The Trial by Franz Kafka

Too absurd to alarm

Austrian-Czech author Franz Kafka is widely regarded as one of the most important figures in modern European literature. In the early 20th century, he pushed the envelope of what literature could be by applying dark, dystopian, surrealistic, and deliberately absurd imagery to existential themes of modern life. Kafka wrote three novels—The Trial, The Castle, and Amerika—all of which were unfinished at the time of his death but nevertheless were left complete enough to be hailed as masterpieces by literary critics of the last century. The Trial was first published, posthumously, in 1925, but was written about a decade earlier. I had previously read Kafka’s novella The Metamorphosis and found it worthy of high regard. The Trial, on the other hand, left me quite disappointed and even annoyed.

The Trial concerns the legal troubles of Josef K., a chief clerk at a bank. On his 30th birthday, two law enforcement officers show up at his apartment to arrest him. The nature of his offense is never disclosed, neither to K. nor to the reader. The particular agency these officers work for is unknown, and it doesn’t seem that any formal charges are ever made. K. is not taken into custody, but released on his own recognizance, able to live and work much the same as before. It is made clear to him, however, that he is regarded as a criminal and will have to undergo a long, complicated, and labor intensive trial process that will likely dominate his life for years to come and may result in a serious sentence. In the process of preparing for his trial, the workings of which he knows almost nothing, K. consults a number of people for assistance, including lawyers, a businessman, and a painter. 

Much like George Orwell’s 1984 and other 20th-century dystopian novels, The Trial reflects the unfortunate reality of Justice in many authoritarian and non-democratic nations. The fact is, there were, and probably still are, many countries where you could be dragged out of your bed in the middle of the night, for no specified crime, imprisoned, tortured, and/or executed. There are moments in The Trial where Kafka brings that horror vividly to life.

The effect is ruined, however, by the juxtaposition of such political paranoia with humorous and absurdist elements. The legal proceedings described are unrealistically byzantine and bizarre, and the details are often revealed through somewhat silly conversations with characters that I assume were meant to be satirical characters. Every woman K. meets along the way throws herself at him, and he engages in bumbling, fumbling romances with a few of them. The overall effect is something like that of a German expressionist print. On the one hand, the rude, angular depiction of human figures engenders disturbing feelings of anxiety, revulsion, and paranoia. On the other hand, there is also something humorous about the rather cartoony and distorted style of expression. Sometimes that humor is intentional (as in George Grosz) and sometimes not (as in Egon Schiele). In The Trial, it is hard to tell what is intentionally humorous and what is not. For today’s reader, a century after the book’s initial publication, the difficulty is compounded by an ignorance as to what life was really like in Bohemia or Czechoslovakia a hundred years ago. For example, court proceedings in The Trial are held in the attic of a tenement building. Was that a real thing? Or is that just a joke?

Having only read a couple of Kafka’s works, I wouldn’t go so far as to say he’s overrated. I do feel fairly confident, however, in saying that The Trial is overrated. If literary critics want to hail one innovative early-2oth-century Czech author as a godfather of modernism, my pick would be Karel Capek rather than Kafka.

The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

The bug in all of us
The basic idea of Franz Kafka’s 1915 novella The Metamorphosis is notoriously easy to summarize: A salesman wakes up one morning to find himself transformed into a giant insect. Capitalizing on this bizarre plot element, most cover designers for the book tend to make it look like a horror story, but The Metamorphosis is actually more of a black comedy. Despite its brevity and deceptively simple premise, Kafka’s narrative bears a philosophical depth and psychological complexity that has inspired much debate among literary critics over the past century.

The Metamorphosis is not so much about the metamorphosis itself but rather about the characters’ reactions to it. The biggest surprise is the relative nonchalance with which everyone deals with this hideous transformation. Gregor Samsa, the salesman in question, spends very little time fretting over his six legs and chitinous exoskeleton and immediately begins worrying about matters pertaining to his work and home life. His mother, father, and sister experience a brief initial fear when they discover the big bug, but they never fail to recognize the insect as their loved one and very quickly begin to think of him as an inconvenience rather than a horror. As Gregor gradually becomes accustomed to his new bug body, the family struggles to deal with the fact that their primary breadwinner has been incapacitated. The whole narrative takes place within the family’s apartment, which makes it feel like an absurdist stage play along the lines of something from Eugene Ionesco or Samuel Beckett.

Many literary scholars smarter than myself have analyzed The Metamorphosis backwards and forwards in order to elucidate its hidden meanings. From the humble perspective of this general reader, it seemed that Kafka was satirizing the effect on family dynamics when one member becomes an inconvenience, an embarrassment, or a source of shame to the others, whether through mental illness, physical invalidity, or the nonconformist breaking of a social convention that causes the offender to take on pariah status. Gregor’s insecthood is a symbolic representation of one man’s intense feelings of inadequacy and alienation in trying to fit in with the rest of humanity in the modern world. In this existentialist tour de force, Kafka masterfully walks a tightrope between tragedy and comedy, resulting in a work of gallows humor that is multi-layered, immensely thought-provoking.

Like much that Kafka produced, this groundbreaking protomodern classic had a pronounced effect on literature and pop culture to come. Though now over a century old, it still feels surprisingly fresh and doesn’t fail to shock with its sheer bizarreness. The big bug in the room is more than just a gimmick; The Metamorphosis proved an unexpectedly profound and unforgettable read.
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