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The Trial
The Trial
The Trial
Audiobook8 hours

The Trial

Written by Franz Kafka

Narrated by Rupert Degas

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

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About this audiobook

The Trial is one of the great works of the twentieth century: an extraordinary vision of one man put on trial by an anonymous authority on an unspecified charge. Josef K, 30, lives in a large town in an unspecified country. He is summonsed to answer a charge and appears in the court room for his trial. Franz Kafka evokes all the reality of trial without any of the specifics in a society that seems to have degraded into chaos: squalid environment, rats, yellow liquid shooting out of a hole in the wall. Guards, claustrophobia, anxiety – this is a gripping story and an allegory of modern life. This text remains just as relevant a century after it was written.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateFeb 1, 2007
ISBN9789629545994
Author

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka (Praga, 1883 - Kierling, Austria, 1924). Escritor checo en lengua alemana. Nacido en el seno de una familia de comerciantes judíos, se formó en un ambiente cultural alemán y se doctoró en Derecho. Su obra, que nos ha llegado en contra de su voluntad expresa, pues ordenó a su íntimo amigo y consejero literario Max Brod que, a su muerte, quemara todos sus manuscritos, constituye una de las cumbres de la literatura alemana y se cuenta entre las más influyentes e innovadoras del siglo xx. Entre 1913 y 1919 escribió El proceso, La metamorfosis y publicó «El fogonero». Además de las obras mencionadas, en Nórdica hemos publicado Cartas a Felice.

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Reviews for The Trial

Rating: 4.020833333333333 out of 5 stars
4/5

240 ratings105 reviews

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  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Well, I read it. A very strange story. I found it hard to care about K and his problems.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The Trial is a compelling read, but also frustrating. Questions are never answered and your left scream WHY???? K wakes up to find out he is being arrested, he is never told why, he is free to go about his daily life as long as when he is summoned to the court he comes. He tries to dismiss the trial as nothing more than a shady court system trying to get a bribe out of him. More people learn of his trial and he begins to take it more serious. K explores options and meets other people on trial. The ending will mess you up.

    So what is the point of The Trial? There are lots of meanings that can be placed to what is read. Bureaucracy, a variety of metaphors the trial represents, or simply nothing but the text that is provided. Either way its a great short read that is interesting til the end. I didn’t know how I felt at the ending, was just kind of lost for a feeling, but I think that feeling of not know what I am feeling fits well with The Trial.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Read this in one day - which is probably a major insult to Kafka. Is it about the dilemma between domestic life and dedication to writing - what is it about? There are so many possibilities in any world - and in our world of CCTV and algorithms. This was a re-read and I am pretty sure this is another of those books that I thought I had read in full but hadn't.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Indrukwekkende klassieker, blijft nog altijd zeer bevreemdend. Belangrijk thema is zeker de onmacht van het individu tegenover de anonieme maatschappelijke macht, maar nog belangrijker is dat van de menselijke relaties: wie ben ik en hoe wordt ik bekeken in de ogen van de anderen?
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A very memorable reading experience.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Densely dark, and difficult to read because of extraordinarily long paragraphs, but it gets you in, and makes you read to the end. Morbidly funereal plot, and should not be read by anyone who thinks "they are out to get me".
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Look, it's a classic. It's not the most scintillating read, and I think I would have enjoyed it more had I read it when I was a 20 year old English major. But it's fine, and it paved the way for a whole host of really great slightly surreal, absurd stories that deliver a bleak message in a readable package.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    While I can't say I enjoyed it, I certainly got more out of it this time than I did 30 years ago in high school.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Where does Franz Kafka get his ideas? Everyone knows Metamorphosis and The Trial is no different. It has been made into theater productions, television shows and movies. Everything Kafka has ever written has been analyzed within an inch of its life so I will not be able to add anything new with my review of The Trial. In one sentence, The Trial is about a man on trial for an unknown crime. The end. Why Josef K was indicted is a mystery; why he was convicted is even more so. What is so haunting about The Trial is the tone of voice. The frightening subject matter is told in such a robotic, matter of fact manner. The outrage just isn't there.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    By the most shallow interpretation this is a pessimist's simple metaphor for life: we are born/arrested without consent, then subjected to unfairness beyond our control unto death. The introduction would have me look more deeply for Judaic-Talmudic references (wouldn't know one if it slapped me), messages about sexuality (I do tend to see those), or a prophetic rendering of the fate of Jewish citizens in Eastern Europe during World War II. It would also not be difficult to read several of the characters as self-doubt personified, reflecting the way each of us is prone to criticize or overthink our own actions in an adverse environment.The plot wasn't so dull as I feared it might be, since Joseph K. has freedom of movement and makes the most of it. He tries every emotional response to his straits but to no avail. Whether he rails against the irrationality of his captors or attempts to reason with them, it's all for naught. He comes on too strongly with women and is too self-centered, sometimes aggressive with those he judges inferior, but there's never any clue dropped to suggest what he's charged with. He never aggressively seeks his right to know, but that's of a piece with the metaphor: once it is determined that life is unfair, there's little point in asking why.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Arrested for no reason and put on trial, this famous unfinished novel is an exercise in frustration. I didn't love the book, but I appreciate what Kafka did. The absurdity of bureaucracy was perfectly highlighted.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A whole host of interpretations of this book are out there, which is not surprising given it was unfinished by the author and the chapters are likely out of order. An interesting read, one of those stories where what you get out of it depends in part on your life experiences, your world view and beliefs.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Indrukwekkende klassieker, blijft nog altijd zeer bevreemdend. Belangrijk thema is zeker de onmacht van het individu tegenover de anonieme maatschappelijke macht, maar nog belangrijker is dat van de menselijke relaties: wie ben ik en hoe wordt ik bekeken in de ogen van de anderen?
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    There are some interesting themes and a few isolated gems of dark humour but this was so boring to read. So boring your brain may not allow you to do anything other than skim the text and look anxiously at page numbers. Perhaps this was the whole point. Half way through there is an interminable paragraph about advocates. Camus' The Outsider is a way better read if you want something existential. Much funnier too.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Incredibly strange novel. Although little of it made any logical sense, that in itself is what kept my interest.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    What a weird and wonderful work. I knew nothing of Kafka or his work before embarking upon this but I found it well written and impactful, as well as making interesting points around the notions of freedom, oppression, bureaucracy and the state.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Well read by the narrator. No idea what happened, which might be the point
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I am confused. I still do not know what was the charge. It went way over my head.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    The craziness of the society it portrays is quite entertaining. Of course the absurdity of the whole thing criticizes the same absurdities, albeit exaggerated, he saw in our society.
    I enjoyed the follies it describes.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    So frustratingly and accurately describes the bureaucracy of today. Brings back memories of every time I’ve dealt with idiots who aren’t competent at their jobs.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    If The Trial were taught as an introduction to Kafka instead The Metamorphosis I think more folks would read Kafka.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Loads of suspense, excellent audio quality, would defenitely recommend it.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This was the first Kafka I have ever read. Like most of his works, he never completed this, and it was published only after his early death from tuberculosis in 1924. Although the term "Kafkaesque" is often used simply to describe an impenetrable bureaucracy or maze, this novel has a nightmarish quality about it, with the inexplicable events happening to Josef K after his arrest for a crime that is unknown to both Josef and the reader. He confronts a colourful and strange array of bizarre characters while trying to navigate his way through this moral and judicial maze. The ending of the novel as published is abrupt and violent. There have been many interpretations of this over the years, but overall it is perhaps best to see simply as a piece of (mostly) atmospheric absurdist literature, with humorous undertones, and not try to over-analyse it. The very structure of the text makes it quite hard to read, being divided mostly into very long paragraphs, with dialogue embedded within them, not on separate lines, a characteristic that often puts me off reading a novel, though in this case, it seems appropriate.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    The Trial by Franz Kafka (1925)

