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Mar. 6th, 2011 05:13 am33. The Trial, tr. Breon Mitchell
I like the Muirs but this translator's good too. This novel's what people are thinking of when they talk about Kafka's resistance to interpretation, isn't it? The trial is medical, literary, religious/spiritual, vocational (the direct parallel in the book is with his career at the bank) - whatever one can perish, or might as well have perished, for having not succeeded at. And it's not like the anti-bureaucracy, anti-authoritarian aspect isn't in there; it's just directed past people at life, hence the constant distinction between silly, vain, avaricious lower orders and inscrutable, never-seen higher ups. All we know of the latter is they corral us here among the former, which is not a great recommendation. Well, perhaps he meets just one of them (whose special pulpit emerges from the stone, Varos-like) - and what the two discuss does seem to be the recalcitrance of the materials the high ones have to work with. Though low and high get dialectical there.
The final image of the window and the arms is quite amazing, a suitably ambiguous Faust/feminine moment. The "Before the Law" failure is in striking contrast to Goethe's Faust's unexpected success, actually. Though Josef K. has a bit more Hamlet in him, an urge to assert himself at the expense of what implicates him, even as he knows he can't escape. The absolute ambiguity of the book is whether he has a right to - whether sky or crow can be blamed for his failure to fly.
A hell of a book. "In the Cathedral" I'll add to Invisible Cities and Garden of Forking Paths as things to reread annually. Until I no longer want to, of course.
I like the Muirs but this translator's good too. This novel's what people are thinking of when they talk about Kafka's resistance to interpretation, isn't it? The trial is medical, literary, religious/spiritual, vocational (the direct parallel in the book is with his career at the bank) - whatever one can perish, or might as well have perished, for having not succeeded at. And it's not like the anti-bureaucracy, anti-authoritarian aspect isn't in there; it's just directed past people at life, hence the constant distinction between silly, vain, avaricious lower orders and inscrutable, never-seen higher ups. All we know of the latter is they corral us here among the former, which is not a great recommendation. Well, perhaps he meets just one of them (whose special pulpit emerges from the stone, Varos-like) - and what the two discuss does seem to be the recalcitrance of the materials the high ones have to work with. Though low and high get dialectical there.
The final image of the window and the arms is quite amazing, a suitably ambiguous Faust/feminine moment. The "Before the Law" failure is in striking contrast to Goethe's Faust's unexpected success, actually. Though Josef K. has a bit more Hamlet in him, an urge to assert himself at the expense of what implicates him, even as he knows he can't escape. The absolute ambiguity of the book is whether he has a right to - whether sky or crow can be blamed for his failure to fly.
A hell of a book. "In the Cathedral" I'll add to Invisible Cities and Garden of Forking Paths as things to reread annually. Until I no longer want to, of course.
