The Trial, by Kafka

 I finished this yesterday morning, but forgot to post about it. 

Spoilers below:

Holy shit! The ending. WTF?! 

This whole thing, Jeez. Bureaucracy. Crazy. No idea what the charge is. Or was. Or if the trial had started. Or not. Or what the hell the lawyer(s) were talking about. Or the court officials. 

And most of the people Joseph K runs into work for the courts. Like in some countries I've lived in. Oy. 

The women, though. Again, male writer. A product of the author's age, or written this way purposefully? 

I told my wife The Trial is as much a dystopia as We or even 1984. Only not as far developed, K's world, I mean. But she reminded me that this book could be a critique on the justice system in Kafka's country at the time. Then we couldn't decide if that was France or Germany or ???  Or I could simply accept Hannah Arendt's theory that "no man is free from guilt."

I liked it, overall. I have to accept that a) the author didn't want his book(s) published (supposedly) and 2) that the author didn't want K, or the reader, to know what the crime was. Ugh.

Spoilers above ^^^

Not sure when/if I'll read another Kafka. This one was a family book club choice from my SIL, so I thank her for this choice. Wikipedia puts this book in four genres (sub-genres?): philosophical, dystopian, absurdist, paranoid fiction. I think I can agree on all counts. Phew!