Book Review: The Trial - Kafka

AM I BEING DETAINED?

Heads up, any time I do a book review expect there to be major spoilers. If you haven’t read it just turn back now.

Gotta love a book written in 1915 that feels like 300 pages of dealing with the DMV. Don’t worry, that isn’t FUD, that’s the point of the novel. In art school they teach you that art evokes an emotion, which emotion it is depends on the viewer. If you want to make the viewer happy you paint puppies and kittens. If you want to make them feel disgusted or angry you paint the back of a slaughterhouse. This story wasn’t written to make you feel better about yourself, it was written to show just how frustrating and dangerous rampant red tape and mindlessly following orders can be.

Right out of the gate, our guy Josef K finds himself under arrest for some crime that is never disclosed. This leads him through a journey from one office or official to another in hopes of finding out what he is in trouble for so he can get to the final trial and get it all over with. Each person he comes in contact with during the process claims they can help him, by telling him how to follow the rules. He speaks with everyone from investigators, magistrates, lawyers, and office clerks and never makes it to the final trial. There is always something else in the way. K gets run around in circles like an endless MMO quest line.

In the end he never makes it out of the absurdist loop of red tape and ends up being killed by the system. He doesn’t actually get a trial. He never finds out what he was defending himself against - only dragged through a chain of bureaucrats who tell him they are “just following orders” when he gets rightfully frustrated and upset with them.

What I find most interesting is the correlation to what happens to K with what later happens in Germany in the 30’s - a story that predates it by 15 years, and what’s worse, Kafka dies in 24 never seeing what he wrote become reality for so many people. Aside from the prophetic nature of the story is the fact that, among with Kafka’s other work, while being considered some of the greatest modern literature - isn’t even complete.

Yep, he didn’t finish it. There are some major time jumps towards the end. Some editions publish the fragments as well but they don’t give anything away. Thankfully Kafka’s buddy Max Brod ignored his wishes to have all his work burned when he died and had it edited and published instead.

In the end I found the book to be very good. It’s not something I would sit down and read casually before bed but I’m glad I have read it and I think I got the intended feeling from it. Just a word of caution to contemporary readers, Kafka’s style involves beefy paragraphs, and character viewpoints and descriptions are often repeated. This is probably due to the mix of modernist writing and it being translated from German but it does emphasize the frustration you are supposed to feel for the character and the events going on.

I read this as part of my litfiction book club pick for the month of March. All of our members had interesting takes on the way things played out or the way K behaved, if you’ve got anything to add or need to tell me I got something wrong, feel free to reply below.