The Trial by Franz Kafka (1925)

 Though the heading says 1925, I read a paperback that is "a new translation, based on the restored text". This novel has iconic status, and so is a danger zone for assumptions. It is the well known story of Josef K., who, in Prague in the period before the First World War, is high up in a bank. He is sailing along pretty comfortably when he is accused of.......something, and notified that he has a trial pending. Thus begins a labyrinthine connection to the world of the Austro-Hungarian court system in its Bohemian province. We are slowly taken into his world: the rooming house where he lives, his associates, women he fancies, the posturing and nitty-gritty world of his work at the bank. But interlaced with this picture is the weird new section of life dealing with this trial. The court system is a mystery to him, and to many others who get tangled up in its politics and endless postponements. (Bleak House comes to mind.) He tries over and over again to get clarity in what exactly it is he's accused of. He enlists the assistance of a variety of lawyers, who claim to have special access, or wise experience. All the while he is attempting to not let this innovation cause too much havoc in his other life - wondering who knows about it, and what they might be thinking, or indeed doing, in relation to it. He manages to go to a couple of preliminary "hearings", meeting others in similar situations waiting outside various courts or offices. The strong impression is of yet another human being lost in a cats' cradle which is taking up the time of many. The legal system is so clogged, and unknowable, that these puzzled, weakly strategising people form a significant portion of the population. At this point, it feels right to say something: this novel is often described as "terrifying". Through almost all of its length it is definitely not. It is a grey, surreal world that it occupies. The whole thing feels very much like a dream - with locales and interrelations that have that significant quality. Stairs and passages are windy and tight, looks are intense, moods are vivid, some of the everyday is missing, some emphasised. The over and over of trying to find the right place, the right angle of attack. Every now and then the surreality is more overt - an upper balcony of a courtroom being so low that all its occupants are slightly bending their heads - almost an Alice-like picture. Of course, the other key thing about this is that it is unfinished, assembled after Kafka's death from fragmentary manuscripts. So, the only truly terrifying thing in it, Josef's death, comes in a fragment at the end, where he is knifed by two men who come to his rooms in the guise of functionaries of the court. What Kafka might have done to tie everything together is an intriguing postulation. As it stands, my main impression is of the aforementioned surreal and dreamlike quality, alongside the fundamental psychological impetus of the whole thing. The author references in the most subtle ways the odd shifts and successive impressions flowing through the minds of many of the characters, and particularly of Josef. Sudden changes of mind, recurring obsessions, power-relationships ebbing and flowing, all sluiced through the language of the animus. These elements mix into a powerful atmosphere, a mood of loss of anchor, struggle in a maze, all mysteriously and alluringly pictured in muted colour.

The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka (1915)

 Some of the reviews of this edition call it "fiendishly funny" and as having "sheer mischief" in its makeup, which I find frankly puzzling. Though it has an occasional moment where one might be able to 'interpret in' a fairly vague attempt at humorous lightness, it most definitely doesn't feel majority-comedic. My overwhelming emotional response is pity. And aesthetically it feels dark and expressionist. I really don't think this is a black comedy, but it's my first Kafka, and maybe I need to learn more. The storyline is well-known, but it is interesting to note that it most definitely wasn't a cockroach that Gregor became, rather something like a louse, because he had a squishy back in which could be embedded the apple his father throws. Kafka's original language is apparently general enough simply to indicate 'vermin'. I like his attitude to detail: a particular point that serves the plot will be drawn out with an emotional specificity relating to something tangential, thereby enriching the picture. Often these embellishments go toward the further elucidation of character, so we get a subtler portrait of where someone is at, their pride or timidity or social anxieties. I haven't read around this at all, wanting the work to speak for itself, so there may be answers out there to a major question I have: how far is this allegorical? Is Kafka dramatizing a feeling of dehumanization he felt at some point of his life? Or a period of incapacitating illness? Or some sort of social pariah-hood? It's also interesting how matter of fact he is in his ending. Gregor's parents and sister experience a great relief and buzzing high when he finally dies, and seem to be selfishly concentrated on future happiness, all thought of his plight left behind happily. Is this an indictment? Or a recording of melancholic truthfulness about the pleasure that comes from lifting the weight of familial burdens? With its minority-playfulness, crabbed and fierce darkness and grey, limpid sadness, anyway, this is a splendid thing.