The Trial - Franz Kafka BOOK REVIEW

Video Sponsored by Ridge Wallet. Check them out here: ridge.com/BETTERTHANFOOD
Use Code “BETTERTHANFOOD” for 10% off your order
Buy Book here:
amzn.to/2XAVIqT
SUPPORT / PATREON:
/ booksarebetterthanfood
Bookmark email:
[e-mail]
Jorjani on Kafka’s “The Trial”:
• Understanding The Tria...
INSTAGRAM: @booksarebetterthanfood
/ booksarebetterthanfood
MUG:
www.zazzle.com...
-------------------------------
PATRON ONLY REVIEWS:
Death in Midsummer by Yukio Mishima
/ 55759685
Holy the Firm by Annie Dillard
/ 53139833
The Key by Junichiro Tanizaki
/ 51134117
Platforms by Nina Power
/ 48914140
Consider This by Chuck Palahniuk
/ 45465524
Bookshelf Tour 2020:
Part 1: / 41287302
Part 2: / 42817306
Part 3: / 43783138
The Blind Owl by Sadegh Hedayat
/ 38823138
Margery Kempe by Robert Glück
/ 38645694
Transparent Things by Vladimir Nabokov
/ 37527267
The Lover by Marguerite Duras
/ 35574016
11 Books to be read in 2020:
/ 33921584
Atomic Habits by James Clear
/ 32697977
Too Loud a Solitude by Bohumil Hrabal
/ 30969884
The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene
/ 29515320
Reading is Expensive (A Rant)
/ 29065141
White by Bret Easton Ellis
/ 26771749
A Room on the Garden Side by Ernest Hemingway
/ 21573550
The Return by Roberto Bolaño
/ 21019229
Darkness Visible by William Styron
/ 20276630
"Blindness", an essay by Jorge Luis Borges
/ 19529985
The Alligator by John Updike
/ 18428537
The Diaries of Adam and Eve by Mark Twain
/ 17281418
Animal Crackers in My Soup by Charles Bukowski
/ 16924023
A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
/ 16133547

[@BetterThanFoodBookReviews]

Big thanks to Ridge for sending me this wallet and supporting the channel! Here’s the site if you want to check them out! > ridge.com/BETTERTHANFOOD

[@cletusjones9411]

The Trial seemed like an anxiety dream. Very slow and laborious read, but somehow stays with you after you’re finished with it.

[@sathwikabhinav3337]

Same! Not gonna lie I was so anxious while reading.

[@a-yam943]

I didn’t find it to be slow or laborious at all, quite the opposite, which is interesting.

[@marcopivetta7796]

it's not a hard read at all, stop lying

[@Késin_10.136]

It's not a hard read actually...but it is laborious.

[@kackljas]

My key to understanding Kafka was reading "The Stoker", included in a collection with other stories such as "The Metamorphosis", "A Country Doctor", "The Judgement", and "In The Penal Colony". I read it a few months before reading "The Trial", and the "lightbulb" moment of insight into Kafka's writing paved the way to getting more out of "The Trial" than I would have if I had read "The Trail" first. In "The Stoker", a man arrives on the shore of New York City from Europe on a boat. Upon exiting the ship, he realizes he left his umbrella behind. He leaves his suite case with a near stranger who he is not sure he can trust. On his way back to find his umbrella, his route gets blocked and he ends up lost trying to find where he left his umbrella. Upon reading this I remember thinking, "Oh, I've had this dream before!", except in more modern settings. It reminded my almost exactly of a dream I've had many times before, except with subtle variations. I get off a plane at the airport, but I remember I forgot my wallet. I try to get back on the plane to go get it, but I have to take a back route through some dark hallway, and when I finally find the plane, all the seats have been rearranged. Or, I'm trying to get on airplane, but I'm at the wrong gate, and my ticket's expired, so I have to go buy another ticket, but the ticket booth is at the top of an infinite series of escalators. Or, the dream I'm sure everyone's familiar with, it's the first day of school, and I have to get to a class, but I can't find the classroom and then I realize I forgot my class schedule print out so I don't even know what class I'm looking for. With the insight into Kafka gleaned from reading "The Stoker", I read "The Trial" as an extended version of the "I forgot my wallet on the airplane", "I can't get to my airplane", "I can't find the classroom for the class I can't remember enrolling in" dream world. The events unfold with a sort of "dream logic", where scenes unfold outside of the confines of the processes of cause and effect as experienced in the waking world, yet with elements of the waking world blended in. Reading "The Trial" from this perspective, the writing comes across as not so much a social or philosophical commentary, but more of an transcription of the subconscious mind; a dream world projection of guilt, desire, confinement, confusion, judgement, and trying to find that damn courtroom before the trial starts but no one said where it was.

