The Trial

De: Franz Kafka

Narrado por: George Guidall

If Max Brod had obeyed Franz Kafka's dying request, Kafka's unpublished manuscripts would have been burned, unread. Fortunately, Brod ignored his friend's wishes and published The Trial, which became the author's most famous work. Now Kafka's enigmatic novel regains its humor and stylistic elegance in a new translation based on the restored original manuscript.

Thirty-year-old Josef K., a financial officer in a European city bank, is suddenly arrested. He is subjected to hearings, questioning, and visits from officials. Defending his innocence against charges that are never explained to him, he watches his life dissolve into absurdity. Whether read as an existential tale or a parable, this haunting story stands out as one of the great novels of our time.

Breon Mitchell, a professor of Germanic Studies and Comparative Literature at Indiana University, has received national awards for his literary translations. The renewed energy and power of this classic work are complemented by veteran narrator George Guidall's superb performance.

Public Domain (P)2000 Recorded Books

An "important" work

I missed this classic in my formal education, so since the reviews were so good and I knew the narrator was excellent, I took the plunge. Important, yes, and I understand why, at times the flow and dialogue sucked me in. But thank God I do not have to write a paper on this. It was too heavy and I wasnt in the mood to think that hard, especially not ready to follow that closely the parable chapter with the priest. OK, maybe I didnt appreciate just how "important" this book really is, but I am not going back to re-read it. Cliff note this one.

Life Is Surreal

Reading Kafka changed my life. I did a 180 from a Boston College conservative to an NYU radical. K's books and short stories, along with news events in the late '60s, convinced me that the state has its own agenda and the hard working individual isn't part of it. As hard as I worked to graduate in the class of 1966, the government said to me -- "Fine. You learned all about Voltaire, Jefferson and Thomas Paine. Now go over to the other side of the world and kill gooks, because rich corporate oligarchs don't like the wealth being shared." That's Kafkaesque. How many authors have eponyms as descriptive?

K's common thread is the plight of the individual on the steps of government offices. K never even learned what his crime was, and later in "The Castle", the seat of power, K learns that all entrances are closed. Klamm, the all-powerful autocrat, who controls everything that goes on, is aptly named: he doesn't say a word in 500 pages. He just pulls the strings of power. In the '50s when I read the book, I was reminded me of a disturbing movie I'd seen as a kid -- "Invaders from Mars." The all-powerful head (literally) Martian was an octopus head floating in a fish bowl. It would merely silently point one of its tentacles at one of its slaves and the individual would jump as if in a trance to fulfill the command.

Thirty years later, poet Allan Ginsberg would pick up the theme in his poem "Howl." "What sphinx of cement and aluminum bashed open their skulls and ate up their brains and imagination?" So now, as a watch California burning down, I think of the sinister power of mind control. George Carlin would pick up the theme again fifty years after that: "They don't care about you. They don't care about you. They don't care about you!" He asked, what kind of people would destroy and desecrate such a beautiful countryside and replace it with billboards supermarkets and shopping malls? As a writer I think I know: a brainwashed people.

Being Polish, I always enjoyed an old Polish poem: I'm a fly helplessly caught in a spider web of red tape and bureaucracy. I thought I was a butterfly.

By the author of Saving Gaia, Pot Stories, and Mirror Reversal.

Classic Confusing Goodness

I found The Trial to be 100% weird and mostly confusing, occasionally sprinkled with humor and hints of a cohesive story. If you read the history of Kafka's writing of The Trial and some other novels it makes sense that the plot would be all over the place. It did keep me entertained though, right up until the abrupt and shocking ending. I'm just not sure I knew what I listened to.

In The Trial a bank manager Josef K (referred to as "K" throughout the book) is arrested for an unknown crime by an unnamed organization. He has no knowledge of what he's done and is never informed by his accuser, and is pretty much left to live his life normally while he tries to figure out what is going on and who to deal with to address the charges. His uncle sets him up with an elderly lawyer who is no longer at the top of his game and K, through personal investigation, has meetings with people who have experience dealing with local courts (even the "court painter"!). He gets general information but never seems to understand what his charges are or what his future holds. All the while he continues to work at the bank everyday, although he is understandably distracted and his work suffers. This is a very odd tale.

I had no ideal of Kafka's interesting writing history until I started reading this book. And things even more interesting after he passed away.

The Trial and The Castle are currently both freebies on Audible so I'll probably eventually give the latter a try as long as it remains in my audio library. The themes in his writings appeal to me - understanding what is going on is what I need to work on I guess.

meh.

couldn't finish. didn't like it. just could not follow what was happening. don't know if this one would be better if I read on my own vs audible...but I'm not finishing this.

Just a heads up

Any additional comments?

The last hour or so of this version contains discussion of previous translations of The Trial and also a few sections that never made it into the books.