Verdict: A tome of existentialist tripe so bleak and pointless there isn’t even a trial.

There comes a point in the evolution all art; visual, literary, musical, wherein those who create it eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil and become too self aware. ‘Look at this medium,’ they proclaim. ‘We have been following rules, society imposed rules limiting what our work can be, limiting what *we* can be!’ It shines suddenly and clearly before them, conventions that were never questioned are suddenly dissolved, exploded. The artist is then free to write, to draw, to compose with a clear head and a fresh soul. It is this Übermensch moment that led Duchamp to graffiti an upturned urinal and display it in the Academy. It is what led to the design of the Barbican. It is what led Kafka to write The Trial. It is a horrible, horrible moment.

I won’t mince words; I loathe this book. It manages to be all the worst parts of self-indulgent, self-effacing, ponderous and pointless. It is a hateful book. This too was forced upon by the Texas Independent School District as part of their on-going campaign to Stop Kids Reading. Up until then I had read only decent books and it was a shock to realize any crap could be a classic as long the author was foreign and the subject was avant garde. The Trial isn’t so much a story as a needlessly complicated suicide note.

A man is informed he is on trial, but not for what. Throughout the chapters he is gradually (and by his own stupid volition) separated from his friends and family. Each chapter he meets a set of unsettling people and they talk mildly depressing gibberish before disappearing from the story forever. At the end, the main character ends up in some sort of newly surreal, inexplicable and unexplained hall of light where he dies in a similar fashion. I’d call that a spoiler but there was never really another way for this book to go. There is no trial. That, more than anything really pissed me off.

Nothing occurs in this book. It’s just a collage of conversations Franz has had with the nihilistic voices in his head. They should have been put down in a diary and read by a reputable psychoanalyst, not published in 37 languages and crammed down the maw of 16 year olds. God is dead. Choice is an illusion. Reason and logic are comforting lies we tell ourselves and death is the only certainty. This is nothing we hadn’t heard before from My Chemical Romance so why our teachers thought we needed additional reasons to cut ourselves and go overboard on eye-makeup I’ll never know. Existentialism is and forever will be a dirty word to me and The Trial gets a 1.

#26
TitletThe Trial by Franz Kafka
WhentAutumn 2002
WhytRead for sophomore English
Ratingt1

تخيل معي للحظة أن ماكس برود -ناشر كتب كافكا ‏
قد قام بحرق جميع كتبه بناءً على وصيته‏
هل كان ممكنًا لعالم القراء تخيل مكتبة كونية
‏ لا تحوي خلاصة الكافاكاوية بها ؟
إن طلب كافكا المجنون ببساطة يستكمل رحلته الحياتية ‏
وفلسفته الخاصة كما يليق بها كروح عدمية ‏
وما فعله ماكس برود – ليرقد في سلام أينما كان ‏
هو ما يليق بكاتب عظيم وروح شفافة‏
‏ كان ليخلو عالم الأدب منها إن نفذ تلك الوصية

;;;;;;;;

n
ذهب القفص يبحث عن عصفور
!
ـــــــــــــــ
n

n
تتناول الرواية الشهيرة مشكلة السلطة العليا
وقد أولها الكثيرون إلى الأب الذي عانى منه ومعه البائس فرانز لآخر نفس
كان كافكا ينظر إلى نفسه من خلال عيني أبيه
كما في العلاقة التي بين السيد والعبد
كافكا لا يتمرد في الحقيقة ‏
إنه يختبئ ويخاف ويكره
ويفرز أوجاعه أدبًا عجيب التكوين‏
لقد أوصله هذا الخوف –بجانب أسباب أخرى إلى تحقير للذات مستمر ومتنامي
وكل مرة كانت هناك حادثة مع السلطة
يجعل كافكا من نفسه المخطئ لا غيره‏
‏-يظهر ذلك بوضوح في المسخ

;;;;;;;;

