But what Kafka does bring new to the table, a table set by Gogol, waited by Dostoevsky, and later cleaned up by Solzhenitsyn, is describe the insidious hilarity of the proceedings of modern life. Of course Kafka wasn't onto anything exactly new bureaucracy and all the complaining about its red tape goes back as long as there has been a civilization. No homage or parody even comes close to conveying the frightening paranoia, the claustrophobic closeness, the gloomy heat and fog, the grinding and wearing down of K (and us), the confusion, and the logic that has no logic. The spell is in the words, in the way Kafka immediately arrests you in the very first sentence of the novel and never lets you go. And the reason why is that you have to experience this novel as a whole, get caught up in it, go on trial with Joseph K., and judge him page after page.
Yet even though some of these bizarre images are well known to us now, they are nevertheless still as powerful as they were when Kafka fever-dreamed these words onto the page. So much of the imagery, scenery, situations, and nightmare-like qualities has been copied and parodied to the point that it's amazing the (somewhat pejorative) term 'Kafkaesque' actually has any meaning at all. I think about how often this novel has been imitated, especially in film. We are all the straw that breaks a camel's back The renewed energy and power of this classic work are complemented by veteran narrator George Guidall's superb performance. Whether read as an existential tale or a parable, this haunting story stands out as one of the great novels of our time.īreon Mitchell, a professor of Germanic Studies and Comparative Literature at Indiana University, has received national awards for his literary translations. Defending his innocence against charges that are never explained to him, he watches his life dissolve into absurdity. He is subjected to hearings, questioning, and visits from officials. Thirty-year-old Josef K., a financial officer in a European city bank, is suddenly arrested. Now Kafka's enigmatic novel regains its humor and stylistic elegance in a new translation based on the restored original manuscript. Fortunately, Brod ignored his friend's wishes and published The Trial, which became the author's most famous work. If Max Brod had obeyed Franz Kafka's dying request, Kafka's unpublished manuscripts would have been burned, unread.
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