[@adrianmatic9832]

I've read this one three times because I find it so funny. It's spooky but the ridiculousness of his circumstances make me laugh. It's like the court proceedings are run by internet trolls.

[@BBkiddz]

Same! So many gags. He investigates the court official's book and their pornos. Every girl throws themselves at him and makes him feel like he alone could save them, but they do that for every man. Even in the flogging chapter, the flogger is dressed like a dominatrix wearing leather everywhere but his arms, chest, and neck, yelling "strip!" hahahaha. Going through another reread now for a class.

[@ThoughtsOnFilm101]

Once I started seeing The Trial as an metaphor for social anxiety it became a much deeper and richer novel. Personally I find discussions about bureaucracy to miss the point.

[@anonanon334]

I see it as an allegory for the absurdity of life itself with the trial representing the ultimate trial before God with the Priest representing a court employee. Completely agree that it is missing the point to read it purely as a criticism of bureaucracy, a very simple and literal interpretation of a deeply complex book.

[@wonderwoman5528]

Have you got any evidence of sources to back your this theory!

[@powfoot4946]

@@anonanon334 definitely thought about this, especially with kafka's choice to use a painter and a priest. How often get backed into a corner in life, or are suddenly burdened with something with absolutely no choice but to face the music

[@jethrothelion7763]

​@anonanon334 THANK YOU I never see people talking about how the trial itself is the definition of the absurd and how it is explored throughout the text

[@gediminaskontrimas7992]

I first read Kafka's Trial in 1982, in Soviet Lithuania, after the KGB threatened me with death in Afghanistan. The sociocultural context of reading Trial was perfect.

[@yumchou]

I remember reading The Trial for German class back in school for a literature portfolio. You only know as much as Josef K knows, which is nothing at all, and that's what leaves you with an uneasy feeling that never fades, not even in the end. One wonders if he ever had a choice, and if he did, why he went along with it all. Well, maybe not the first pick for a reread, but definitely something to ponder.

[@nbyrd2579]

One of my favorite books of all time. I despise introductions that summarize the plot, something almost as frustrating as starting a book only to find out it was secretly abridged without announcing it on the cover or in the title.

[@Crowborn]

I don't know if this is a Brazil thing but here it's really common to have a plot summary inside the book's cover as a sales blurb. I despise that too. These editions have genuinely ruined amazing plot twists. Older books don't have that, thankfully

[@nbyrd2579]

They still somewhat summarize plots here in the US, on back covers and such but it’s usually just a set up summary and doesn’t give away the whole story

[@kasianfranmitja5298]

Its interesting with literature. I found this book to be one of the most exiting and scary books i have ever read, i really dont find any parts to be boring. But we are all different, which is lovely.

[@johnsailorsgoat]

My GOD I love The Trial! I loved the part where he visits the strange painter! (I think he was a painter or landlord) I would say read it again in a few years! Let us keep in mind too though that it is unfinished.

[@levitybooks3952]

I remember the Penguin Modern Classics foreword to The Trial doesn't really talk about the story at all, but instead digs up Kafka's romantic relationships in a way that just makes him seem very strange and unhappy. Not sure if it spoiled the plot if it did I intentionally skimmed it to try skip it!

