This is a nightmare world, where a 30 year old man, Josef K. is arrested and put on trial for a crime of which he is oblivious, his is not told what the charges are, and he has no idea who brought the charges against him.
Free to carry on with his life, but with the threat of the imminent trial, K. seeks help from a gravely ill lawyer and is given advice on the legal system by a painter known as Titorelli.
K. is a senior bank clerk, but he finds that as he spends more time trying to get helpfor his case, his co-workers are beginning to undermine him.
Towards the end of the story he is duped into going to a cathedral where a priest who is part of the prison system has been waiting for him. There they discuss the faceless/nameless system and the Priest tells a parable about the law, which was published on it’s own as ‘Before the Law’.
K. comes to a sad end, but as Kafka died before completing the novel who knows what the true ending would have been?
Bizarre and haunting. I really liked it.
He died? This is hailed as a masterpiece and it's not even finished? Woah!
ReplyDeleteMost of his novels were unfinished :(
ReplyDeleteHave you read Metamorphosis? I absolutely loved it. He was an amazing talent.
yeah think that's the only thing I've actually read by him. Didn't have a very nice version but plan to pick up some of his stuff. They say Murakami is his successor (I've said quite a bit about him on my blog) :-)
ReplyDeleteDidn't the public at the time ignore Kafka?