The Trial

I'm on the second track of this massive four track audiobook by Franz Kafka called "The Trial". A famous book, it is the story of a man, Joseph Kay, who is accused of a crime and a trial is initiated against him however the trial is so secretive that the defendant isn't told what he is accused of. Kafka basically plays on the "big brother" theme but adds some interesting human elements to it.

So far the book has been pretty interesting. It did drag a big at the end of the first track (each track is about 2 and a half hours so the book is about 10 hours) but now at the end of the second track it has become interesting again. The introduction of the crazy uncle, Lany and the lawyer were quite hilarious. However, the monologue where Kafka begins to describe the true nature of the judicial system is where the real meat of the book is and the story around it seems more of a means to demonstrate the central theme of judicial ineptness of a secretive court system. The story and characters add narrative element to this theme.

I comment that specially struck me as darkly humorous is that such trial are so secretive that they are kept a secret even from the defendant. The other one is about how the judicial system merely tolerates the defense because it is an annoying aspect of written law and how some even argue if there is merit in such tolerance.