[@marconepolo]

the trial kzbin.info/www/bejne/iXKce4eum7Sad80

[@anniecrawford2500]

Great review. I totally agree with the critique. This would be a total masterpiece if it were about half as long. Since Kafka wasn't writing for a publisher, I think he was venting his angst more than crafting the artwork when it comes to the over-wrought sentences and scenes.

[@jnobrega_9802]

Already read this book twice. One of my favorites of all times. Kisses from Brazil!

[@timkjazz]

One of the greatest novels ever, as important today as it was then.

[@shaneharrington3655]

Day off, wake up late, cup of tea, Better Than Food video drops - *chefs kiss*

[@nozecone]

Must be something in the zeitgeist - I just finished listening to it as an audiobook (a weird thing to fall asleep to!), and have watched half the 1993 movie - which is great, so far. I hate to say that it may the rare case of a movie actually being BETTER than the book - particularly in conveying K.'s ongoing anxiety about the trial. For instance, in the novel we are simply told that K. cannot concentrate on his work; in the movie, we see him sitting at his desk fretting, and feel some of his stress. Moving on: it strikes me that to regard The Trial merely, or primarily, as a 'critique of the [or a, or any] justice system' is to reduce it almost to insignificance - isn't it rather more - much more - about 'the human condition' (as you hint at with your Matrix reference, etc.)?

[@lostintime519]

Reading this book while living in another country as a migrant, is an experience.

[@TheR971]

Had to read it in Highschool (Switzerland). About 5 years ago. It was one of my favorite novels we had to read. It resonated on a deep level and when you were describing some of the scenes in passing I remembered the rooms and people as if I was there. Maybe it was my nervousness about the conscription that was upon me a few months later (yeah Switzerland is weird). But the complete dehumanization even the letter informing me of the conscription procedure had really made the book resonate. Also the writing is pretty lucid in the German original in my view.

[@BoredBookAddict]

Oh sweet. One of my personal favorite stories is The Metamorphosis.

[@batbite_]

K is actually for the kappa the Greeks tattooed on the forehead of false accusers - Joseph K accuses himself ;)

[@douloureux.]

Ohhh that’s a great detail!

[@batbite_]

@@douloureux. it's from Butler and Agamben's discussion on law here on KZbin

[@CommonSwense]

So annoying when they put major plot spoilers in an introduction.

[@welldonemovies]

Hahah great review I freaked out when you mentioned that David Lynch and Terry Gilliam are both Kafka-esque. I made a point in a review I wrote recently on my blog that Gilliam had Lynchian motifs in 12 Monkeys, his shooting style is even similar for the use of Dutch angles to evoke paranoia and claustophobia. Now you confirmed my take and gave me the reason why. Thanks!

[@paulomartins4246]

What a coincidence, I've finished this one a few weeks ago. And the book at it's peak moments is something so completely unique, definitely see why it's a classic

[@darrenbrown8952]

Ah, so stoked you watched the interview with Jorjani - that just enriched my experience of the book tenfold. It's personally one of my favorite books ever, I think it's a brilliantly actualized piece of creative expression, but I can understand your critique of it being bloated. However, for me, it just adds to the aesthetic quality of the novel, and I loved that aspect of his writing. But hey, that's just me :)

[@mohamedelbasuoney4484]

I loved everything about this video starting from the location and camera , and found it genuine and different and it was like i am sitting with you.

[@Dhips.]

Different strokes I suppose. I found it pretty engaging cover to cover.

