The Trial by Franz Kafka (Book Review)

The Trial

by Franz Kafka

231 pages

Schocken Books, August 2011 (reprint)

philosophical fiction/dystopian fiction/absurdist fiction

Read in 9 days

My Rating: ★★★★

Amazon.com | BN.com

My Review: I had several reasons for wanting to read this book, besides always wanting to read a book written by Franz Kafka, I’ve seen the movie of The Trial and want to compare them to each other. If you’ve ever seen an Orson Welles movie you will understand how intrigued I was to see if what Orson visualized was, in fact, what Franz wrote down? I am pleased to report the strangeness of Orson Welles adaptation of The Trial appears to be spot on when it comes to peculiarities.

You must first understand that The Trial was originally written in German, printed in 1925, and translated dozens of time. A lot of the authors original intent for their piece of work can get lost when it’s been translated as many times as this masterpiece has been. For the sake of not knowing anything about Kafka and his works I did read the LONG introduction that came along with the book. It’s not required in order to read The Trial but it was helpful. For instance, the fact that the chapters have no numbers, just titles, because one of the main mix-ups with the many hands this work passed through is it lost the order with which it was intended to be presented in. It also was never actually finished by Kafka! This shocked me the most since it is known (next to Metamorphosis) as the best thing he’s ever written.

What I found most interesting about this book is how it can easily be used as an explanation for how so many millions of people just blindly went along with what happened over 15 years after this work was published! I’ve always wondered what went on in the minds of those who were persecuted against that they never rose up against the Nazis? Joseph K.’s reaction to his being “arrested” and put on trial for a crime he claimed innocence of, without ever knowing the charge, serves as the best singular example. Multiply his compliance and acceptance by millions and there is as best an answer as I can see.

I also question the meaning behind the friendships he so easily makes with the many women he encounters in this book. I noticed that the women seem to genuinely want to help while the male characters seem hesitant, not wanting to risk guilt by association.

If you are going to read this book there are just a few items I’d like to bring to your attention. When translating this work from German to English there were a few liberties the translators had to take. For one, the addition of commas. You never know just how crazy a run on sentence can get if you don’t add them! And let me tell you, these sentences can end up being a paragraph long at times! Something I noticed right away. And speaking of paragraphs, they are just as few and far between as the commas were before translation. I’m someone who, if I can’t finish on a chapter before I have to stop reading, I’d like to at least finish off whatever paragraph I’m on. That plan was not possible with this book. I do not fault the original writer (who has a far superior and brilliant mind than my own) nor do I fault the translator (who truly did work painstakingly in order to preserve the authors original intent). I fault myself for being so darn picky!

Read it, love it, and before you file it away on your list of “Classic Books I’ve Read” check out the movie! Directed by Orson Welles, who also co-stars in it, alongside the ever creepy Anthony Perkins (if you don’t recognize the name, just think of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho and you’ll know who I’m talking about).

Summary: This disturbing and vastly influential novel has been interpreted on many levels of structure and symbol; but most commentators agree that the book explores the themes of guilt, anxiety, and moral impotency in the face of some ambiguous force. Joseph K. is an employee in a bank, a man without particular qualities or abilities. He could be anyone, and in some ways he is everyone. His inconsequence makes doubly strange his arrest by the officer of the court in the large city where K. lives. He tries in vain to discover how he has aroused the suspicion of the court. His honesty is conventional; his sins, with Elsa the waitress, are conventional; and he has no striking or dangerous ambitions. He can only ask questions, and receives no answers that clarify the strange world of courts and court functionaries in which he is compelled to wander. The plight of Joseph K., consumed by guilt and condemned for a crime he does not understand by a court with which he cannot communicate, is a profound and disturbing image of man in the modern world. There are no formal charges, no procedures, and little information to guide the defendant. One of the most unsettling aspects of the novel is the continual juxtaposition of alternative hypotheses, multiple explanations, different interpretations of cause and effect, and the uncertainty it breeds. The whole rational structure of the world is undermined.

A respectable banker gets arrested and spends his life fighting a charge he can not get information about.

Monumental (2012) (Movie Review)

Title: Monumental: In Search of America’s National Treasure

Director: Duane Barnhart

Writers: Kevin Miller & Marshall Foster

Production Company: Pyro Pictures

In Theaters: March 27th, 2012

Run Time: 90 minutes

Color: Color

Starring: Kirk Cameron

Genre(s): documentary

Storyline: [Adapted from the trailer] The United States of America is the richest, freest nation the world has ever seen. But nowadays all signs point to the reality of a sickness in the soul of our country, and history tells us that we’re headed for disaster if we don’t change our course now.

The set of ideas that is being advanced and implemented in Washington at this time is terribly frightening to those who are students of history. If you look at the superpowers of history, every single one of them has called itself “exceptional.” If you look at the Roman empire, for instance, the parallels to what is going on in the U.S. are alarming. And the question is: Are we going to go down the right path ourselves, or continue blithely along the same wrong path down which so many nations in history’s dustbin have trod…?

In Monumental, producer/narrator Kirk Cameron retraces the footsteps of America’s founders to see if they left us some kind of a map that would guide us back to the foundation of America’s success. Typically when we think of the Pilgrims, we recall images from public-school history classes: pilgrims coming over the sea from England in funny black-and-white suits with big, goofy hats and belt buckles on their shoes. But in fact the Pilgrims were the radicals of their day, living outside the box that had been constructed by the British empire. The hardships they had to endure in starting a new life for themselves, in what to them was a newly discovered land, are incredible, and furnish a vital lesson for us today.

Sadly, our history has not just been forgotten; it’s been rewritten. Our historians and politicians no longer maintain our awareness of the founders’ beliefs and values, which resulted in America’s now-fading greatness. Sure, the Pilgrims emerged from a culture that retained slavery at the time—but it was the very faith and values of the Pilgrims and others like them that eventually eradicated slavery in first Britain and then the U.S.

Time is flying by too quickly, and our children’s futures won’t wait. We’ve got to do something now. Sometimes the only way forward … is to go back. There is nothing in today’s America that cannot be solved by a genuine going-back to the first principles held by the Founders. And that’s good news.

Our families are worth fighting for … aren’t they?

Movie Trailer:


My Review: This was a one night only event. When I first heard about it through Glenn Beck I knew I had to see it and take my mom with me. Due to my moms inability to sit in one place for a long period of time and her use of a car company that works on a tight schedule, we were unable to see this movie to the very end. I’m sure we would have been able to if the pre-show wasn’t so long. We would have planned better in that way. Otherwise, we saw about 80% of the movie and it was very educational. More than I had imagined.

I almost wished there were more light in the theater and I came equipped with a notebook and pen to take notes because that’s what the movie made me want to do. I vow to now visit the Founding Fathers Monument very soon so I can see for myself just how monumental it truly is. To know such a monument exists but not till this documentary did I ever hear of it astounds me! It should be discussed and be a school trip for everyone within a 300 mile radius of it!

If you don’t know about this monument I suggest doing your homework and there is no better place to start than this documentary. Kirk Cameron inspired me, not so much by the questions he asked, but by the facial reactions he had once he was told the answers and showed the proof. My shock was confirmed by the reactions of the rest of those in the theater as well. You think you know how we as a society were started? How the Pilgrims came to be here and how we formed from that journey? You have NO idea.

I recommend not only that you watch this movie but that you watch it with others. They may find it corny and unnecessary at first but once they hear the stories and see the proof (especially the part with David Barton) they will end up thanking you.

My Rating: A+

Will You…Run And Tell That?