The Trial

Franz Kafka's incomplete novel on social decay, innocence, retribution, death and love - and...anonymity? This novel is full of unexpected turns when Josef K. is arrested on account of something he not only didn't do, but he is not told the charges of either. The idea of this novel is centred around the anonymous entity that is the everyman and a crime unknown (probably morality based knowing Kafka) with a punishment severe...WAIT! Does this sound like a Dostoyevsky novel to you? Try "Crime and Punishment" and "Notes from the Underground".... 

Characters: 

My favourite characters are Willem and Franz - who are the two officers who arrest K and don't tell him why. Now, it's official - yes they are a-holes, but they do speak with such ambiguity that you don't even recognise you're not being given information for a reason - it definitely takes a second read to be able to tell. 

Themes: 

The theme of ambiguity is the best one here. The whole book centres itself around telling you only what you need to know and not what you want to know. Kind of like a 1984 thing going on with a bit of Burgess and Dostoyevsky and Animal Farm as the world around K keeps morphing according to what we know and what the characters know. Obviously there is some massive reverse dramatic irony going on here and Kafka has done it perfectly. 

Storyline:

The storyline is surprisingly short - A man gets arrested for something he has no idea about, but here's the catch - neither do you! Now, Kafka can go several ways with this and how he does it is incredible. He uses information as his main symbol. Information is everything to Kafka and revealing it little by little makes the storyline evermore tense and full of thrilling suspense that even if K was sitting there staring at a brick wall - we'd probably still want to know why he's staring at the brick wall. 

Verdict:

I give this book 9 out of 9. 

100% for characters: No matter how villainous and horrible Willem and Franz may seem to be, there is always something great about Kafka's use of language. Here, we see that information gets us everywhere. 

100% for themes: The theme of ambiguity seems to be Kafka's forte. An ambiguity that is put forward so "de haut en bas" (in the words of DH Lawrence) that there is no room for the unknown of  things (as condescending as Willem and Franz may want to speak) - even though that's how we play it out all the way through the book. 

100% for storyline: The storyline as simplistic as it is, relies heavily on what we know, how much we know - and more importantly, what we don't know and how much is concealed from us. Kafka is brilliant at the reversal of dramatic irony and poses his own sense of social critique of "the system" or "the government". Hahaha, Kafka...