[@cristinacamero3733]

I just went to see the 60 yr old remasterized Orson Wells movie... I felt the same you described reading the book. First time looking at your presentation, I really liked it I will continue following you

[@buendia87]

Altough it's pretty widespread to generally interpret Kafka's work as a critique on bureaucracy and alienation in the Modern Era, or as stories about the relationship between individuals and systems of power, if you read Kafka's diaries, I think the Trial really feels influenced by his private life, especially by his failed engagement with a woman at the time of writing the novel. It adds so many layers to his other books too. Also, it we talk about inspriration from Kafka we shouldn't forget the great Scottish post-punk band from the 80s, Josef K!:D

[@MR._OMAR_KING]

The trial was and is an interesting piece of literature by kafka. What a story. 🐻👍

[@sculamica4159]

I personally read the Romanian translation from German. It didn't feel heavy and it didn't lose me. I believe it's the translation that matters a lot. If there are any Romanians wanting to read The Trial, I recommend the Polirom book, translated by Gellu Naum.

[@thanoschedelstein3304]

The absurdly intricate and complicated sentences always were half the fun in reading Kafka for me. Took me some time and a good audiobook version to appreciate this though :) I can't speak to the English version, but might be worth checking out audible.

[@douloureux.]

THANK YOU i thought exactly the same, it took me 2 months to finish. I will try again in German

[@TioOlavoDoBaralho]

First time I read it, I was in highschool and it all just felt nightmarish and I didn’t get any of it; second time, I was in college and comprehended the confusion was intentional and supposed to highlight the absurdities of oppressive systems; third time was last week and I couldn’t help but laugh out loud at some parts, as I noticed satire emerge from the pages.

[@ethanfleisher1910]

As someone who finds the rise of a new technocratic bureaucratic class--you know, on top of the old bureaucratic class--absolutely terrifying on every level, The Trial is almost to disturbing to me to reread. I love Kafka, and most his works are just the right kind of dreamy and eerie, but this one hits so close to our reality and some of my own experiences with the legal system that I just... nah, hell no

[@ambermoon719]

I listened to the (more the true to Kafka) translation by Breon Mitchell, read by George Guidall and I thought the wording was quite basic. It felt transparent so I was mostly swept up in the visual story except for on occasion a set of words would hit me in the head and crack me up. 😂 I found it had more symbolic than literal meaning in so many ways. In fact, I think the guys who killed him were ordinary burglars, not even part of The Law. He just assumed they were so he went with them. Kinda a you create your own reality by your perceptions and obsessions thing. This was really obvious in the conversation with the priest and the reading and analysis of the parable, Entry To The Law, or whatever it was called. That parable needs to be studied and the conversation with the priest relistened to to really get the meaning of the book (I think, in my humble opinion).

[@BifBoombah]

Hey there buddy, says on the cover of the book you're holding at 16:04 "A New Translation Based On The Restored Text" - just thought I'd mention it cuz at 20:57 you say: "I don't know if there's a different translation other than the one I've read though, so if somebody (but I haven't really done any research) so if somebody knows a different one, or a better one, or somethin', hit me up." The original 1937 translation by Willa and Edwin Muir I found to be quite the gut buster. It got me into Kafka. I bought a new translation in 1992 by Breon Mitchell and was really looking forward to reading it but was so bored and frustrated I couldn't finish it. It was amazing how flat it fell. It was like watching someone with no sense of humor trying to retell this hilarious joke and just screwing it up completely . And then it struck me that at least I had read the good version first, what of the poor unfortunates who might be introduced to Kafka by this abomination only to be immediately turned off and thereafter proclaim he's over rated? That's the copy you have.

[@Crowborn]

I'd love to see a Better Than Food edition of The Trial. Snip snip!

[@fyodordostoevsky4290]

Hello from East Europe, I follow your channel for some years now, and I really enjoy your book reviews and your charisma, anyway, I would humbly suggest you try out one of our best writers at the moment, a true genius in my opinion, Mircea Cartarescu, and specifically one of his beautiful beautiful beautiful novels "Solenoid". Magic realism at its finest. Truly beautiful art. I guarantee, if you manage to find a good translation, that you will become a fan. Cheers and I wish you the best.

[@ujakshisharma4141]

I found trial like a fever dream and this was my introduction to kafka It's very odd , but I found myself comforting K. at his frustrations at the system with the overused phrase that's how it happens.have i surrendered to system?

