The Trial [Naxos AudioBooks]

By: Franz Kafka, David Whiting - translator

Narrated by: Rupert Degas

The Trial is one of the great works of the 20th century - an extraordinary vision of one man put on trial by an anonymous authority on an unspecified charge. Kafka evokes all the terrifying reality of his ordeal.

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Kafka is not for me

Fantastic narrator, I wouldn't have finished the book if it wasn't because of him. Kafka is definitelly not my style. Way too absurd. And for irresolute stories, I prefer Paul Auster.

A farcical plot not unlike those of nightmares

This book is not what I expected. More dystopian than nightmarish, but with the levity that grows out of a farcical judicial system that the world has not seen since the days of Hammurabi. It is an anti-rational system that prosecutes its citizenry seemingly without cause and certainty without pressing charges. Was this intended to be an attorney’s utopia?

Reader

The reader is beyond amazing very good performance. Very good story, well written and overall a very good reading experience.

Deeply thought-provoking, though not enjoyable

While this novel is deeply thought-provoking and sparks hours of philosophical discussion and parallels to totalitarian governments, it's not that enjoyable. It's an allegory, so all its characters are symbols, not real people. It's a novel students of law, history, politics, and philosophy can debate for hours. But it's not something where you emotionally connect with anyone but main character Josef K. You feel and live through his gradual, exasperating oppression by the law and totalitarian system. The whole experience is like enduring a horrible nightmare.

Any of us who must deal with exhausting, mindless, impersonal bureaucracy, whether it's a company, the government, politics, or our legal system, will emotionally and psychologically relate to this novel.

It's not a novel I'd read again except to review certain intellectual points. But I see why it's a masterpiece. It leaves you cold and horrified at the end.

Trials and Tribulations

I have always adored Kafka's work and being an attorney, I had to read this novel. The Trial is often considered Kafka's masterwork, despite being technically unfinished. Don't worry; this incredibly bleak story has a proper ending albeit a bit unpolished. This is the story of a truly dystopian legal system, eerily similar to our own in many respects, and K, our protagonist who isn't even aware of what he is on trial for. I won't describe the plot further for fear of spoilers, but I will say that the final two chapters still give me chills.

Also, I greatly preferred Rupert Degas' performance to George Guidall's version. Both men are good at their jobs, but Degas' tone is a far better fit for this kind story. Ultimately, I just can't say enough to praise this novel. Beyond highly recommended!

HELL ON EARTH

“The Trial” is a Franz Kafka picture of hell; i.e. a totalitarian nightmare, ruled by bureaucracy and controlled through human despair. “The Trial” is a book to listen to because it mesmerizes when narrated by an artist like Rupert Degas but numbs when read by an undisciplined mind.

Imagine arbitrary arrests, undefined accusations, and undisclosed trials; i.e. trials operating in obscurity that secretly sentence the accused to mental purgatory or death; add shadows of human beings, dark rooms of judgment, stifling closeness, and oppressive anxiety. This is Kafka’s world in “The Trial”.

Kafka’s hell exists in today’s world just as it did when it was published in 1925. Hopefully, readers of this review are not living in a Kafkaesque country.

"Everyone Is a Part of the Court"

On his thirtieth birthday, "though he had done nothing wrong," Josef K. wakes up to find two strange men in his apartment: they are there to arrest him. The men eat his breakfast and refuse to say why he's been arrested and which authority they are working for. When he is made to meet their "Overseer," who comes to K.'s apartment building to formalize his arrest, K. is again denied any explanation, but is also told that he is free to go to work and to carry on with his life as usual--if he wants to. And K., having a promising career as a senior clerk in a bank should be happy to go to work, shouldn't he? But why were three minor employees from his bank present during his interview with the Overseer? And how is he supposed to prepare to defend himself during his trial if he has no idea what crime he's been charged with or what organization is prosecuting him?

Thus begins Franz Kafka's short novel The Trial (1925), a ten-chapter nightmare in which K fluctuates between trying to survive his plight by staying calm and playing along (though his few apparent supporters interpret that as disturbing indifference) or by rebelliously learning everything he can about the secret court that has put him on trial so that he can successfully defend himself and possibly even reform the entire system. The more K. learns about the secret court (which has its chambers in the attics in decrepit low income housing buildings around the city) from the various people involved with it whom he encounters (a magistrate, a thrasher, a court painter, a chamber master, an usher, a prison chaplain, a fellow defendant, a defendant groupie, etc.), however, the more confusing his case becomes, because he cannot be certain whether the people offering him information, advice, and support are trying to help him or to make him look guilty, let alone whether they are expressing objective facts or subjective opinions. Moreover, all their explanations of the secret court and the prognoses of his trial and the possible courses of action to resolve it multiply contradictorily, rendering direct and confident action quite difficult.

