and in some ways the revelations about the Court and the Law do seem to run toward the reveal that they all are, after all, a mere bunch of playing cards. Whenever it seems that Joseph K. is on the verge of breaking through to the truth about his trial another point of confusion arises instantly, and by the end of it all the reader is not going to know much more about Joseph K.’s crime than he does himself.

In fact at a certain point Joseph K. seems to even give up even trying to know that much – all he really wants is resolution, something repeatedly denied to him. The only way to win, it seems, is not to lose, and to prolong a case indefinitely. But this doesn’t sit well with Joseph K., and so the story of The Trial is mostly the story of his desperate search for a way to reach a true acquittal, or at least an end of some kind.

The world of The Trial is bleak and absurd, claustrophobic and dirty. And Joseph K.’s increasing desperation seems almost like one more joke. No one else really understands his horror and no one else sees the stupidity of his position. Very late into the book Joseph K. meets a tradesman named Block whose case has existed in an indefinite, unknown state for five years, and the visible effect the waiting has had on him is perhaps the most horrifying image in a book full of darkness.

The Trial itself is unfinished, but its ending seems to be intact: bits and pieces are missing from chapters, but the narrative is coherent. This may merely be due to Max Brod, a personal friend of Kafka’s to whom we owe most of Kafka’s surviving work: in any case, it tells a complete story. The climax of the book really takes place in the penultimate chapter, however, when Joseph K. is confronted with a prison chaplain in a more-or-less empty cathedral. After this chapter, which is not only the climax but the artistic highpoint of the entire story, the final chapter feels almost like an afterthought.

Though The Trial itself is not very long, the cramped mood that pervades the story and Kafka’s crazy, meandering writing style produce an effect of having lived in this distorted world for ages; after finishing The Trial the feeling of most people will probably be that of emerging from a long dark tunnel. But The Trial offers no light; its vision is unrelenting and uncompromising and the ending of the book stays true to the ugly farcical quality of its beginning.

-Flaed

Introduction and Invocation to the Audience

flaed — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 18:11:07 +0000

There are a lot of blogs out there and there are a lot of review sites out there, and so adding another one to the pool is going to strike a lot of people as unnecessary. This is completely true. I (Flaed) have kept some kind of online persona up for some time now and have gone through varying phases of stupidity. However, what I like most of all is talking about things I’ve recently read or seen, and so a review blog seemed to be the final and inevitable conclusion.

In all probability this will focus mostly on literature and on animated works. It may go in for musical cast recordings, theater performances, and, who knows?, a little original work on my own part. It’s difficult to say. Things never seem to turn out to be what they were meant to be.

So who am I, then? I’m Flaed, a college student, with an interest in literature, translation, and animation (including anime). I like well-told tales, imaginative writing, and strong characterization. I believe in commending good art and condemning bad art; I believe, as well, in good and bad art. (Otherwise, what’s the point of a review?)

I enjoy Russian literature a lot. I like Disney. My two favorite movies are The Seventh Seal and The Little Mermaid. My favorite books are Crime and Punishment and Pride and Prejudice. My favorite poet is Yeats. My tastes are wide-ranging and I try to appreciate good books and stories wherever I find them, regardless of genre or of age. I love getting recommendations!

And I hope that somebody will find this site useful, at least once.

-Flaed

Flaedboc

Book Review: Franz Kafka, The Trial (trans. Willa and Edwin Muir)

Introduction and Invocation to the Audience