Book-The Trial by Franz Kafka

OK, I will tell the truth here. I was not looking forward to this book. But it was on my list (the all powerful list) and so I picked it up. And was immediately entranced.

The Trial by Franz Kafka is so relevant to the here and now, it is astounding that it was written about 90 years ago. It tells the story of Joseph K., who wakes up one morning to find some officials in his apartment, there to arrest him. What authority they have to arrest him is not known...what charges he is being arrested under they know not, they merely know that they have the function to arrest him, and that the court the serve does not arrest men that do not deserve to be arrested.

Wow! Sound a little familiar?

That Kafka, a Czech born and German educated writer could see this unnamed judicial, national authority is amazing. But I guess totalitarianism has no time or place.

But we also wonder if this is all in Joseph K's mind, if the world really is so difficult to handle...there are hints that his world is only of his own making, a part of Kafka's existentialism.

I prefer to read it more dystopian the existential. A time when an unnamed authority can decide whether a man is guilty or innocent, not by the merits of his case, but by the whim, or need, of that authority to have guilt or innocence pronounced.

Either way, The Trial is a book that is much more accessible than I had thought, in fact very accessible. It speaks to modern life, as it must have spoken to Kafka in his day. And it is a piece that speaks out against authority, that speaks to the individual railing against the machinery of the bureaucrat. It is a voice of the individual against the government and the corporate. It is the voice of freedom against death.