Customer Reviews

The Trial: A New Translation Based on the Restored Text

5 star:		(34)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Well, I've just finished reading The Trial for the sixth, maybe even eighth time, and as usual my brain is buzzing with all the unanswered questions and unspoken quandaries that this book embeds in the reader's mind.
An aside - this is the first time I have read this particular translation, having read the Muir's work before. Perhaps this translation is a bit livelier, and the chapters, or sequences, are grouped a bit differently, but the general experience of reading and digesting this book was much the same as with the Muir's version. One caution, if you are a first time reader do not read the introduction first. The author gives away much too much of the story and ending in the introduction.
Now, back to the book itself. As "they" say, the mark of a true classic is that you can reread the book several times and always find it fresh. This is most certainly the case with The Trial. I always struggle with the question of K.'s innocence. The reader is told, unequivocally, that the Law is attracted to guilt. Is this an illustration of the unreasoning, monolithic madness that

so often surrounds totalitarian states, or is Kafka tellling

the reader indirectly that K. is guilty? I think most readers,
especially me, want to like and identify with the central
protagonist of a novel, but on this particular rereading
I noticed that K. is really a pretty nasty character. He is
arrogant beyond belief, selfish, treats women and most everyone
else as objects, and is even potentially violent. He alienates
and insults people who have the desire and the means to help him
navigate the formalities and uncertainties of his arrest and
trial. Or, is he an essentially decent fellow who, beset with
unrelenting frustration and anger at being accused and arrested
for a crime he didn't commit, decompensates into irrational
actions? Don't expect easy answers from Kafka. He is not going
to wrap everything up in a pretty bow, fully resolved, so that
you can feel good. It's a damned disturbing, sometimes bizarre,
and ultimately amazing novel. What is noteworthy is how
deceptively simple the construction of the plotline is. First,
the novel is short. Second, there are no parallel or
simultaneous plotlines occurring. There is only one plotline,
that of K. as he is initially arrested and subsequently tries to
make sense of what the charges are and how to deal with them. K.
is in every scene. There's no ,"meanwhile, back at the
courthouse, Inspector Smith was...". So the story, if this novel
can be said to contain a "story", moves along quite quickly.
Kafka's prose style is crisp and unadorned, as you might expect
from someone educated in business and law in early 1900's
Prague.And it's a good thing that he writes so clearly, because
the story itself contains not only some astonishingly bizarre
scenes (the flogging in the closet springs to mind) but dizzying
explanations of the procedures and logic of the court, the Law,
the judges, and lawyers. Imagine a writer like Tom Robbins, or
Don Delillo, with their hallucinogenic segues and refusal to bow
to consistency and logic, trying to pull off the "Lawyer"
or "Painter" sequences. It would be a soggy mess. But Kafka with
his precision and austerity makes it breathtaking.
It's funny, when my friends see me reading Kafka the initial response is almost always surprise and some variation of "Yuck!"
Of course, they haven't read him, but everyone "knows" that he is weird and dark and disturbed plus the book is old and doesn't probably even have a happy ending. Oh well, their loss.
I really want to take a class on Kafka, ideally focussing on the Trial. It is puzzling and unsettling and I'd love to hear other's thoughts on the symbolism and meaning contained in the book. In fact, if you're a Kafka scholar, or just someone who likes and has given some thought to this book, email me with your thoughts.
I unhesitatingly recommend this novel. It is important. It is certainly important to me.

ng

I giving the book 5 stars, because it's a really good read. Not having read any other translation, I must take other reviewer's word that it compares well. Read the other reviews, they are correct about this books quality.

Now, here's why I am mad. I read the introduction. Then I read the translator's notes. The translator is quite full of himself and his cleverness. Thus he points out the sections where he was particularly clever. In doing so, he gives away the plot, the ending of the novel, and why we should think about it the way he translated it, and not trust earlier transactions.

This should have been an afterward, not before the text. I reviewed the plot, including the ending, before reading the text. This somewhat ruined the experience for me. Skip the translator's notes, and you'll have a fine edition of Kafka's influntial novel.

Kafkaesque: Impenetrably oppresive or nightmarish, as in the fiction of Franz Kafka.

Indeed, "The Trial" is the epitome of this adjective used to describe the haunting novels of Franz Kafka.

Breon Mitchell's translation is fantastic as it expands and clarifies the first version by the Muirs. A lengthy translators preface is included, written by Mitchell, explaining the reasoning for this new translation based on the German definitive edition. Various examples of the text (in German) are also used in the explanations of the hows and whys.