تبدو المدينة غائمة ،،باردة
غارقة في الضباب والكآبة

يستيقظ (ك) ليجد رجالًا غرباء يدورون حوله
لقد قبض عليك
لماذا؟
لا أحد يجيب
وبرغم أن ك يعترض إلا أنه يسايرهم
بلا قاضي ولا تهمة تستمر أحداث الرواية
و ك مع الوقت يتحول

إنه يبدو في البداية مثابرًا على المحاولة‏
أن يعرف لما يدان
لما يحال إلى هذه المحاكمة العبثية
ومع اقتراب النهاية يتحول ك إلى الاستسلام
لم يعد يبالي بشيء

n
مشى بصرامة بينهما(جلاديه)‏
وشكل ثلاثتهم كيانًا واحدا
وكان كيانا يمكن له أن يتشكل فقط من انعدام الحياة
ـــــــــــــــ
n

n
;;;;;;;;

n
عند غرس المدية في رقبته بدا الأمر وكأن خزيه سيستمر بعد موته ‏
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n

n

" هذا السطر الأخير يصيبني بالقشعريرة"

المحاكمة إن لم تكن رواية نفسية ،،فكيف يمكن للرواية النفسية أن تكون؟؟
استدعى كافكا الرعب الداخلي إلى الخارج مجسمًا وحيَّا ‏

يظهر الاغتراب في أدبه جليًا
تخرج حكاياته المبهرة من لاشعوره مكتنفة بالغموض‏

لقد برع كافكا دومًا في تصوير الانفعالات البشرية
الأكثر سوداوية ،،وعمقًا ،،وحيوانية‏
القلق ،،الرعب،،الشعور المتأصل بالدونية،،العزلة
احتقار الذات،،احتقار السلطة والخوف منها في الوقت ذاته‏

تمت ترجمة المحاكمة إلى تأويلات لا حصر لها ‏
منها هذا التأويل العجيب الذي رأى الرواية يكمن فيها ‏
شذوذ جنسي يتوق الكاتب فيه لممارسته مع أمه!!‏

ربما أفضل تفسير للرواية يرتبط بتحليل‏
‏ شخصية كافكا نفسها- أو ما نستطيع الامساك به لتحليله منها ‏
نظرة كافكا إلى العالم تنبع من نظرته إلى نفسه

والمشكلة الكبرى هي :‏
كافكا لا يجد في نفسه ما يجعله يقتنع بأنه أهلًا للحياة ‏

;;;;;;;;

لقد عبر كافكا عن العبثية في الرواية كما لم يفعل قبلًأ
ويقال أنه ضحك بهستيريا حينما كان يقرأ صفحات المحاكمة على بعض من أصدقائه

n
غرز الرجل الساطور عميقًا في قلبه ولفه مرتين
كما يموت الكلب-قال ك
n

n
ـــــــــــــــ
كتب كافكا في يومياته أنه يعتبر الحرف
K
‏ مقززا مثيرا للاشمئزاز
‏ ومع ذلك أصر على استخدامه في الرواية نعتا واسما لبطله المعذب‏

هذا بالضبط ما أحاول قوله
هذا هو كافكا

This novel is a bleak parody of the legal system, or bureaucracy in general, or even life itself, depending on the reader's interpretation. The shadow of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment does hover above this novel with its philosophical metaphors.

It is said that the description of the protagonist's bizarre experiences with the law was inspired by an actual legal case in which Kafka was involved in. I don't doubt that absurdities of the strangest kind did and still do exist even in democratic countries, let alone authoritarian regimes.

On the whole, I didn't enjoy this novel quite as much as I did The Metamorphosis. The writing seems to drone on and on. None of the characters moves me. Hence 3 stars. I do feel bad about giving a classic 3 stars.

I will be honest here and say that this went over my head.

I'm not sure why, but I had a hard time getting into the story and understanding what was really going on. I fell like I was a little dazed reading this.

