I read Kafka's "Trial" seven or eight years ago, borrowing it from the Colombo Public Library, at the time. I think I bought my copy of "The Castle", round about the same time. The Trial which was a shorter book ( compared with The Castle), was also comparatively a more engrossing read, albeit it being within a confusing labyrinth of a policing system, where the accused cannot comprehend his charge - and the success of Kafka's creation was that without understanding the charge, we the reader too felt that K was guilty ( of an undisclosed charge ). I recall reading a Goodreads review, and the many comments under the review, which agreed that Joseph was "guilty has hell". The fact that we readers felt that K was guilty, not knowing what the charge was tantamount to admission of a totalitarian government's success in its ways of policing. Besides the stuffy rooms, the tables of officials with stacks of paper spilling over, K's escapades, his endless efforts to find a clearance of himself from the charge, which he too was subtly beginning to admit, not withstanding the fact charge was never spelt out, all made The Trial a compelling Read. These two books are not sequels.Why I made this summary on Trial was to base it as a platform to write a bit about The Castle, which I completed reading recently. In "The Castle", K. has been hired as a surveyor, by the authorities of the Castle as a land surveyor. Yet, once the authorities concede that he was indeed officially called upon for his duties, he enters a labyrinth of laws, decisions, denials which make him confused and literally seek without success, an audience with the powers that be, to comprehend clearly his role in the village. He tries to settle down in the village not withstanding the discouragement and the sense of him being rejected.
It is usually considered that The Castle was an unfinished work. The Vintage Classics edition translated by Willa and Edwin Muir contain 58 pages of "Additional Material", which were "found among Kafka's papers after the publication of the first edition." As the original publication nears its end, we find that it is not only K who is a victim of the labyrinth of authority, which dictate the lives of its inhabitants, but almost all of the village. The villagers have agreed upon a tacit admission of agreement to the unwritten laws of the authorities and who ever contests that, becomes outcasts instantly. Consider the following: Barnabas' family has fallen from grace in the eyes of the village due to no fault of their own, and when Barnabas manages to get a position of some ambiguity as a messenger to the castle, the family has some respite and possibly a slim chance of regaining their due place in the village. Barnabas is the messenger who brings out correspondence from the Castle to K, and although these messages do not grant any assurance for K's supposed employment terms, it is the only slim hope he has, in an environment which rejects him in total, otherwise. The following part is Barnabas' sister's admission of the true nature of Barnabas' role as a messenger as well as the messages itself. While K was depending on the messages, Barnabas' family has given undue importance to his role and the messages, since they too need these to rebuild themselves.
"More, in doing that we might depreciate the value of the letter itself in your eyes and so disappoint you sore against our will. But if we didn't lay much stress on the letters we should lay ourselves equally under suspicion, for why in that case should we have taken the trouble of delivering such an unimportant letter, why should our actions and our words be in such clear contradiction, why should we in this way disappoint not only you, the addressee, but also the sender of the letter, who certainly hadn't handed the letter to us so that we should belittle it to the addressee by our explanations? And to hold the mean, without exaggeration on either side, in other words to estimate the just value of those letters, is impossible, they themselves change in value perpetually, the reflections they give rise to are endless, and chance determines where one stops reflecting, and so even our estimate of them is a matter of chance."
I think the above extract is a fair sample of the confusion which emanates with each passing page, a confusion of intent, immersed in a labyrinth. The explanation given by each of the characters other than K. are lengthy, which being comprehensible at one level, does nothing to rid the miasma of confusion at a macro layer. One could argue that a good portion of this book needs to be edited out - but it is this miasma of confusion which is the work of Art, and editing it is counter productive. The copy I have has praise from Kundera in the front page ("Thanks to him that the very notion of the novel is not the same as it was before" - Kafka's influence on Kundera is apparent, although the latter's work is more refined ), and the back page has Nabakov claiming that Kafka was "the greatest German writer of our time".
But be forewarned that this is a stuffy, cold book, which emanates the despair of a relentless German winter across its breadth. It is not an easy book to go on reading, although a sense of admiration of the author cannot be helped seeping through to the reader upon completion. The stuffiness of the work makes one gasp for breath, and I clearly recall thinking that it will be a while before I touch "The Castle" upon completing "The Trial". True to that sentiment it took seven or eight years for me to start on The Castle. I am not sure if I will ever read The Metamorphosis or America, but I can comprehend the awe that the man has instilled in the Nabakovs, the Kunderas, the Nawagattegamas and the Piyal Kariyawasams ( more closer to home ) in this world.
