Unsettling but unputdownable (The Trial - Franz Kafka)

Member Name: JohnC1977

Product:	The Trial - Franz Kafka
Date:	26/07/08 (12 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A horryfying vision of bueraucracy

Disadvantages: Downright depressing

I don't think Kafka is ever an easy read. I always think of "The Trial" as "Catch-22 without any humour". It is a hard going tale about a man who makes up morning to find he has been accused of a crime. He just doesn't know what the crime is. Suddenly he finds himself in a bizarre world of red tape and bueraucracy trying to prove his innocence and get out of the nightmare world he has been dropped into. Note the parallels to Catch-22, that had a very similar concept - the bizarre way of the world is designed to keep the protagonist down. However the latter has a reassuring element of the absurd to keep the reader entertained. Something Kafka doesn't employ. If you laugh during this book, it is a dull humourless laugh at the helplessness that the protagonist, Josef K, feels. There is nothing he can do to escape from this nightmare world (or is there?) and the net slowly tightens on him. A very unsettling read, like having a fly on your eyelids while you're trying to sleep

Summary: A must read