I think I really enjoy reading books like this where there is a lot of metaphor that isn't really explained in a group setting with people who sorta get stuff like this. I enjoy the conversation and then beginning to understand the text more. It's less fun by myself. I have been over-stimulated mentally with school and I do well with fun and funny material, but the series stuff I used to enjoy, well... I just sort of don't take it in as much right now. I hope that changes.

I do appreciate the genius of Kafka's writing and the artistry he brings, but honestly, I didn't enjoy this story. It was weird and it didn't feel like much happened. I take pride in the fact that I did read this and I'm happy about that. I doubt I will ever read it again, though. I enjoyed the Metamorphoses much better.

I'll let someone else describe the story who has a better grasp on it than me. It is nice to read outside my genre now and then.

n  [Updated on September 19, 2023 following the release of the 4K restoration of Orson Welles’ 1962 adaptation of The Trial by The Criterion Collection]n

n  ‘......You’re under arrest all right, but not the way a thief would be. If you’re arrested like a thief, that’s bad, but this arrest - it seems like something scholarly, I’m sorry if that sounds stupid, but it seems like something scholarly that I don’t understand….’n

What makes The Trial a quintessentially Kafkaesque book? Why does it still appeal to us? Stripped bare of its adornments, it is a story of Josef K.’s struggle against an unknown tyrannical force and the inescapable clutches of a faceless bureaucracy. However, it’s much more than that. It deals with themes of religion, estrangement, judgment, guilt, absolutism and helplessness. Kafka is notoriously difficult to pin down. The arbitrariness with which the system of justice operates in The Trial, has a deceiving - albeit fleeting - resemblance to ordinary-everyday life. But this resemblance is transitory. It’s elusive. Just when you thought you understood what’s going on, Kafka lapses into obscurity again.

It’s frivolous to focus on the usual elements of character building or a plot with a Kafka book. In fact, like his great story, The Metamorphosis, in The Trial too, the entire plot is summarized neatly in the first sentence of the first chapter. Kafka’s chief instruments in rendering his world are preposterous characters that approach the bizarre world they inhabit with absolute seriousness. However, in a paradox of sorts, their discontent is farcical in nature, and they don’t object to the inconceivable with fervour. The arrest and trial of K., supposedly a matter of primary importance, is a rather murky and enigmatic silhouette throughout the book.





Hidden beneath piles upon piles of absurd and nightmarish scenarios, is the surreal and exasperating modus operandi of those deemed fit enough to judge. The single most consuming purpose of the convoluted and impregnable legal system, is merely self-preservation. The futility and disorienting nature of K.’s trial makes his exoneration or conviction a trifle - a banality. Like Kafka’s other novel, The Castle, there is some authority somewhere that needs to be appeased. But frustratingly, we’re never fully acquainted with this authority. What we get to meet instead are low-level functionaries of the system. As K. put it,

n  'The higher judges stay in hiding. But yet the examining magistrate is sitting on a throne'. n

With every read, you might come out with a different interpretation of The Trial. It’s almost as if Kafka loves the inconclusive essence of his books. In a quest to understand the nonsensical predicament of Joseph K., there are a lot of questions asked, but none of them are answered with great certainty. As Vladimir Nabokov once said;

n‘Franz Kafka’s private nightmare was that the central human character belongs to the same private fantastic world as the inhuman characters around him. But pathetically and tragically, he struggles to get out of that world into humans - and dies in despair.’