On to the story itself. Josef K. awakens one more to find that he's been arrested. He doesn't know why and is never told. His daily life is allowed to go on over the course of the year the novel takes place, while trying to understand what is happening. Throughout this process Josef begins to sink further into paranoia and guilt, with the fate of his life in the balance....

This is a deep and dense novel, with various interpretations. It's scary to realize that this could actually happen (perhaps not on this scale) and that's one of things Kafka excels at. Taking the everyday mundane and catapulting it into the realm of the absurd and nightmarish..

The leftover fragments of "The Trial" are also included after the story, adding further insight into this tragic story. It's also worth it to pick up the Muir's translation, to see the differences, and to have the original english version to keep.

A must read.

Dense, atmospheric and truly haunting, Kafka's The Trial is quite possibly the greatest book ever written. The tale of one man's futile battle against bureaucracy, it is even more applicable to our meaningless, frustating modern existence than it probably was to turn of the century Prague. This new translation manages to capture Kafka's dark wit in a way that has never been done before - showing the author not only to be a true visionary, but an eccentric, funny human being as well. There is no doubt that it is complex and hard going, but the rewards that you may reap from perservering are more than worth the effort. And for those that fail to understand it, I suggest you take some time out for introspection - for this book may very well be the greatest comprehensive biography of our century.

A man named Josef K. (often just referred to as K., short for Kafka perhaps?) is arrested for reasons never explained to him (or the reader, for that matter), but still allowed to live a normal (?) life. Not only is his crime never explained, but the authority by which the arrest took place is never given. The title of the book is ironic, because there never is an actual "trial". He is told to report the following Sunday, but never given the specific time or place, and when he finds the location (a very unlikely location, in a huge, labyrinthine tenement) K. is informed that he is late, and nothing is resolved. During the course of the book, it seems like almost everyone he meets is connected with the court in some way (even the annoying young girls that bother him on his way to see the court painter), but even the influential people are unable to exert their influence in any meaningful way. The ending of the novel is somewhat shocking, but not really surprising.

Josef K. represents much of humankind in general. Most of us have that vague feeling that we have done something wrong but actually cannot pinpoint what it is. There is a general feeling of guilt from what theologians might call "Original Sin". The trial to which K. is subjected takes place in his very soul. Franz Kafka was not a religious man, but he knew that universal feeling of guilt, and, in my amateur opinion, "The Trial" was Kafka's way of expounding on that guilt. Of course, that is only one level of meaning one could gain from this novel. The fact that the book works at so many levels is why many consider it a classic. It's not the best book ever written, but it is certainly not a waste of time, especially to those who take time to compehend Kafka's nightmarish vision.

First, if you don't want to know what happens at the end of the novel, don't read the translator's preface before reading the text. He may be an enthusiastic and exacting translator but not the most sensitive reviewer.

As for Kafka's story, I want to offer a somewhat different interpretation that might perhaps attract readers who are not interested in another despairing man against society theme. I think Kafka is telling us that we are free yet we are obsessed by our accusers and allow them to control us. The bad news is we choose to not to resist but to grumble and suffer subserviently. The good news is we don't have to. The interesting news is what we as a society who reads Kafka will choose to become. Do we read it and say, yep that's the mire we're stuck in? Or do we read it and realize that he is arming us with the power of insight, assertion, and choice in facing our lives.

Don't miss the last 30 pages or so including the chapter titled, "In the Cathedral". The story the priest tells K. and their ensuing discussion is fascinating and still has my mind whirling. If you know what it all means, tell me. Is there a support group for this book?

I must say that the "Fragments" included after the story lent little to my understanding of the whole. If you want more, it's there; if you don't, you wouldn't be missing anything by skipping it.

But don't skip the rest of it, particularly if, on one level, you just want to see a great writer's insights into the labyrinthine constructs of his own legal profession.

What startled me as I read this new translation, 20 years after reading the older one, is irony and humor Kafka suffused in his paranoid narrative. The Trial is my favorite piece of Kafka's fiction, including his shorter works, because it deals with a social reality and not metaphysical metaphor.

The farcical social reality reminds me of Thomas Berger's novels, especially Neighbors, Meeting Evil, and The Houseguest. If you want to read "Kafkaesque" fiction with a light touch set in contemporary America, check out those Berger masterpieces.

"Someone must have slandered Josef K., for one morning, without having done anything wrong, he was arrested." So begins the Trial. This book for its opening line would get five stars, for story - five stars, for the depictions of scenes - five stars, for every piece in and among itself this book should get five stars. I love the feeling I get when I read it. The totalitarian government, the bureaucratic and surreal nature of the situation, the helplessness of the the protagonist, I love it all. Everything the five star rating crowd on this forum said is absolutely true, and even understated. I had never any Kafka before this and went to get the Metamorphosis after watching District 9, and for whatever reason I got this one instead.

