Modern Classics: The Trial

The Trial (1925) is a novel by Czech writer Franz Kafka. Like most works by Kafka, it was published posthumously. The novel was unfinished by the author and could only be published after been edited by Max Brod. It tells the story of how bank worker, Josef K., is accused of an unnamed crime and is finally excecuted while considering himself innocent. The Trial chronicals the year between his arrest and his excecusion. The meaning intended by Kafka is not clear at all but I have read this novel as a satire of bureaucracy. Its long paragraphs make it quite a suffocating read, as it were, and this goes very well with his descriptions of airless courtrooms and the nightmarish sense of doom and madness that prevail throughout the book.