[@duuufy]

I really have to disagree with you on this review and I even think you didn't understand a core concept of the book. I don't think it's mainly a criticism of bureaucracy and the system of law, as far as I remember (and it's sadly been quite some since I've read the novel), it's more an exploration of the impotence of men (not in a sexual way). And.. as with pretty much all Stories of Kafka, surely related to Kafka himself. I think the Parable "Before the Law/Vor dem Gesetz" which is part of the novel is an extremely important piece to understand the whole story and meaning. Josef K is almost complacant in the whole procedure and he himself pretty much enables the Trial to go forth. It's this impotence and surrender towards "higher powers" that's in my opinion the most important aspect. K. only tries to fight his Trial within it's own unlogical and "kafkaesque" rules and regulations.

[@saulorocha3755]

My brother in law couldn’t read it through. I enjoyed it immensely. People misread it trying to read like a regular justice trial when it is in reality an allegory (like all Kafka’s books). Josef K’s guilt appears not in Court but in his attitude to his family and people surrounding him that the reader has to catch, and this is what the priest in the cathedral tries to show him. Also an important aspect of the allegory is that everything around the process has a theatrical element, that is repeatedly remarked in the story until the end.

[@brunaoliveira4941]

I don't know if it is a translation problem because I'm brazilian, I've read in portuguese, and felt the same way.

[@r3lativ]

I think you missed the whole metaphor of the book. It's not about the legal system or bureaucracy. It's a satire of religion. K has an incurable illness and he thinks it must be for some reason (or sin) -- so he interprets the whole thing as a trial and tries to figure out what his crime was, while in fact there's no crime or reason behind his illness. That's why he's free to go after being "accused", that's why he's never brought before the judge. He's not actually being accused of anything, he's just informed about his illness, and that things are not looking good. The "judicial" establishment he gets caught up in is actually the medical system trying to help him, but he insists to interpret his situation in terms of blame and sin. "Why do terrible things sometimes happen to good people?" There's no reason, but K wouldn't accept that. He's not being sacrificed or deliberately killed at the end, he dies in a failed surgery, the last attempt they make to save him.

[@Laocoon283]

Wait you said it was a satire on religion but then described it as a medical satire lol. Your right he's defintley missed the metaphor but the incurable illness that he has is not a medical one it's a spiritual one. It's a metaphor for the struggle to overcome ones own immorality before you meet your maker. Hence all the sexual impropriety scenes(that's moral shortcoming he has to overcome).

[@SesameCake]

I've got a fair amount of spoilers in the translators introductions to books. Brothers Karamazov and Fathers and Sons endings were almost plainly told, which makes no sense. From then on, I've skipped dense introductions. Also, Jason Jeza Jorjani also has some excellent discussions with Jeffrey Mishlove about Zarathustra.

[@gabrielalfaia8154]

Whatever is read about a kafka book, is completly different from actually reading it. Reading The trial feels like you got drunk but you also need to do your taxes.

[@joseareyano2932]

Isn't Jason Reza an alt-right figure, really close friend of Richard Spencer? Just asking.

[@Desperation--Live]

You should check the 2019 movie 'The Lighthouse' out

[@gerrymacca1981]

From Belfast. Been watching your videos for a good 5 or 6 years now...thanks for the content!... I do find you are way more critical this last while on books. Is it because they are recommdations and not books of your own choosing?

[@helios3662]

does anyone know the concept of levi strauss he's talking about?

[@richdubbya]

Im currently reading it.. I think Im getting it. It's based on the bureacracy being a type of prison sentence for his belief of him living a daft restraint life.. And the actions done awaiting his trial bringing shame. Elsa, Leni, etc. I think.. But in order to get it, you gotta know about Kafka..

[@quinnsine1650]

What translation did you read? A lot of people dislike the ending for being abrupt - it was actually written alongside the first chapter, not after the second last. I for one love the final chapter, frankly, neither the castle nor the trial function well as stories in anyway. I think they get their power from being so un-story like, but I think the inability to weave a proper, conventional narrative, is what led Kafka to abandon his novels. Edit: the translation you read is probably the best translation you could get your hands on. So unfortunately you’re fucked on that front.

