The Trial
by Franz Kafka
I arrived home one Wednesday evening feeling more nihilistic than usual. I decided that I would try and curb the nihilism by involving myself in a fiction novel, one that would serve as a portal to temporarily escape from reality. I used to work in a bookstore and bought more books than I had time to read. Surely in the backlog of books I shelved I could find something that was fitting. After a few moments of obligatory scrutiny of every row I came across a book laying flat not on my bookshelf but on my dresser.
I had started the book awhile ago and for a myriad of reasons, I never got around to finishing it. Mostly because I had a vague understanding of the author’s style, and in passing have heard rumours of the supposed unanswered question of the book. If “curiosity killed the cat” then finishing this book would leave me dying without closure. I wasn’t confident that I was ready to put myself up to the conviction. Nonetheless, I hardly owned any fiction literature and this was one of the few that I had, not to mention already having started.
“Kafka,” I said as if to reaffirm my commitment to revisit the novel. I picked up the novel, flipped to the section I had bookmarked and started reading the first paragraph on the page. Not long after that, I conceded that I had an insufficient recollection of how the story started and began to start the book from page one.
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***PLOT & SPOILER ALERT***
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The opening of the book was like a hook that reeled you in with the sheer curiosity that screamed: “What on Earth happened!?” at the beginning and continued to ensue as the book progressed.
The story began with an abrupt assailment of Joseph K. (referred to as K. onward), a seemingly logical, proper man with a reputable position at a bank. Upon his wake, he was immediately apprehended for reasons unclear to him and by men unknown to him. As we read on, it doesn’t become clear to us why K. was arrested and was being tried. For the entirety of the book, it felt as if we, the readers, were led to experience the sort of perplexity and frustration that I imagine the character to be feeling as he tried to make sense of his situation. We follow K. through a multitude of his attempts to achieve “real acquittal” as he firmly declared himself innocent. Through his determination to prove his innocence he met a range of people who expressed to have an influence on the court. Despite his connections and a growing understanding of the judicial system of this dystopian society, K. was not making progress in defending his case. One connection led to the next until finally, K.’s moot venture resulted in his solidarity, his trial fell against him, and precisely one year after his arrest he succumbed to his conviction.
The plot was enthralling from the beginning until Chapter 8 when the chapter was left incomplete. After finishing the chapter and realizing we were not going to know what happened in the lawyer’s room, or what happened to the characters there, I felt like I was left to hang and dry. But there were still a few pages left and a couple more chapters to go. I held onto the hope that the ending was going to stimulate my imagination enough to make up for this unfinished story. However, it was clear as day that the remaining pages were written for only one purpose and it was to provide the story with an ending. An incredibly abrupt ending with way too many loose ends that haven’t been addressed. I felt like the ending had a strong potential to be more impactful had this been a completed work and we had more substance to fall back on. In sum, the storyline was captivating but I just wish the unwritten chapters between Chapter 8 and 9 were a part of the book. I suppose this is where “curiosity kills the cat” because this curiosity of the words unspoken will be the death of me.
Notwithstanding the above, it was not just the storyline and Kafka’s unique writing style that I found intriguing. It was the message embedded between the lines he wrote that is also worth noting.
K.’s crime was not explicitly communicated to the readers. But by the end of the book, I realized that it didn’t matter what his crime was. The entire court ordeal was instigated by an accusation by someone in the shadows that K. was guilty. It’s a downhill battle from there. Lower personnel of the law were subservient to the orders given or were otherwise immediately persecuted. Many didn’t actually know what happened and were just “doing their job.” Most court officials-- especially high-ranking officials of the court-- were inaccessible. Indignant authorities were more concerned with upholding a sort of reputation that will sustain their power than to carry out justice. Evidence favouring the defence hardly made a good case. In fact, it seemed like cognizance of one’s case only set the bed for a stronger guilty verdict in the end. To be free from the court is almost impossible-- although it is acknowledged that it is possible, it just doesn’t happen.
We see this happen every day. It doesn’t matter whether or not we did anything, as long as someone starts to plant the seed and accuse us, the narrative changes and we need to start defending our innocence. Is Kafka trying to tell us that this is the nature of being humans?
Favourite Part of the Book
Below is a snippet of my favourite part in the book where K. and the priest discussed deception through an old scripture (pp. 194-196):
The Verdict re: Recommendation
I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who is looking to indulge themselves in a classic fictional story. I would also recommend this book to philosophy aficionados. The story is relatively short and is easy to read. The underlying message eerily parallels our collective functions and provides great insight into how easily the truth is sometimes undermined.
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