By the time you get to this review, you have probably read most of the others. As somebody who liked this book, the one thing the five star crowd does not tell you is this is a hard read. The story proper is 231, pages not lengthy by any stretch, the language is about as simple as I could ask for, you could finish this in six or so hours. I took it in two chunks of four hours each night. But looking back, it felt a bit like playing World of Warcraft: the beginning was a breeze - even fun, then around level 25 (or page 50, here) you get to the journey and the meat of the story, then at some point it becomes work. Not fun anymore, you just want to get to the end and see what happens. At more than one point, I actually felt like the 60-70 level grind through the Burning Crusade and like when I just about gave up Warcraft, this was literally the hardest book I have actually finished. One other minor thing, such as one other night over the one I chose to read this, I would have given up.

Who would I recommend this to? Actually a lot of people, as i said in the beginning, this is a book that in all aspects is great: its just there is something missing in the sum of all the parts. Literally, I loved everything about it, except reading it. It may be the translation that sucks. So let's start with who I would not recommend it to, that list is shorter. The casual reader probably should skip this. If you like weird mind screws like two men getting flogged in a vault, it is a great scene early on, then you would like this, it only gets better from there, as Josef starts to descend into the plot.

It is strange to say, this is the only book I would that I am proud that I finished, and will definitely pick up some more of his work especially Metamorphosis, and the Castle. I have I feeling that it will be well worth it, like Wrath of the Lich King made all the work of Burning Crusade worth it. Send my regards to Cataclysm.

Block, the painter, and Leni among others, are strangers who understand the complications of Joseph K's case as well as the details of court operations. The story exist in a state of total chaos, characters come and go for no clear reason, out of the blue, women go crazy over Joseph and then changing on him for no reason, People show concern for him and then become completely indifferent to his plight and an accusation , that he doesn't understand, is made. Joseph doesn't know if it's a crazy nightmare or reality.

The court that has access to any information or place at any time and holds the divine authority to decide everybody's destiny, still conducts its business in weird, dark and suspicious places. Is the court a symbol of the unaccountable bureaucracy that Kafka witnessed or was it the inner world of alienation that Kafka experienced all of his life? Was the first building that Joseph went to for the first court meeting merely a strange, empty, dark place or was it a maze that symbolizes a corrupt society?

When the prison chaplain comments: "...it is not necessary to accept everything as true, one must only accept it as necessary", did he refer to the corrupted legal system or to the crazy world as Kafka saw it?

What does Fraulein Burstner symbolize in Joseph's life? What is the significance of her sudden vague appearance at the end? was she the last connection to life in Joseph's eyes?

Why didn't Joseph fight the two men at the end? Had he given up and wanted to end his emotional torment or was it his longing to discover the ultimate truth?

As is typical of Kafka's works, there are many unanswered questions, but the journey through his works is outstanding and complex. It isn't called Kafkaesque for nothing.

unlike critics who would say that this novel was never finished, I believe that Kafka finished this novel and made the characters and events as random and confusing as possible. Reading the Trial, another Kafka masterpiece, is certainly time well spent.

The 4 star review for this book is, actually, for Kafka, not the translation. I've read some pretty bad reviews of The Trial's several editions; I think anyone attempting to start their Kafka experience with this novel would give it a terrible review. The text is rough, and of course incomplete, since Kafka never finished a full novel. If one reads his novella The Metamorphosis (one of his longer stories which was published in his lifetime), we can see where he may have gone back and edited The Trial. The story is very compelling, though, and evokes an age which is somewhat parallel to ours...simply that many things go on behind the scenes and outside our field of view, and situations may arise in which we have no idea why we are going through them. The first sentence of The Trial evokes this...we have no idea why Josef K. is being arrested...it's unimportant to the novel. The important part is that he believes he never broke the Law, so we must believe him through his trial experience.

Since I've had experience with the old Muir translations of Kafka's works, I can say that this translation is so much easier to read. German is often treated to a ham-fisted English translation and warrants a certain amount of expression on the part of the translator; this one reads very easily, as if it were written in English to begin with. To conclude, this book would be a great one to get into the mind of Kafka, since it is fragmentary and not yet subject to revision which would undoubtedly have occurred had he not died in 1924. The very helpful translator's preface as well as the incomplete fragments of chapters in the back also aid this in-depth look.