The Trial

by Franz Kafka, John Williams (Translator), John Williams (Introduction), Tom Griffith (Editor)

Overview

When people use the adjective 'Kafkaesque', it is The Trial they have in mind - the nightmarish world of Joseph K., where the rules are hidden from even the highest officials, and any help there may be comes from unexpected sources.

K. is never told what he is on trial for, and when he says he is innocent, he is immediately asked 'innocent of what?' Is he perhaps on trial for his innocence? Could he have freed himself from the proceedings by confessing his guilt as a human being? Has the trial been set up because he is incapable of admitting his guilt, and hence his humanity?

The Trial is a chilling and at the same time blackly amusing tale that maintains, to the very end, a constant, relentless atmosphere of disorientation and quirkiness. Superficially the subject-matter is bureaucracy, but the story's great strength is its description of the effect on the life and mind of Josef K. It is in the last resort a description of the absurdity of 'normal' human nature.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781848704862
Publisher:	Wordsworth Editions, Limited
Publication date:	05/01/2012
Series:	Classics of World Literature
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	192
File size:	596 KB

About the Author

Franz Kafka (1883–1924) was a Czech-born, German-speaking author of some of the most important literature of the twentieth century, including Metamorphosis (1912), The Trial (1925), and Amerika (1927).

Idris Parry (translation and introduction; 1916–2008) was a professor and scholar of modern German literature at the University of Manchester.

Date of Birth:

July 3, 1883

Date of Death:

June 3, 1924

Place of Birth:

Prague, Austria-Hungary

Place of Death:

Vienna, Austria

Education:

German elementary and secondary schools. Graduated from German Charles-Ferdinand University of Prague.

Table of Contents

	Introduction	vii
Chapter 11
	The Arrest
	Conversation with Frau Grubach
	Then Fraulein Burstner
Chapter 231
	First Interrogation
Chapter 349
	In the Empty Courtroom
	The Student
	The Offices
Chapter 474
	Fraulein Burstner's Friend
Chapter 583
	The Whipper
Chapter 691
	K.'s Uncle
	Leni
Chapter 7113
	Lawyer
	Manufacturer
	Painter
Chapter 8166
	Block, the Tradesman
	Dismissal of the Lawyer
Chapter 9197
	In the Cathedral
Chapter 10223
	The End
Appendix I	The Unfinished Chapters
	On the Way to Elsa	233
	Journey to His Mother	235
	Prosecuting Counsel	239
	The House	245
	Conflict with the Assistant Manager	250
	A Fragment	256
Appendix II	The Passages Delected by the Author	257
Appendix III	Postscripts
	To the First Edition (1925)	264
	To the Second Edition (1935)	272
	To the Third Edition (1946)	274
Appendix IV	Excerpts from Kafka's Diaries	275

What People are Saying About This

Albert Camus

We are taken to the limits of human thought. Indeed, everything in this work is, in the true sense, essential. It states the problem of the absurd in its entirety.

W.H. Auden

Had one to name the author who comes nearest to bearing the same kind of relation to our age as Dante, Shakespeare, and Goethe bore to theirs, Kafka is the first one would think of.

Walter Abish

An accomplishment of the highest order — one that will honor Kafka, perhaps the most singular and compelling writer of our time, far into the 21st century.
— Author of How German Is It

Introduction

This short novel has passed into far more than classical literary status...In more than 100 languages, the epithet 'kafkaesque' attaches to the central images, to the constants of inhumanity and absurdity in our times...In this diffusion of the kafkaesque into so many recesses of our private and public existence, The Trial plays a commanding role.
— From the Introduction

Editorial Reviews

The Barnes & Noble Review
This classic novel by Kafka tells the terrifying tale of Joseph K., a respectable banker who is suddenly arrested and must defend his innocence against a charge about which he can get no information. The Trial stands as one of the great novels of modern times, as it rings with a chilling truth about modern bureaucracy and the mad agendas of 20th century totalitarian regimes.

The Trial is not for everybody, and its peculiar air of excitement will seem flat enough to those who habitually feed on 'exciting' books. It belongs not with the many novels that horrify, but with the many fewer which terrify.
— Books of the Century; New York Times review, October 1937

Louis Kronenberger

An overly pretentious tale with an extensive cast of characters that gathers at the funeral of Hollywood's least favorite producer, West of Paradise suffers from the lack of a centrally solid idea or developed player to hold it together. Neophyte writer Kate Donnelly, who crashes the funeral, is not strong or interesting enough nor blessed with the necessary critical eye to make the novel and its cast work. Davis dares to invoke the name of F. Scott Fitzgerald as Kate's muse, and the only mildly intriguing idea here may be the pretense that she is his long-lost relative. The stereotypes are tired, and the limited plot too predictable. Susan O'Malley's reading is, fortunately, on the brisk side. Not recommended.--Joyce Kessel, Villa Maria Coll., Buffalo, NY Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

The Trial (1924), whose cryptic portrayal of a bank clerk detained and interrogated for an undisclosed offense has become perhaps the dominant image of modernist 'absurdity' — holds up well in a version characterized by long, crowded paragraphs and virtually incantatory accusatory repetitions that confer equal emphasis on the novel's despairing comedy and aura of unspecific menace. Admirers of Kafka's fiction will not want to miss it.

Kirkus Reviews

‘[I]t seemed as though the shame was to outlive him.’ With these words The Trial ends. Kafka’s shame then is no more personal than the life and thought which govern it and which he describes thus: ‘He does not live for the sake of his own life, he does not think for the sake of his own thought. He feels as though he were living and thinking under the constraint of a family . . . Because of this unknown family . . . he cannot be released.’”
—Walter Benjamin
 
“Breon Mitchell’s translation is an accomplishment of the highest order that will honor Kafka far into the twenty-first century.”
—Walter Abish, author of How German Is It

From the Publisher

In Kafka’s iconic novel, bank functionary Josef K., arrested on unspecified charges, is swallowed up by a bizarre legal system with incomprehensible motives and purposes—a mix of Carrollian absurdity, Eastern European oppression, and nightmare. Rupert Degas’s voice acting is understated and telling. His tones are varied and expressive, but appropriately grayed or minor keyed, giving the impression of an intimate, dreamlike, and vaguely threatening whisper. The reading is very British—with names pronounced as German (with an excellent accent), including K. pronounced as “KAH.” That choice, while linguistically correct, may result in listeners missing the significance of Kafka’s choice of the initial “K,” as displayed in text. Still, the fine blend of performance and text is a menacing, seductive cocktail. W.M. © AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine

JUNE 2011 - AudioFile