The Trial

De: Franz Kafka

Narrado por: Geoffrey Howard

Josef K. is an employee at a bank, an Everyman without any particular qualities or ambitions. His inconsequence makes doubly strange his "arrest" by an officer of the court, made with no formal charges or explanation.

Disoriented and consumed with guilt for a "crime" he does not understand, Josef K. must justify his life to a "court" with which he cannot communicate. The defendant can only ask questions, but receives no answers to clarify the surreal world in which he is compelled to wander.

Through the court's relentless bureaucratic proceedings and absurd juxtapositions of different hypotheses of cause and effect, the whole rational structure of the world is undermined. The trial of Josef K. becomes a chilling existential metaphor for life itself, where every sentence is a sentence of death.

©1998 Schocken Books, Inc. (P)1998 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Reseñas de la Crítica

"Howard's British accent and deep monotone set the proper dark tone for the book....Howard acts as our intellectual guide by emphasizing key passages and marking them as worthy of interpretation and discussion." ( AudioFile)

What?

Although not sure I understood all the symbolism of this book, reading it felt stifling and nightmarish insofar as I felt lost to understand why K was on trial and finally what became of his case. Still, I enjoyed it and hope to listen again for greater insight.

Good reading overall

A little disappointed that the ending was given away in the preface. The preface was listed under chapter 1, which made it difficult to skip ahead.

Gut punch in the best way possible

There is so much about society and religion that this goes into that I love. Cannot recommend it enough

dangers of a police state

I doubt that I can add much to what's been written about this book. I had thought that I had read all of Kafka's works, but somehow I had missed this cornerstone.

There are times when we feel that everyone else knows something, but we're somehow in the dark. Perhaps it's the halftime flash which our disinterest kept us from seeing. These times are even more sinister when the knowledge pertains to us. Perhaps our co-workers know we're being let go. Perhaps our prospective employers are getting negative reports behind our backs. This story is that paranoia on steroids: somehow almost all of society is part of an obscure police state and everyone around us is playing a role while we naively carry on with our achievements and status--winning the wrong game.

K evinces inviolability and rightness, yet the machinery of the omnipresent police state continues to draw the noose. Like Eugene Ionesco's Rhinoceros, all are converting and turning, or perhaps unseen were already changed. Now it is K's turn and his choices lead impotently toward dissolution.

I can see why people liken Invitation to a Beheading to this book, but they are dramatically different. Both are absurd and surrealistic, but Nabokov's is bright balls and circus absurdity with almost everything out in the open. Kafka's is a nightmare absurdity of dark hallways, dead ends, false hopes, and entrapping sirens.

As to this recording, there are odd splices of another voice occasionally, but otherwise, the narration is quite good.

interesting but..

Interesting story but I must admit I don't get the reverence for this book. Seems the whole draw to the book is the fact the charges against K are never given. I suspect the charges against K are some connection to original sin ? As for the performance, the narrator's voice seemed to fit the story quite well but I did find the add-on voice overs of translation add on's distracting.