Honest questions: are you an avid reader? What kind of writers do you prefer that usually fall in the Kafka-catergory. The Trial was my first Kafka and it bound me from the beginning. The scenes where he is picked up they were gripping and intense and tragi-comic at the same time. Interesting that it doesn't work for everyone. That was my first thought at the OP top: who wouldn't get Kafka? Perhaps this is a subtle cultural effect at work.
I read The Trial, and I am an avid reader of literary fiction. I understand that the trial was published posthumously, and against Kafka's wishes. These facts track, for me, because I feel The Trial was unfinished, unpolished, and most of the time, not very good.
The whole time Joseph K. expounds his innocence, but still acts a total jerk to everybody he can, and at every opportunity. Being a jerk isn't exactly a crime, but its never clear what level of law the novel is operating on, and so its wholly reasonable to suspect K. is completely guilty, which changes the whole narrative (and for the worse)
The first chapter is wonderful and all that good "Kafkaesque" material people harp on about. Then the meeting with the priest where Kafka essentially provides a dialogue and commentary on one of his own short stories; enlightening, and entertaining. But past that nothing jives right.
The knowledge of his hecka abusive father doesnt serve the novel either. From the real world information, it only takes a few small adjustments to make The Trial as an allegory for child abuse, and the rationalizations and bitter remorse associated with it into adulthood. Kafka, as a person, was treated terribly for little to no reason, by an authority he was subject to. Kafka assumes his innocence, and presumes the authority was wrong, until eventually his mind is beaten down enough and the abused believes that the abuse is deserved. Not to mention the natual tendancy to assume parents, even abusive ones, arent actually as bad as they seem (to a child, at least). Goven tvat reading, the mystery of interpreting The Trial dissapates, and a grim and more common than desired account remains.
I guess my frustration with The Trial is not the novel itself, or Kafka himself, but the circumstances of its publication (which, again, in its shambolic presentation, show), and of the "prediction of future bueraucracy" ascribed to it, both factors external to the author.
But on subject, kafka is sorta funny. In a dark and/or cynical way. But I find him more sad and pitiful, both his work anf the author himself.
I disagree. It has many different layers of meaning. Besides the plain reading on the face of it, you can also read it in the context of Kafka's own relationship with his father. Or you can read it through the Christian lens, where suddenly instead of an innocent good guy in a dystopic nightmare, the protagonist is a stubborn sinner who refuses to admit his guilt and submit for redemption. And so on and so forth. You can even read the chapters out of order, with the exception of the first and last. It's really a remarkable novel!
