a classsic that i did not enjoy but did find interesting

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	• The Trial Franz Kafka Schocken, 1999 - 304 pages average customer review:based on 40 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

a classsic that i did not enjoy but did find interesting

it is well written but the whole story made me increasingly tense and anxious, as well it should. this was not a book that was fun or pleasurable to read. but it was extremely interesting.

What a wonderful nightmare!

The Trial is like falling asleep into a splendid deleterious nightmare, with all of the dread and Angst, and never being quite able to find the code to lead oneself out of the intricately spun labyrinth. It surely will be a joy for those capable of opening up to Kafka's complex existential world. It is said that Kafka laughed obstreperously while reading this book. I tried to laugh along with him, but I believe there are a myriad of other approaches to this novella that are just as appropriate. I recommend to all.

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Was it really an unfinished business????

Block, the painter, and Leni among others, are strangers who understand the complications of Joseph K's case as well as the details of court operations. The story exist in a state of total chaos, characters come and go for no clear reason, out of the blue, women go crazy over Joseph and then changing on him for no reason, People show concern for him and then become completely indifferent to his plight and an accusation , that he doesn't understand, is made. Joseph doesn't know if it's a crazy nightmare or reality.

The court that has access to any information or place at any time and holds the divine authority to decide everybody's destiny, still conducts its business in weird, dark and suspicious places. Is the court a symbol of the unaccountable bureaucracy that Kafka witnessed or was it the inner world of alienation that Kafka experienced all of his life? Was the first building that Joseph went to for the first court meeting merely a strange, empty, dark place or was it a maze that symbolizes a corrupt society?

When the prison chaplain comments: "...it is not necessary to accept everything as true, one must only accept it as necessary", did he refer to the corrupted legal system or to the crazy world as Kafka saw it?

What does Fraulein Burstner symbolize in Joseph's life? What is the significance of her sudden vague appearance at the end? was she the last connection to life in Joseph's eyes?

Why didn't Joseph fight the two men at the end? Had he given up and wanted to end his emotional torment or was it his longing to discover the ultimate truth?

As is typical of Kafka's works, there are many unanswered questions, but the journey through his works is outstanding and complex. It isn't called Kafkaesque for nothing.

unlike critics who would say that this novel was never finished, I believe that Kafka finished this novel and made the characters and events as random and confusing as possible. Reading the Trial, another Kafka masterpiece, is certainly time well spent.

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great thinker, creative writer

The metaphors and symbolism in this book are so liberating, ironically however, to speak about the oppression of totalitarianism in his time.

One of the most important writers of the 20th century

One morning Joseph K. is arrested. It is never made clear what the charges are, but K. always maintains his innocence, as he grapples with a bureaucracy that slowly strangles his career and consumes his life.
Franz Kafka's 'The Trial' was published posthumously shortly after his death. It was never completely finished and it was unclear how the chapters were to be ordered. It is no surprise then that the plot is somewhat episodic. I had expected the story to be a dystopian nightmare, instead it was blackly humourous as K. deals with the judicial bureaucracy and various absurd situations.
There are many themes and interpretations, but the most obvious (and to me the most relevant) is the power of government and bureaucracy to destroy lives, not through active malice but as an impersonal force like a car driving over a squirrel . Once K. has been arrested he can never be acquitted, he can only hope to delay the final guilty verdict.
'The Trial' is a monumentally important work, that is more relevant than ever as government and its attendant bureaucracies have more impact on our lives with every passing year.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

Written in 1914, The Trial is one of the most important novels of the twentieth century: 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. Whether read as an existential tale, a parable, or a prophecy of the excesses of modern bureaucracy wedded to the madness of totalitarianism, Kafka's nightmare has resonated with chilling truth for generations of readers. This new edition is based upon the work of an international team of experts who have restored the text, the sequence of chapters, and their division to create a version that is as close as possible to the way the author left it.

In his brilliant translation, Breon Mitchell masterfully reproduces the distinctive poetics of Kafka's prose, revealing a novel that is as full of energy and power as it was when it was first written.

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