    I'm having a difficult time with this book. Aside from it being written back in 1925 in German, the author never finished it at that time. Essentially, it is about a man who wakes up to find he is arrested for a crime that is never specified. It almost feels like a dog chasing its tail...I wonder how this trial will proceed with the rantings from this narcissistic protagonist. It is rather amusing how he defends himself against a crime to which he has no knowledge of committing!

    Having done some research it seems that this book was finished by someone else hence the lack of continuity or direction in this book.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I listened to the audio book narrated by someone Degas. I found the whole book extremely annoying. I probably missed lots of deep and meaningful stuff, but I found K annoying and selfish and I didn't like the way nearly all the women were falling over themselves to help him. I found there was a lot of "K thought x. It was of course true that blah, blah, blah. However, K still thought x."

    I might have appreciated the book more if I had read it rather than listening to the audio book. However, the library only had the audio book.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Re-reading The Trial in the Breon Mitchell translation of the restored edition was a big improvement over the original Muirs' translation. Although I still prefer Kafka's shorter, published work like The Metamorphosis, In the Penal Colony and The Hunger Artist, all of which seem perfect to me while The Trial has a lot of rougher edges. One can only wonder what Kafka would have done with them if he actually published the work.

    This reading of The Trial also had considerably more farce and humor, especially in all of the descriptions of minutiae, and felt more like a successor to Gogol than I had previously remembered. And it is also a reminder that just about everything that anyone terms Kafkaesque is capturing at most one or two facets of the very multidimensional, strange original combination that Kafka himself provided.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Absurd, nightmarish, depressing and brilliant. The idea of someone being "arrested," "tried," and executed without ever being told what they did is unfortunately not as absurd as it used to be. Think this could only happen in Eastern European countries, Russia, Islamofacist strongholds? Think again.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Listening to unabridged audio.
    23 Feb 11: Praise be. I'm done listening to this. It was torture. I get (I think) what Kafka was trying to say that the law is so complex at times that it is completely inaccessible to 'normal' people, even smart successful ones. Or maybe he wasn't trying to say anything at all.

    Like I said before, I disliked the characters - all of them - and I found the on-going conspiracy - reaching the edges of everything - irritating.

    Has anyone else read this one? Maybe they want to explain it to me?
    18 Feb 11: Ch. 7? 8? : I totally hate all the characters. This may be part of the reason I'm feeling lethargic about law school -- it reads a bit like 'Alice in Wonderland'... in court.

  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    I couldn't understand Kafka 30 years ago & he makes no more sense nowRead in Samoa May 2003
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This is a nearly flawless audiobook, read in a mostly dry tone that is both funny and creepy, which I imagine was what Kafka was going for in this his iconic work. Hell may be the absence of reason. But Hell can have a reason all its own, which we discover too late.