Book Review- The Trial by Franz Kafka

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Kafka's writing is never dull. This is my second novel after  The Metamorphosis, but the grimness and nightmarish feeling still linger. After reading this one, I see a pattern in Kafka’s novels: the main character is introduced to an unusual situation, suffers, and then gradually meets his demise.


“The Trial” is about a lone man, Josef K, a senior bank clerk who is arrested on his 30th birthday for an unspecified crime by unidentified authorities and due to faceless bureaucracy. Bizarrely, he is not jailed and is told he can go about his daily life as he navigates an incomprehensible, endless judicial process. The nature of the crime is never revealed to the reader or even to Joseph himself. Joseph progresses through various stages of confusion and paranoia, trying to understand his situation as he moves from one strange situation to another.


Somewhere in the middle of the novel, I felt as if Josef K. is paranoid, and that he is not on trial at all.

The novel presents a constant struggle in a grim and dark way. The situation worsens as the story progresses; despite every turn, there is a slight glimmer of hope that he might be “free.”


Overall, this story conveys the incomprehensibility of life and the powerlessness of the individual in a bleak, unforgiving way. My mind is still dumbfounded (or maybe angry!!).


Quotes from the book-

“Logic is of course unshakeable, but it cannot hold out against a man who wants to live.”


“...one does not have to believe everything is true, one only has to believe it is necessary.”


“They're talking about things of which they don't have the slightest understanding, anyway. It's only because of their stupidity that they're able to be so sure of themselves.”


"A mind is like a parachute. It doesn’t work if it isn’t open."

“Nothing has meaning, everything has meaning.”

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