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The Trial

Penguin Classics

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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

This Penguin Classic is performed by Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, winner of the 2019 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Musical.

A terrifying psychological trip into the life of one Joseph K., an ordinary man who wakes up one day to find himself accused of a crime he did not commit, a crime whose nature is never revealed to him. Once arrested, he is released, but must report to court on a regular basis - an event that proves maddening, as nothing is ever resolved. As he grows more uncertain of his fate, his personal life - including work at a bank and his relations with his landlady and a young woman who lives next door - becomes increasingly unpredictable. As K. tries to gain control, he succeeds only in accelerating his own excruciating downward spiral.

 Absurdist Classics Dystopian Genre Fiction Political Psychological Science Fiction Fiction

Critic reviews

The Dante of the Twentieth Century (W. H. Auden)
This compelling, prophetic novel anticipates the insanity of modern bureaucracy and the coming of totalitarianism (The Daily Telegraph)
It is the fate and perhaps the greatness of that work that it offers everything and confirms nothing (Albert Camus)
It was Kafka who made me understand that one can write differently (Gabriel García Márquez)
All stars
Most relevant
The narrator’s creative and playful accents deliver justice by perseving Franz Kafka’s sarcasm and wit.

Throughout the process…

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Superbly sinister, a metaphor for the mystery of life. Josef K. is in an unidentified place, awash in a legal nightmare, where he is arrested without knowing why, and bound fast by a burocratic machine... and as if that's not enough, he keeps getting seduced by incidental women.

Important novel

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Narration was excellent. Kafka expertly illustrates a spirit shattering bureaucratic nightmare that begins to feel like a sentient organism rather than an organisation as the book goes on.

It ends abruptly and in a somewhat unsatisfactory way, but I suppose that's to be expected given the content, it should be expected even more so taking Kafka's other work into consideration.

Franz Kafka's Illustration of Bureaucracy

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This book made me feel pretty uncomfortable from start to finish ... and I quite enjoyed it! The further I got into the book the more I understood that looking for answers was as futile as the protagonists attempt for answers. There is a tale told at the end which was a little spoonfed for me but did offer some perspectives I would not have thought of without guidance so suppose not the end of the world. Four stars because it came to an abrupt end (perhaps because this was one of his unfinished stories?). Recommend only to those who are willing to try unconventional stories.

so much left unanswered but isn't that the point?

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This is a classic read, it’s about K, a man whose every move is blocked by others, and it’s about how he decides to cope with the situation. There’s something Kafka-esque in life at one time or another for all of us so I too can relate to it. I love the narrator’s interpretation of being K, just love it. I would have given up with a book, but Kobna makes it interesting.

Excellent narration voice

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