The Trial (Dover Thrift Editions: Classic Novels)

So, I don't have the historical/literary/etc background to understand all the ins and outs of Kafka's Trial, and I don't want it. I want to be able to appreciate the book on its own merits, to see what can be gleaned from it *without* looking up the equivalent of SparkNotes. Despite what literature professors will tell you, the value and power of a book is what *you* get out of it. What the author meant is a literary exercise best left for the classroom; never rely on someone spoon-feeding you what a book means. You have to decide for yourself if you hope to learn anything.The Trial is disturbing once you've read the whole thing and rolled it around your mind for an hour or two. It can be a bit of a tough read (Kafka wasn't friends with paragraphs), but it's worth the effort.First, we have our main character, Josef K. Josef is only referred to as K. throughout the whole novel, emphasizing how he's practically just a symbol in a multi-faced monster of a legal system. He wakes up one morning to discover he's been accused of committing a crime. We never find out what, how, who, or anything, and The Trial is all the more disturbing for it.K. isn't arrested, imprisoned, or anything like that. He's actually allowed to go about his daily life as a high-ranking banker (who's constantly trying to stay one step ahead of the Deputy Director), but of course, with a trial hanging over your head, life doesn't continue as normal.The rest of this short book details K.'s efforts to make his way through a stuffy legal system that seems purposely designed to confound, humiliate, and break down anyone who gets pulled into it. Even the lawyers are, to a degree, in on a ruse that only the privileged understand. And as you go through the book and see all the people who seem to have knowledge of K.'s trial and the system around it that K. *doesn't* have, you get the feeling that K. is simply an Everyman who has little chance or hope. Not only that, it becomes clear that these people *are* his trial--they're both spies and jurors--, and it is perhaps K.'s insistence on propriety and dignity that bring the trial to its abrupt conclusion.The Trial is a nightmare world where everyone has eyes on everyone else, and you can never be completely sure of your footing once you've been thrown into the jaws of the legal system. I see some parallels in different modern governments, and the scariest thing is The Trial provides no suggestions or hope that, should things come to a head, that there's anything to be done.

Many, if not most of us, have at one time or another heard the word "Kafkaesque". Having a fuzzy idea of the meaning, I came across a reference to "The Trial" and having no experience with the author, decided to give it a go. If his other works are anything like this I have no idea why anyone would read any of them! My new understanding of Kafkaesque is that Kafka's brain very likely looked like yours or mine, but once inside, there were hidden twists and turns of grey matter (and very likely other colored matter) that are just not to found by looking inside our own skulls.

I am a student who loves to read just about everything, and I am super lenient on what I consider to be good, especially among classics like this. However, like all of Kafka's work, this is very futile and kind of boring. It reads slowly, and with no end in sight, like the author intended. It is a good book to read if you want to have a good knowledge of the classics, but keep in mind that it is kind of dull.

The price was good but the print quality is poor. There is very low contrast between the type and the page which makes it difficult to read.

I love Kafka because it's the dark thinkers version of Agatha Christie: a mystery in what is being said.

A advertised and represented and good price

An excent classuc.

I'd never read Kafka before, had heard some things, but still didn't know quite what to expect. The story was simultaneously compelling and off-putting. I often wondered if it was an unreliable narrator and am still not sure if that wasn't the case.

Lots to be said about Kafka and the trial, but nothing a quick google search won't yield results for.Regarding the Dover Thrift edition, it's a good-quality print for next to nothing.

The quality is good. However, couldn’t understand why a product with MRP of Rs.150 was sold to me for Rs.193 by Amazon

Great book. A classic must read

A good translation of this classic work of Kafka. When you buy a paperback book in order to take it wherever you go it's good when it is well bound and doesn't fall apart in your pocket!.

Liked it