The Trial

Another classic dystopian novel, The Trial, is also something that could easily happen. Kafka’s timeless character, K, wakes up one morning and is simply arrested for an unknown reason. K spends the rest of the novel trying to decipher what happened in a world of endless bureaucracy.

Although I haven’t been arrested, I can definitely identify with the sometimes ludicrous measures we go through for bureaucracy. When I moved to Tel Aviv, I had to fill out seemingly endless forms over and over again, go to offices that were only open for a few hours a day, and stand… show more.

The starkly monochrome world described by Kafka is a troubled nightmare of our own.

It is a grim, mazelike metropolis populated with characters lacking compassion or bravery. The protagonist, Herr K., is accused of an unnamed crime by a distant and inaccessible legal body, and he is forced to defend his innocence by using scant means that prove increasingly futile.

I am fascinated by the horrifying cartoon world that Kafka weaves. Bureaus and departments physically merge according to no discernable logic. All the characters are driven by fear, ignorance, and self-interest, and Kafka’s surface-level descriptions of their appearances and behaviors… show more.

“Someone must have been telling lies about Josef K, for without him having done anything wrong he was arrested one fine morning.” This is how Kafka’s stark novel The Trial begins. It is a thrilling, hilarious, and bleak tale, set in a strange bureaucratic world of bizarre rules and arbitrary justice. K never knows why he is on trial or what crime he is supposed to have committed. If you want to know where the adjective “Kafkaesque” comes from and what it means, read this book. And if you are a boss, remember that all organisations can show Kafkaesque tendencies… show more.

Joseph K. is prosecuted by an impenetrable and faceless justice system. He doesn’t even know the accusation hanging over him. If he does nothing, he can go on with his life. If he wants to prove himself innocent, K. must enter a labyrinthic bureaucracy, which will consume him. He opts for the latter. 

I’ve been reading and rereading The Trial since I was a teen. Each time, Kafka’s dense prose drags me into his universe’s strangeness. With K., I wonder about the meaning of the parabole Before the Law; with him, I walk through the intricate corridors of the Justice… show more.

A surreal, tense, almost absurd story that was never supposed to see the light of day. Published after Kafka’s death, The Trial is the story of Joseph K, who is unexpectedly arrested for an unspecified crime and subjected to the mercy of a court system that is as irrational as it is inexplicable. Despite its absurdity, the story holds a real menace and ever-present claustrophobia related to the desperate and futile attempts of Joseph K. to find answers and clear his name. The perfect dystopian book to feed your rebellion against inaccessible and unjust institutions and their systems. 

“Someone must have been telling lies about Joseph K., for without having done anything wrong he was arrested one fine morning.” So Kafka introduces us to a baroque, magical-realist, and often hilarious shadow-world of shabby, corrupt justice. This is the finest fictional study—and parody—ever created of conscience gone berserk. I love it most of all for its devout darkness that sparkles with humor. The sly derision of depressive, guilty thoughts is like an escape hatch from the labyrinth of despair.

I think this book aptly portrays the power of the state to control its people and the sinister ways in which this power can be put to use in the face of resistance. The story attests to the perpetual struggle between the ruled and the ruler. And much as Josef K’s gruesome murder, in the end, is symbolic of the ruthlessness of the state, his last words, “Like a dog!”, spoken in defiance, could well be meant to inspire the victims of political oppression never to surrender even in the face of death.

“Someone must have slandered Josef K.,” the story begins, “for one morning, without having done anything wrong, he was arrested.” The reader never learns who slandered K, or what he is charged with—but, over the course of a year, this respectable banker is stripped of his liberty, his dignity, and even his will. The book contains “Before the Law,” the most famous legal fable ever written, about a man who waits a lifetime at the doorway of the law—then dies without being admitted. As he dies, he learns that the doorway he has waited at was created especially for… show more.