The Trial by Franz Kafka (Patron-Only Early Access/Ad-Free)
Compelling ideas underneath, but a dry read.
Comments (7)
If you do decide to pick it up again, try the Muir translation. I don't know how it compares to the one you read, but it was the one we were assigned in college, perhaps due to availability. But man, the section with TItorelli going on for paragraphs about definite acquittal, ostensible acquittal, and indefinite postponement was just brutal....
As a general rule, I find that poets make the best translators; my experience of 'Der Proceß' went down more smoothly that yours with the OG double Muir translation. Perhaps the dimensions of this stylistic stumbling block would be better judged consulting one of those editions for comparison. E.g., I was transported by Tiina Nunnally's translation of 'Kristin Lavransdatter,' and later revisited an earlier translation to find it absolutely dead on the page. Kafka's prose is very matter-of-fact, (from what I am able to discern given the limited Deutsch at my command,) apart from which I do question the use "dry" here. What I found genuinely surprising about this review is that you never once mention the profound humor saturating Kafka's nightmare tales. Something seems clearly lost if you read the court proceedings as pure arcanum and anything other than comedy of the absurd. Always sorry when a reading fails to live up to expectations, but there are many books beyond my capacity to enjoy as well, so go the ink-crossed adventures of bookreaders everywhere.
Love Kafka, have decided recently he is my favorite author. His work permeates so much of my favorite stuff that followed (on the music front Joy Division, and on the film front Lynch). The Castle is painstaking and a natural step-up in dry prose but also insanity following The Trial. Id also agree with Joe above, the translation can make a huge difference here.
Hey Clifford. I enjoyed the review. And I totally agree with your take on this one. Hope you’re doing well!
When you mentioned reading Kafka it recently motivated me to read Amerika, which had been sitting on my shelf for a while. The sentences, at least in the Penguin edition’s translation, were very clear and vivid. Based on your critiques of The Trial I feel like you might like it more.
Hey Cliff, loved your review - huge Kafka fan here. I know you're critical of the prose style, understandably so, but I think a lot of Kafka depends on the translation. German lends itself to these long bureaucratic sentences well, where it isn't as much of a slog as in English but much more compact and concise. I also think a lot depends on the translation - I know there have been two main schools of thought with Kafka, whether to take translational liberties or to translate word-for-word, and I think that the latter result may not relate itself as well to the original flow. Just wanted to mention that - otherwise love the review! In the Penal Colony is by far my favorite Kafka work.
Exactly. We read short stories by him in class. And some of them only were a page long, yet constisted only of 3 sentences. In German, one could write a book and use only one sentence, and stay grammatically correct. There'd be no need for ";" or ":", which is great if you're bored.