The Trial

by Franz Kafka

Before reading the book I knew the synopsis, so I went to it "prepared". Boy

was I wrong.

What the summaries don't tell you are two things:

- The protagonist is a genuine asshole.

- The civil court is not an institution but an omnipresent entity.

Everybody has a different interpretation but mine was that the book deals with

guilty conscience. Josef K knows that what he's doing is wrong (treating

everyone as below himself, treating women as tools, slacking off at work). He

is rationalizing things as hard as he can, but "the court" catches up with him.

Some interpret it as criticism of bureaucracy but the way things work in the

book are efficient compared to the shit show the real world is.

published on 2025-09-04