The Trial The Trial question


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Similar books?
Eilish Brennan Eilish Aug 06, 2013 12:52AM
I was just wondering if anyone could suggest some books OR films similar to the Trial (holding similar themes)? Would be greatly appreciated! I am doing a comparative novel study in english.



Feliks (last edited Aug 07, 2013 07:21AM ) Aug 06, 2013 07:16PM   2 votes
Books like! Pretty tough request. I will try, though.

Here's one:
Relation of My Imprisonment
A Clockwork Orange
The Wasp Factory
The First Circle
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
Animal Farm
The Magic Mountain

Basically, themes of people being trapped and manipulated; held hostage or made dependent, depersonalized; performing mechanistic, atavistic roles; atomized. Sacrifice of the individual. Institutionalism; guilt. Existentialism. Slaving to an ideal; pointlessness.

Films are easier. Classic films certainly have more options. That's my meat. Stand by whilst I think up some. But certainly you must know the acclaimed Orson Welles adaptation of this movie. That's the obvious place to start.

Then..h'mm..well..
Fritz Lang's "M" (strong pick)
Fritz Lang's 'The Ministry of Fear'
Fritz Lang's 'Fury'
Elio Petri's 'Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion' (top pick)
Godard's "Alphaville"
Resnais' "Last Year at Marienbad"
Lumet's "The Hill"
Chaplin's "Modern Times"
Guillam's "Brazil"
"Figures in a Landscape" (top pick)
Lindsay Anderson's "If..."
Lindsay Anderson's "O! Lucky Man!" (top pick)
Aha! Best pick: "La Jettee"
Durenmatt's "The Visit"
Ibsen's "An Enemy of the People"
Pontecorvo's "The Battle of Algiers"
Fellini's "8 1/2" or "La Dolce Vita"
Bertolucci's "The Conformist" (top pick)
Coppola's "The Conversation" (top pick)
Kubrick's "Paths of Glory"
Hemmings' "Power Play"
Elio Petri's "The Tenth Victim"
Frankenheimer's "Seconds"
Kazan's "The Arrangement"
Polanski's "A Pure Formality"(top pick)
Donen's "Mirage"
"The Prisoner" (tv series)
"Rollerball"
"THX-1138"
"Death-Watch"
"Woman in the Dunes" (top pick)


The most obvious choice would be The Castle, also from Kafka.


I'd say maybe The Double by F.M. Dostojevski. Depends on how you look at it.

The Trial was a book that crossed my mind a few times during reading The Double, for similar things happening.


Besides "The Castle", maybe you should try "Bartleby, the Scriviner" or "The Stranger" (Albert Camus).


Diaboliad by Mikhail Bulgakov


Witold Gombrowicz "Ferdydurke"


Invitation to a Beheading by Vladimir Nabokov.


Kafka influenced the literary genres Absurdism and Existencialism, maybe the most famous authors from those genres are Camus and Sartre, respectively.


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