[@quinnsine1650]

I just want to say that I had the same experience with The Trial. My second reading (where I had since read all of his short stories, mind you) felt much more fruitful.

[@MyFakeIronTrees]

I really enjoyed Mike Mitchell’s translation of The Trial (Oxford World’s Classics). I don’t speak German though, so I don’t know how accurate it is.

[@davidantas5458]

I’ve read the Trial in German and idk, it was not easy. German sentences tend to be already long and complex; Kafka does not make it easier with his writing style. The book though really paid of the struggle for me. I can totally empathize with the main character and the book probably will never get out of my mind.

[@TH3F4LC0Nx]

Wow, what a coincidence; I literally just reviewed The Metamorphosis yesterday! As for The Trial, I kinda liked it. Like, I don't really think I truly "got" everything about it (or maybe anything about it), but it was definitely an oddly unsettling story. And I think that's kind of the gist of what Kafka was about. It definitely wasn't finished though, that's for sure.

[@DemeterTelphousia-Erinyes]

I just subscribed to you! The Metamorphosis has to be one of the best short stories ever written- in my view anyway ;)

[@TH3F4LC0Nx]

@@DemeterTelphousia-Erinyes Hey, thnx! Appreciated! :D

[@Roderik46]

could you review Crime and Punishment?

[@Skeptic2006]

It's fitting for me to listen this while walking outside because I felt like unable to breathe properly because of this really stubborn phlegm in my throat. I suspect it's because I drink a lot of cheap instant coffee. It's not tuberculosis at least. All I can think is choking to death though it's that bad.

[@JimTheCurator]

Do you write your reviews right after you finish reading or do you go back and review books you've already read?

[@floridastar1000]

The comment section would lead you to believe you have the wrong opinion, Cliff. But, just finishing this novel now, I had the same exact sentiment. Maybe it was the translation 🤷🏼‍♂️

[@Ernesto_the_Caffiend]

Let me guess; the next book is either A Confederacy of Dunces or I've been down so long that it looks like up to me

[@juanescobedo6380]

wow, must be a problem with your translation; reading The castle helps to understand that Kafka's style (although not pleasant, but nightmarish, The castle is even more insufferable than The trial) goes beyond the paranoid feel some people get from The trial. I've read him a lot and can say he's way better than food. César Aira has a nice translation of The metamorphosis and admires Kafka a lot. I tried to translate a poem by Enrique Lihn that does justice to that Kafka feeling, hope you're interested and soon you can give him another chance: I'm sensible to this abyss, I'm touched differently by the reading of Kafka: I taste, coldly, the taste of death That we lack of something next to which we are nothing A camera obscura That pojects this dreadful absence Prove otherwise with plenty of bright reasons, Though the sun seems to meditate on the origin of its stains, yes: in each thing there's a ghost hidden Our job, ¿isn't it some exorcism, some answer to the dark challenge?

[@rjd53]

Yes, The Trial is read in highschools, as a highschool teacher I did it with classes, ideally in grade 13, or if you have only classes up to grade 12, you do it in 12. It should be read after the students have read Goethe's Faust I, because both are also variants of the Old Testament's Hiob story. The novel is much more than just a critique of the judicial system but a symbolic depiction 1. of what the world really is: a place where God does not exist (any more), but in which this absense is a felt reality in the sense of a void, into which all kinds of fake reallities are leaking in, and at the same time 2. what the world can be in the worst case: a world with fakelove, fakeart, fakecourts, fakepriests etc. institutions are there, courts, painters, churches, lawyers etc but everybody in them just fakes it, they lack all substance, lack everything they should be or have. A world of that kind will kill you, it will dry out everything and in the end yourself. That is why I think, the dry style of the novel fits what it is showing. To describe the truth, Kafka intens to get across, in an entertaining way would be a lie, it would be a fake ...