In 1962 Orson Welles wrote, directed and acted in a film adaptation of Kafka’s The Trial. Even though Welles considered the film to be the best film he has ever made, it polarized critics and audiences alike upon release. Today, the film is seen as one of the greatest cinematic achievements of the 20th century. Since its release, it has gone through restorations, the latest of which is a 4K restoration by The Criterion Collection on September 19, 2023. Writing for The New Yorker, film critic Richard Brody wrote of Welles’ adaptation of The Trial

n  ‘’ It is his most original and visually extravagant work...... Josef K. needs to justify himself in a universe that accuses him of everything and nothing. K. (played by Anthony Perkins), is put under arrest for an unspecified offence and hauled before a tribunal run by a hectoring inquisitor in front of a braying crowd. The film is a cinematic surrealism in which the action follows a dream like logic that’s both natural and ridiculous, and in which the course of events follows the horrific tonalities of a nightmare’’ n

Indeed, the film magnificently recreates the claustrophobic and hyperbolic milieu of the novel to a tee. It is a marvellous feat of set design, directing, acting, lighting and screenwriting. Welles remained true to most of Kafka’s original work, while being faithful to his own cinematic artistry and delivering an authentic vision of Kafka’s disordered world. As such, it serves as a perfect visual companion to the book.

Look at Joseph K., a bank officer living in a country with a constitution. He wakes up one day with strange men in his apartment telling him he's under arrest. Why or for what offense, no one knows. The arresting officers themselves don't know and can't tell him. Even if he's under arrest, however, no one picks him up or locks him in jail. He can still go to his office, work, perform his customary daily chores, and do whatever he wants to do as he awaits his trial. But he is understandably anxious and worried. He is, after all, charged with an unknown but very grave offense. He has a criminal case. He is an accused. He is under arrest.

For this problem he consults so many. He gets a lawyer. His uncle comes to his aid. He talks with his lawyer's other client--also charged and under arrest like him. He consults other people, a painter (who is said to know the "Court"), some women, a priest, etc. about his case. But no one can tell him what the charge is and what his sentence will be. The "Examining Magistrate," the "Judges," the "Court," the proceedings/ trial, and even the "Law" itself--they all seem to be unsolvable enigmas.

Now, look at yourself. You were born or made to exist without your consent. You live, you do whatever comes to your mind worth doing, you marry or stay single, maybe you've married already and are raising a family, you may be living a life of fame or anonymity, amassing riches or just getting by, happy or sad. But the whys and wherefores of all these, why you're here in the first place, why you're doing whatever it is you're doing, if you have a purpose or was just an accident, if you will outlive your physical death, see God or see darkness, witness corrective justice for all the wrongs you've witnessed or heard about--all these you do not know and never will know. Sometimes you'd think, with all these uncertainties and frightful unknowns it would have been better that you did not exist at all. But you had no choice. You're condemned to this life and had been charged. You can't "not exist" and escape. You are under arrest.

So you seek help. You'll try religion, common sense, reason, study the affairs of men, look back in history, see what the living and dead prophets and philosophers have to say, pray to God and his saints, ask Oprah, google your questions, but all these offer no certitude. Then, you will still die, and you would die bewildered and afraid and, like the death of Joseph K. himself in this novel, your death will be no different from that of a dog--

"...Then one of them opened his frock coat and out of a sheath that hung from a belt girt round his waistcoat drew a long, thin, double-edged butcher's knife, held it up, and tested the cutting edges in the moonlight. Once more the odious courtesies began, the first handed the knife across K. to the second, who handed it across K. back again to the first. K. now perceived clearly that he was supposed to seize the knife himself, as it traveled from hand to hand above him, and plunge it into his own breast. But he did not do so, he merely turned his head, which was still free to move, and gazed around him. He could not completely rise to the occasion, he could not relieve the officials of all their tasks; the responsibility for this last failure of his lay with him who had not left him the remnant of strength necessary for the deed. His glance fell on the top story of the house adjoining the quarry. With a flicker as of a light going up, the casements of a window there suddenly flew open; a human figure, faint and insubstantial at that distance and that height, leaned abruptly far forward and stretched both arms still farther. Who was it? A friend? A good man? Someone who sympathized? Someone who wanted to help? Was it one person only? Or was it mankind? Was help at hand? Were there arguments in his favor that had been overlooked? Of course there must be. Logic is doubtless unshakable, bit it cannot withstand a man who wants to go on living. Where was the Judge whom he had never seen? Where was the High Court, to which he had never penetrated? He raised his hands and spread out all his fingers.

