EPEOLATRY

BOOK 5

The Trial (1925)

by Franz Kafka

The Trial is a prophecy on the insanity of modern bureaucracy. This Kafkaesque work has surrealism like dreamy convulsing scenes, a condemnation of the intractable Austro-Hungarian bureaucracy-which Kafka, ensconced as he was in the State's insurance establishment, knew well.

This novel is actually unfinished which can be found in some last chapters, but still quite great!

Kafka's parable of the entrance to the Law is as luminous as it is opaque. It seems to contain some essence of truth about the relationship between the citizen and the Law, or perhaps the human condition in general, but what other than tragedy of one man's futile efforts does it really relate? It is a Kafka story in miniature: a gnomic genesis of interminable commentary and speculation.

The terrible fact is that the men seeking justice eventually accept this warped universal principle and its skewed criteria; they submit to the necessity of their own exclusion or death.