Kafka's The Trial

In Our Time: Culture

BBC

History

4.6 • 978 Ratings

🗓️ 27 November 2014

⏱️ 44 minutes

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Summary

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Franz Kafka's novel of power and alienation 'The Trial', in which readers follow the protagonist Joseph K into a bizarre, nightmarish world in which he stands accused of an unknown crime; courts of interrogation convene in obscure tenement buildings; and there seems to be no escape from a crushing, oppressive bureaucracy.

Kafka was a German-speaking Jew who lived in the Czech city of Prague, during the turbulent years which followed the First World War. He spent his days working as a lawyer for an insurance company, but by night he wrote stories and novels considered some of the high points of twentieth century literature. His explorations of power and alienation have chimed with existentialists, Marxists, psychoanalysts, postmodernists - and Radio 4 listeners, who suggested this as our topic for listener week on In Our Time.

GUESTS

Elizabeth Boa, Professor Emerita of German at the University of Nottingham Steve Connor, Grace 2 Professor of English at the University of Cambridge Ritchie Robertson, Taylor Professor of the German Language and Literature at the University of Oxford

Producer: Luke Mulhall.

Transcript

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0:40.0	UK slash radio4.
0:42.0	I hope you enjoy the program hello quote somebody must have
0:46.2	been telling lies about Joseph K for one morning without having done anything
0:50.0	wrong he was arrested so So begins the trial, the celebrated novel by Franz Kefka.
0:56.4	The readers drawn into a bizarre nightmarish world in which nobody will tell Joseph Kay the charges
1:01.6	against him. Courts of interrogation convene in obscure
1:05.0	corners of tenement buildings. Sex and sadistic punishment seems arbitrary and there seems
1:10.7	to be no escape from a crushing bureaucracy.
1:13.4	Kefka was a German-speaking Jew who lived in the Czech city of Prague across the end of the
1:18.4	19th beginning of the 20th century. He spent his days working as a lawyer for an insurance company, but by night he wrote stories
1:25.3	and novels considered now some of the high points of 20th century literature, although few were published
	...

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