"But the hands of one of the partners were already at K.'s throat, while the other thrust the knife deep into his heart and turned it there twice. With failing eyes K. could still see the two of them immediately before him, cheek leaning against cheek, watching the final act. 'Like a dog!' he said; it was as if the shame of it must outlive him."

A must read for the insanely delirious ones: those who live without thinking and therefore unaware that they, too, are indicted and are under arrest.

3.5

- النسخة التي لدي تتألف من 816 صفحة تنقسم لثلاثة اجزاء:
الجزء الأول :المحاكمة: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

الجزء الثاني: دراسات: اطلعت عليها بشكل سريع وهي تعرض التفسيرات المختلفة لرواية المحاكمة، كيفية نشوء الرواية، عملية كتابتها وآراء الكتاب.

الجزء الثالث:المحاكمة الصحيحة: تسلسل الفصول (مدار خلاف الى يومنا)،التفسير النفسي للرواية، وشرح مفصل لمفاصل الرواية (ايضاً اطلعت عليها بشكل سريع)، ومراسلات بين عائلة المترجم وكريستسان اشفايلر

الجزء الرابع: من سيرة حياة كافكا وتلقي آثاره في العالم.

هذه المجموعة من ترجمة ابراهيم وطفي بحر من المعلومات والتقارير والدراسات لمن اراد التعمق في كافكا.

خون در زمین فرو نرفت. روی زمین پخش شد،
از زیر هر سنگ جوشید و جوشید و به راه افتاد.
هرکس آن را می‌دید می‌فهمید جایی «بی‌گناهی» را کشته‌اند.

سوگ سیاوش - شاهرخ مسکوب

Has this ever happened to you? You're chugging your way through a book at a decent pace, it's down to the last legs, you've decided on the good ol' four star rating, it's true that it had some really good parts but ultimately you can't say that it was particularly amazing. And all of the sudden the last part slams into your face, you're knocked sprawling on your ass by the weight of the words spiraling around your head in a merry go round of pure literary power, and you swear the book is whispering 'You know nothing, you snot nosed brat' through its pages of magnificence as the author leaves you far behind.

If you haven't, read this book. If you have, and crave more of the same, see the previous.

Now, what did the Goodreads summary call this book again? 'A terrifying, psychological trip'. Yes, I suppose you could say that. I mean, it is terrifying, it is psychological, and it makes for one hell of a ride. But, you see, those three words strung together convey the sense of otherworldliness, some diabolical satire that's made a nightmare of a reality that's usually pretty good about behaving itself. The problem with that is the fact that this story adheres more closely to reality than most books dare to dream of doing. There's no phantasmagorical twisting of the entire face of reality. This is reality. And it needs no aid in inspiring the most abject of terror.

Arrests of innocents. Hazy procedures. Courts obscured by other courts. Files disappearing into the dark.

n  "I see," said K., nodding, "these books are probably law books, and it is an essential part of the justice dispensed here that you should be condemned not only in innocence but also in ignorance." "That must be it," said the woman, who had not quite understood him.n

Judgment determined by accusation rather than by trial.n  

"We are only being punished because you accused us; if you hadn't, nothing would have happened, not even if they had discovered what we did. Do you call that justice?

nGuilty until proven less guilty. Less guilty via the right connections rather than the right evidence. Innocence with an expiration date. Complaints about any of the previous injustices accelerating the inevitable, and for what? The hope that the future might be better? What difference will that make to you, the individual life currently at stake? The invisible pendulum will still be suspended over the more invisible pit, and your every forthright movement will still be swallowed in the obscurity of the Law, and nothing will result but a building sense of anxiety and despair.

