Description

About the Book

The Trial is the terrifying tale of Josef K., a respectable bank officer who is suddenly and inexplicably arrested and must defend himself against a charge about which he can get no information. This fiction is the chronicle of that intervening year of K.’s case, his struggles and encounters with the invisible Law and the untouchable Court. It is an account, ultimately, of state-induced self-destruction. Yet, as in all of Kafka’s best writing, the “meaning” is far from clear. Just as the parable related by the chaplain in Chapter Nine (called “The Doorkeeper” or “Before the Law”) elicits endless commentary from students of the Law, so has The Trial been a touchstone of twentieth-century critical interpretation. As some commentators have noted, it has, in parts, the quality of revealed truth; as such it is ultimately unresolvable–a mirror for any sectarian reading.

About the Author

One of the most influential writers of the twentieth century, Franz Kafka penned novels and short stories that portray the bewildered alienation of modern society. His characters frequently find themselves in threatening situations for which there is no explanation and from which there is no escape. His most-studied works are the novels The Trial and The Castle and the short stories The Metamorphosis, The Hunger Artist, and In the Penal Colony. Book Revew—

This book haunts me. I can’t stop thinking about it because I have questions, questions and more questions; I have so many unanswered questions that I will never know the answer to, and it’s slowly killing me!… There are just so many questions, but no damned answers!

­—Sean Barrs

No novel comes close to this one in the intensely nightmarish portrayal of the type of dark “justice” of dictatorial governments, particularly those that came to power after its 1925 publication.

—Perry

Kafka’s Trial is one of those books that are always present in cultural sphere and referenced ad nauseum. Despite never having read Kafka before I am quite sure I used the word ‘Kafkaesque’ on many occasions and maintained a semi-eloquent conversation about ‘The Trial’.

—Kinga

Franz Kafka’s Trial is one of the basic works of Twentieth Century literature that everyone should read. It stands the paradigm of the Whodunit on its head…. The Trial asks the big questions in a startling manner. Man has created a cruel and indifferent society ruled by an absurd bureaucracy. Has God also created an absurd world?

—Czarny Pies