The Trial in Catching up on Classics (and lots more!)

Jun 22, 2012 Laura rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: read-2014, 1001-books-you-must-read-before-you, czech-literature, audio-books, fiction-20th-century, dystopia

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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May 17, 2016 Maggie rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, boxall-1001, european, science-fiction, guardian-1000, dystopia-utopia

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Josef K. gets arrested in his house one day without reason. Yet the arrest is an arrest like no other – he is still allowed to roam free, he only needs to attend hearings occasionally, and the hearings are conducted in an apartment of a poor neighbourhood. No matter how he tries he can't find out why he was arrested. Several people, including his uncle, his uncle's friend the lawyer, and a painter connected to the court, offer him help, but all tell him that the court never acquits people, the t Josef K. gets arrested in his house one day without reason. Yet the arrest is an arrest like no other – he is still allowed to roam free, he only needs to attend hearings occasionally, and the hearings are conducted in an apartment of a poor neighbourhood. No matter how he tries he can't find out why he was arrested. Several people, including his uncle, his uncle's friend the lawyer, and a painter connected to the court, offer him help, but all tell him that the court never acquits people, the trials are always conducted at the lowest rank of the courts and you never know who is behind it, and his best hope is to prolong his trial. Several ladies come into the picture, Fraulein Burstner, the court usher's wife, and Leni, but though they offer him help, none appear to be trustworthy, and they seem to want his affection without reciprocal faithfulness. K., the CFO of a bank, resists, trying to gain small advantages by asserting his superior intelligence and power over the officials, yet his stubbornness and pride plays against him and he gains only illusions of control, while his situation grows more desperate and even his work is affected. A man whose trial has lasted for 5 years tries to help, but K. is repulsed by the way he holds on to his freedom by sacrificing wealth and dignity. Finally, after one year, K. is arrested again, and this time killed by a knife through the heart.

I read the version translated by Breon Mitchell. In the translator's note, he pointed out that Kafka had been loose with punctuation, using semi-colons and run-on sentences loosely, and sometimes using even the wrong punctuation. I appreciate that Mitchell tried to keep the punctuation faithful to the original, as it adds to the sense of absurdity of the story. The plot begins farcically, and while the trial continues in the same surreal way, it gains a menacing feel. Reality is distorted, but despite this, you wonder how much of what Kafka says is reflective of true events. In his work as a lawyer in pre-WWI Germany, did he see cases where defendants were guilty until proven less guilty, where people were arrested without reason for seemingly unknown, but possibly political, motives? Did he see cases of people being bullied by the court, not in an overt way, but in a slow, subtle way, that weakened the defendant mentally and emotionally? Did he find that cases were decided not based on the innocence of the defendant, but his and his lawyer's connections?

At one point, the lawyer tells K. that there are three outcomes to work towards, true acquittal, apparent acquittal, and protraction. True acquittal has been never known to happen. Apparent acquittal requires a burst of intense hard work, but may result in acquittal by the lower courts. However, you may get re-arrested, so the temporary relief doesn't last. Protraction involves a small amount of effort over a long period of time to keep officials appeased. The trial won't end, but neither will you get convicted. It's a Catch-22 situation. Either you get momentary freedom but live with the fear of re-arrest, and know that each arrest will wear out your spirits more, or you have a sort of freedom, but are constantly chained to fear and despair. K. met a defendant who had been in protraction for 5 years, and while the defendant was proud of his success, it was a vapour of success, and his dependency on the lawyer, grovelling at the lawyer's doorstep, was pathetic. I wondered if K. would be able to maintain his pride and dignity. I half expected him to go the same route as the other defendant, and his murder actually seemed the better of two evils. As much as I wished he would sacrifice some pride to save himself, at the end I felt he had died holding on to his dignity, rather than surrendering to a lifetime of despair, of not living at all. ...more

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