[@Laocoon283]

I very much enjoy your second point. An artist who only paints the same landscape over and over, a priest that gives a sermon to an empty cathedral, advocates who can only delay the inevitable, leni who is only pursuing K to satisfy her kink of guilty men. A look at what bureaucratic society does to the human soul.

[@SpiderFinn1115Gaming]

You don’t deserve his diaries.

[@redeyedfigure4906]

Chattanooga is awesome. Why the visit?

[@vladmark3279]

Much more interesting to watch reviews that you ve read

[@uniquechannelnames]

I notice you move a lot, I think that's pretty cool... to just pack up and launch off into a new place. Currently reading The Elementary Particles, merci de votre sugguestion). Maybe Ill pack up and move somewhere, but COVID makes it awkward.

[@gilbertpillbrow6978]

What translation did you read?

[@gilbertpillbrow6978]

Yeah you read a rubbish translation, that's why you didn't like it

[@Long_Shoulder]

Just finished The Trial and also found it to be almost entirely a slog. Your review relieved me, as I’d heard almost nothing but rave reviews forever. I couldn’t wait to just be done with it so I could start something else.

[@ryanmurtha2392]

Great film version by Orson Welles

[@ryanmurtha2392]

@Nancy Pelosi The version by Welles is my favorite film.

[@RicardoErick1]

I loved to read. Its dry (and sometimes nonsense) like a real trial. Could not be diferent.

[@schumanhuman]

Two of my favourite writers are Kafka and Flannery O'Conner, but imo neither were able to sustain a novel.

[@PedroKrick]

Nah that book fucked my brain to read it, in every ways, it's great but it's a heavy stale reading and also weird anxious as kafka is on top of that makes you almost hate it. I guess I will never read it again I don't have the stomach, it is the only kafka I've read too so I didn't even know what I was getting into that much. Great nightmarish book tho. I've heard kafka used to laughed hysterically while reading some of the chapters of this book.

[@avenbleak7280]

Do Bartleby, The Scrivener by Herman Melville.

[@brianjanson3498]

I hate to say this but Kafka's writing improves after repeated readings. Also, if you are not laughing, you don't understand Kafka. He would read passages to his friends and he could barely control his laughter. Kafka is hilarious and disturbing. The juxtaposition is brilliant.

[@dalaniebeach9419]

Translation might be what makes the book seem so “dry” in English, but I hear you.

[@fuzzydunlop4513]

I thought the verbosity was intentionally comedic

[@palodine1]

The Trial: great book Chattanooga: great city

[@JimTheCurator]

The Trial is good, but i liked The Castle more. It's like The Trial on hardcore mode.

[@Eingradd]

Your comment about the editor/translator's notes spoiling the book is sadly too relevant nowadays. It seems like every book I pick up that has some kind of forward ends up spoiling the plot, probably because the person who wrote the forward assumes you've already read it. I can't believe people think things like that are okay.

[@Maidanofgray]

Good Lord, Clif you have moved so much over the course of this channel. What are you searching for?

[@jorgeaaabr]

I really believe the translation ruined it for you, give it another shot.

[@sadasivam123]

Inio asano

[@lostintime519]

So he scrolls through Facebook Foucault memes. I know that group, Maison or something.

[@jimmywesterberg9957]

I'm in jail haha. Love it!

[@rivinish]

Reshreshing to see a review from you of the book you actually disliked.

[@SpideyDee]

Don't read his diaries. They're rather boring. Read his Letters instead. Especially his Letter to his Father and his Letters to Felice Bauer .Seriously. I had a Professor who said that the Letters to Felice are Kafka's Opus Magnum and there actually is a very good case to be made for that oppinion.

[@nickybhoof]

never read the introduction. the intro to 1984 spoiled it for my friend, ridiculous.

[@Laocoon283]

It's weird how it's the industry standard to put forewards that completely ruin the book for first time readers. Why not just put them as an afterword? Its weird.

[@AnthonyLongboarding]

The *point* is that its a mess. . 10/10 book, no doubt.

