One morning Josef K., a respected bank official, is arrested in his own flat by two officials who do not tell him why. He stays free, but a mysterious court summons him to hearings held in cramped attics, and all his efforts to defend himself, through his uncle, an advocate and an artist who paints for judges, only drag him deeper. Kafka wrote the novel in 1914-15 and never finished it. The parable "Before the Law" is told inside it by a priest.
Anyone who has been caught in an incomprehensible system will recognise the feeling. Short and strange, it is a good starting point for Kafka.
Deep, inward-looking, open-ended and thought-provoking; a moderate read.
Best for readers like The Literary Connoisseur. Which reader are you?
- Published
- 1998
- Publisher
- Folio
- ISBN
- 9782070378401
- Language
- FR