Look at the Law of the past and more importantly the Law of the present, and tell me none of this applies, in the days where banks are 'too big' to be brought to justice and everything from the individual to the government is held hostage from a better tomorrow by the inane struggles of today.
n  

"No," said the priest, "it is not necessary to accept everything as true, one must only accept it as necessary."

nHistory repeats itself.
History repeats itself.
History fucking repeats itself.

Get it? Got it? Good.

Doing something about it is another matter entirely.

- قصة رمزية بكل جوانبها، ثقيلة ومتعبة جداً، قد يبدو ظاهرها عادياً لكنها تحتمل مئات التأويلات. لكن بمجملها تصل لنتيجة واحدة: غياب العدالة وغموضها. وهي على تعقيداتها قطعة فنية نادرة تظهر قدرة كافكا على الدفع بالرواية من دون خلق عقدة واضحة، ونسج الأحداث المتتالية بعبثية وكلما ازدادت الأحداث توسّع المعنى وزاد الغموض وتعددت التفسيرات!

المنظور الديني: اعتدت النظر الى روايات كافكا من زاوية دينية، لذلك سأبدأ من هذا المنظور اولاً رغم أن الرواية نفسها تتجنب الإشارات الدينية بشكل محدد (تعرج عليها بشكل رمزي) ويبرز ذلك في الفصل الثاني عشر (في الكاتدرائية)، حيث يتعاون كاهن السجن مع القضاء ويقدم محاضرة عن النظام القانوني وهذا ما يؤكد فساد السلطة الدينية وتحولها الى نظام محاكم حيث كبار المسؤولين (الكهنة الكبار) غير قادرين على التواصل مع الناس العاديين.

تمتلك المحكمة نصوصها المقدسة، مثلها مثل الدين، (وثائق المحكمة القديمة حول ا��قضايا السابقة) وكما هي الحال في النصوص الدينية، فإن وثائق المحكمة تتطلب طريقة تفسير خاصة، لكن إمكانيات التفسير يمكن أن تكون لامتناهية ومتناقضة وهذا ما نفهمه من تفسيرات كاهن المحكمة، الذي يبدو أنه يسعده أن يستنبط التفسيرات أكثر من مجرد التوصل إلى نتيجة نهائية. لكن كافكا يشبه كل هذه النصوص بالروايات الإباحية، فينسفها مجتمعة!

المنظور القانوني-الحياتي: (وهذا ما نعيشه في معظم عالمنا العربي حيث ان اي معاملة بسيطة ستلف وندور على عشرات المكاتب كي يتم توقيعها، ببروقراطية سمجة وتافهة الى ابعد الحدود). هذه البيروقراطية التي ينتقدها كافكا حولت يوزف "ك" من مواطن "شريف" الى انسان دوني وافسدته، فهو وخلال ملاحقة قضيته وازدياد همومه ضاجع كل من التقاهم، ولربما مضاجعة "لايني" بينما عمه يتوسّط له هي المثال الصارخ عما يفعله هذا النظام القضائي بتحويل الناس الى طريق الخطيئة والشر. تكتسب المحكمة طابع مميز وهو عفونة هوائها ورطوبته (ادى الى اغماء "ك"). في حين يبدو أن موظفي المحكمة يتعايشون مع هذا الجو! المفارقة هنا ان الهواء الذي لا وزن له هو رمز لتأثير النظام القضائي-الديني وامتداده وسيطرته في كل مكان!

المنظور الفلسفي: هل "ك" هو الإنسان نفسه؟ هل المحاكمة هي "المحاكمة الأخيرة"، هل القاضي الكبير والمحامين الكبار (الذين لم يراهم) هم الله والشفعاء في الآخرة؟.. ربما.. لا ادري

Μεγαλειώδες. Το δε προτελευταίο κεφάλαιο πρέπει να είναι από τα συναρπαστικότερα πράγματα που έχουν γραφτεί ποτέ.