The Trial – Books November
In November I only finished one book – travel, sick, whatever. I was also light on dog walks.
However, the book read was my first Kafka Book, The Trial.
Kafka blends elements of Hitchcock and Rod Sterling, though he was before them. I enjoyed a dark Budvar earlier this year in the Kafke Kafe in Prague.
The trial is probably not the right name. It’s clear there was a crime committed and we have a suspect, but we never actually learn what the crime was. The story opens with police in the apartment searching, eating, and arresting. Josef is arrested, but released. He is to stand trial before a court that is unlike anything he or we have ever seen. It’s described as “a terrifying, psychological trip” and it’s ridiculousness borders too closely to reality. I am unsure about “Kafkaesque” but I think it describes something that isn’t so uncommon.
Guilty until proven less guilty.
The book continues down a nonsensical rabbit hole fairly consistently until suddenly things get very dark.
It’s an easy book to read, but hard to digest. There’s stuff in here that I don’t understand and a lot more I missed. I have no idea if re-reading it will make more or less sense.
“No,” said the priest, “it is not necessary to accept everything as true, one must only accept it as necessary.”
Just when you think you got it all figured out, Bam!