[@mtlewis973]

the trial feels bloated… like it’s difficult to read… like it’s an interminable slog which is intricate and complex for reasons that don’t seem necessary… wow, imagine that.

[@therodolfool]

I agree. It is genius, but also (very) bloated. Maybe it wouldn't be a genius work otherwise though

[@chadvonswan]

It’s a masterpiece compared to his last book, The Castle. Horrible

[@michelcusteau3184]

I agree with everything in this review. Intelligent book but very boring read for sure.

[@Laocoon283]

Perhaps your missing the symbolism that lives beneath the surface?

[@kanelowrey5172]

Missed Cliff's dulcet voice.

[@sadeemshahid]

Just finished reading Trial. Worst book I've ever read. When people try to justify a book being great by making shit up like, "you need a greater understanding or see through author eyes", know that the book is shit.

[@ellelala39]

Hardy har, Cliff.

[@XX-ut2fd]

Do you know what money is? Saying that high school kids don’t even know what money is sounds like you think every sentient adult would know what it is. However almost no one in the world, kid or adult, knows that.

[@Laocoon283]

What is money?

[@poop_storm]

Glad I’m not the only one who found the book to be very dry

[@tjfryer2897]

Reading this book is like a fictionalized version of my anxiety. You feel like a disappointment for whatever unknowable reason and are endlessly on trial in your own oppressive and intimidating court room of the mind, judged by a tyrannical super ego.

[@ambermoon719]

I understand the state of mind you are describing tj fryer. I’m about to read the book and hope it will give me a more comedic view of this world and reality. PS: anxiety doesn’t have to last forever. I’ve gone long stretches without it 💜

[@videotrash]

Love your reviews. But I'm really surprised that you never mentioned how funny the book is - likely because you didn't perceive it that way, which is fair. Yet to me that's one of the hallmarks of Kafka's style. The characters and scenes are existential caricatures, they act like wretched figures in a joke, but to them it's all deathly serious. For example, the guy who gets whipped in the office, and when K. returns days or weeks later, the whole scene is still going on, as though frozen in time. Or the sleazy painter who is swarmed by little girls while they converse; K.s speech before the crowd in the attic and their arbitrary reactions to him... Kafka's friends said he tended to laugh out lout when reading portions of his work to them, so this demented, deadpan humor is absolutely intentional. Like some other commenters I've read his works in German, and find his style very fluid, precise and readable. It also exhibits an added perpetual element of self-parody; the passages about the legal system to me never felt dry or expository in that light, but rather like well-crafted satire of a grotesque worldview. They are enjoyable in and of themselves, and I'd have wished for the book to be quite a bit longer. Lastly, 'Vor dem Gesetz/Before the Law', the parable K. discusses with the priest, is one of the best, most mysterious and ambivalent pieces of writing I've ever come across, and has pretty much convinced me that this book isn't merely some random critique of bureaucracy and rather Kafka's idiosyncratic way of reflecting on the degree to which individuals can hope to ever understand reality and subject parts of it to their own puny, misguided will.

[@someobserver844]

Good comment. I think the stern anti-bureaucracy reading is so popular because many readers immediately identify with K. I guess that's hard avoid; he's the only point of reference one has in the surreal world of the novel. But I don't get the impression that Kafka expects you to side with him, at least not uncritically, since he is also pretty judgemental and manipulative.

[@frogmoth]

Yes, great comment. I thought the same thing. Some aspects of the book went over his head, it seems...

[@michaelmblog]

@@frogmoth a lot of things are over his head.

[@davidnorris166]

This is a review!

[@allofthemmilkingwithgreenf7493]

Yes! Great great comment

[@vitnemec8365]

I’m Czech and I was very surprised that english translation apparently ruins the book for casual reader. Czech translation (from ’65, straight from a middle of an absurd authoritarian regime) grips you and sucks you in. It’s not an easy read, but not a chore. More like a pleasant suffering. And one of the most profound pieces of literature.