Kafka seems to take a perverse pleasure in imagining and explicating every possible angle of this secret court and the effect it would have on a thoughtful and seemingly innocent person ensnared by it. Apparently, Kafka had not really finished The Trial when he died in 1924, which adds to its mysterious and disturbing dreamlike power, because new scenes and foci and figures suddenly replace old ones and time passes inconsistently. Be that as it may, the novel does work towards a savage, sublime, and religious climax and resolution.

The Trial is a surreal nightmare that suggests disturbing truths about justice, freedom, humanity, and modern metropolitan life. It explores how the machinery of the bureaucracies that regulate our lives degrade, dehumanise, and alienate us. As one character puts it, "the court is an organism," which implies that the myriad people who work for it are cogs in the system. The novel also explores the degree to which we are all both innocent and guilty. When K. says, "But I'm not guilty. It's a mistake. . . . How can a human being be guilty? After all, we're all human beings, every one of us!" The court prison chaplain replies, "That's the way all those who are guilty speak." Even if K. is innocent of any specific crime, he may be guilty of feeling superior to people of lower classes, and of neglecting people who care for him. Finally, when forced to assess our lives, how can we gauge the degree to which we are innocent or guilty? Aren't we all living in the prison of the modern world, complicit in our own imprisonment?

The translation by David Whiting seemed natural and strong. Rupert Degas gives an excellent reading of the novel, clear, intelligent, and appealing, subtly modifying his voice for different characters and moods without drawing attention to himself as reader. To compare Degas' reading of the novel with George Guidall's, perhaps Degas emphasizes K.'s thoughts and Guidall his emotions, so that Degas' version is more intellectual, Guidall's more expressive. And (I was told by a friend) Degas pronounces K. as in German, "kah," while Guidall pronounces it as in English "kay."

Fans of bleak, surreal, fantastic, comical, horrible, alienating, and humane literature by the likes of Camus, Beckett, and Murakami, and of course fans of Kafka's short fiction, should "enjoy" The Trial, but people who want competent, bold, active heroes like Jason Bourne or Ethan Hunt, punishable head honcho villains, solved mysteries, and happy endings, as well as people who dislike dreams in which they find themselves late to an important appointment and then find themselves unable to find its room because they are lost in a labyrinthine and changeable conglomeration of halls and stairways and then realize that they are clad only in underwear, should probably steer clear.

great performance of a modernist masterpiece

What made the experience of listening to The Trial [Naxos AudioBooks] the most enjoyable?

rupert degas' deferential tone is perfect pitch for the telling of the story. K is a character who is both confused and knowing, resigned yet impudent and degas' tone is so right that as david foster wallace put it:
"the deeper alchemy by which Kafka's comedy is always also tragedy and tragedy is also an immense and reverent joy"... comes right through.

What other book might you compare The Trial [Naxos AudioBooks] to and why?

the great gatsby. they are both modernist masterpieces and written a few years apart yet so different they may as well have been written in different centuries, not different countries.

What about Rupert Degas’s performance did you like?

he's almost mincing, demure yet impudent tone, but reading not performing is so perfect for interpreting this story. also, the there are many characters in the story and he manages to juggle them all very well. i wish he'd read the castle, though.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

well, there are parts from which you can't/won't tear away but there are others for which you are grateful you have a narrator because they very tedious and opaque. no doubt this was deliberate so on the part of the author, but it's no crime for the common reader to cheat.

A great work, a cautionary tale.

Kafka's world is dark, and policed by a state having no regard for individual rights. It's a very cautionary tale. Let us hope that the populous of free states don't allow all their rights and privileges to be taken away, just because of fear of terrorism. Or we could all end up lke the protagonist in this book.

Slow & calm

I like this reading much better than the other two I have heard (George Guidall and Geoffrey Howard). The sedate, if somewhat mincing, tone seems just right. Rupert Degas does not try to voice-act, which probably couldn't be done anyway. A slow reading, as befits a text that is highly suggestive in almost every sentence. That's on the reading.

As for the book, need I say anything? If you are new to Kafka, this is probably the long novel you are most likely to find interesting. It is focused and well executed in comparison to the others. (Amerika, which is his first novel, seems unfocused because there is no obvious central or abiding motif. The Castle, which is his last, is not exactly well written throughout. Many of its passages may seem flat and boring unless you, the reader, are doing some active part.)

I find that the best way to read Kafka is to read it like some genre piece you read only for the action. Just to find out what happens, never bothering your head about the 'meaning' or anything like that. If the book is not interesting to you at that level, it's just not for you. Why bother when there are other books to suit other tastes?

To me, the most interesting passages in The Trial are Fraulein Burstner, Fraulein Montag, and the first visit to the advocate including Leni.

The least interesting are the opening scenes (the Arrest), the First Hearing, and the Cathedral (including the 'Before the Law' inset).