From the Bookshelf of Boxall's 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die…

The Trial

Franz Kafka

Start date: June 15, 2011

Finish date: July 15, 2011

Discussion: 1001 Monthly Group Read

Why we're reading this: June 2011 Group Read
[close] June 2011 Group Read

Find A Copy At

Group Discussions About This Book

Showing 2 of 211 topics — 5,386 comments total

1001 Monthly Group Read

This topic has been closed to new comments.

* 1001 BOOKS GROUP READS LIST -- Everything We've Read and Everything Coming Up
By Charity · 18 posts · 3260 views

last updated Dec 26, 2024 06:04AM

* October (2025 Discussion) -- Junkie, by William S. Burroughs
By Karen · 3 posts · 17 views

last updated 14 hours, 47 min ago

showing 10 of 14 topics view all »

What Members Thought

May 22, 2011 Amanda rated it it was ok

I am glad that I finally finished this book--if only so that I can move on to more pleasant literary experiences. This book is June's reading selection for the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die group.
What didn't I like? As we all know, it's an incomplete book--Kafka didn't finish writing The Trial and it was published posthumously--and in some cases that's ironically good. Kafka left one particularly tortured chapter near the end of the book unfinished. The action halts abruptly, and I act I am glad that I finally finished this book--if only so that I can move on to more pleasant literary experiences. This book is June's reading selection for the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die group.
What didn't I like? As we all know, it's an incomplete book--Kafka didn't finish writing The Trial and it was published posthumously--and in some cases that's ironically good. Kafka left one particularly tortured chapter near the end of the book unfinished. The action halts abruptly, and I actually found myself pleased at the full stop, thinking "that couldn't have been going anywhere good anyway." Sexuality is an overpowering theme in the book, as the main character, Josef K., has numerous encounters or near misses with a whole host of subordinate-type women. But it's not entirely clear where the author is going with this theme. Perhaps Kafka in leaving this element ambiguous hopes to add to the general milieu of frustration. If that's the case, then it was a success! Otherwise, I would have expected the author to have focused the allusions somehow in a later edit. I also do not rule out that there would have been further development of this theme if the book was completed. This experience and another recent read of a friend's unfinished novel cements my deep dislike of reading unfinished books.
What was good? Kafka's sentence structure and ability to convey thoughts neatly is very beautiful. In the short literary criticism section at the beginning of the version I read, it said "Milan Kundera refers to the essentially surrealist humour of Kafka as a main predecessor of later artists such as Federico Fellini, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Carlos Fuentes and Salman Rushdie. For Garcia Marquez, it was as he said the reading of Kafka's The Metamorphosis that showed him 'that it was possible to write in a different way.'" I see how that Kafka could certainly be an antecedent to Garcia Marquez, and I was pleased to have experienced this connecting link in literature.
Overall, reading The Trial was uncomfortable but not fruitless. And I certainly wouldn't do it over again. ...more

Like · see review

Feb 25, 2024 Tiffany rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: 1001-books__fromlist, 1001-books

Eh. It certainly didn't change my life. And as I was reading the last few pages, I thought to myself, "Was this whole thing a metaphor for man's inhumanity to man?" The sometimes fuzzy ways of the law and having to be an insider to know about legal processes and whose ring to kiss, and if you're not privileged enough to be on the inside or to have an insider, you'll never know or understand the ways of the system?

It wasn't the worst book I've read; it wasn't the best; it wasn't even one I'll ha ...more

Like · see review