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208 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1925
...a disgusting, steaming yellow fluid poured forth, before which a rat fled into the nearby sewer. At the bottom of the steps a small child was lying face down on the ground, crying, but it could hardly be heard above the noise coming from a sheet metal shop…We, humanity, are prostrate and bawling in a toxic wasteland, unloved and ignored by the absent parents. Not even passersby stop to help the child, or are even away, for the noise of industry drowns it out. This is a world where corporations are ‘people’ and actual lives are thrown to the gutter for ‘the good of the company’, where soulless abstract money-making concepts are given a higher priority than our own shared flesh-and-blood. The worst part is that we accept this. We tow the party line, we uphold something meaningless and only given power by our collective acceptance. ‘You may object that it is not a trial at all,’ says K. to the courtroom, ‘you are quite right, for it is only a trial if I recognize it as such.’ These are not political opinions I am presenting, just the fact that much of our society, economy and political structure exists only because we recognize it as so and prescribe meaning to something inherently meaningless.
They're talking about things of which they don't have the slightest understanding, anyway. It's only because of their stupidity that they're able to be so sure of themselves.How like our world today where we accept opinions without wondering the qualifications; internet slander or a simple viral meme can destroy a life or an idea simply because it is funny even if it isn’t rooted in reality. K. is all of us, K. is the everyman, K. is us faced with the world around us. A world where trying to go up against it will only lead to frustration and futility. Through all his proceedings, all his legal advice, nothing is learned. Lawyers and confidants only seem to discuss the workings of the trial and court system; the more we learn, the less we understand. The system is so complicated that it stalemates itself, and it seems almost pointless to investigate. Is there purpose in assessing our lives, our condition in the world? Not if we address it with logic. This is futility. But, perhaps, if we assess it on it’s own terms, then even if our fate is still sealed we can glean a bit of insight.
I always snatched at the world with twenty hands, and not for a very laudable motive, either. That was wrong, and am I to show now that not even a year’s trial has taught me anything?His fate was already decided, and his efforts are in vain. It should come as no surprise, then, that K. is so suffocated in the stifling air of the court houses. Who wouldn’t feel faint and overcome with illness when beleaguered by the absurd where no assertion of innocence matters?
‘Everyone strives to attain the Law,' answers the man, 'how does it come about, then, that in all these years no one has come seeking admittance but me?' The doorkeeper perceives that the man is nearing his end and his hearing is failing, so he bellows in his ear: 'No one but you could gain admittance through this door, since this door was intended for you. I am now going to shut it.’And later in this same conversation, “it is not necessary to accept everything as true, one must only accept it as necessary.”
"I see," said K., nodding, "these books are probably law books, and it is an essential part of the justice dispensed here that you should be condemned not only in innocence but also in ignorance." "That must be it," said the woman, who had not quite understood him.Judgment determined by accusation rather than by trial.
"We are only being punished because you accused us; if you hadn't, nothing would have happened, not even if they had discovered what we did. Do you call that justice?Guilty until proven less guilty. Less guilty via the right connections rather than the right evidence. Innocence with an expiration date. Complaints about any of the previous injustices accelerating the inevitable, and for what? The hope that the future might be better? What difference will that make to you, the individual life currently at stake? The invisible pendulum will still be suspended over the more invisible pit, and your every forthright movement will still be swallowed in the obscurity of the Law, and nothing will result but a building sense of anxiety and despair.
"No," said the priest, "it is not necessary to accept everything as true, one must only accept it as necessary."History repeats itself.
After all, K. lived in a state governed by law, there was universal peace, all statutes were in force; who dared assault him in his own lodgings?
The gradations and ranks of the court are infinite, extending beyond the ken even of initiates. The proceedings in the courts of law are generally a mystery to the lower officials as well; therefore they can almost never follow the progress of the cases they are working on throughout their course; the case enters their field of vision, often they know not whence, and continues on, they know not where.
An apparent acquittal is handled differently. There is no further change in the files except for adding to them the certification of innocence, the acquittal, and the grounds for the acquittal. Otherwise they remain in circulation; following the law court’s normal routine they are passed on to the higher courts, come back to the lower ones, swinging back and forth with larger or smaller oscillations, longer or shorter interruptions. These paths are unpredictable. Externally it may sometimes appear that everything has been long since forgotten, the file has been lost, and the acquittal is absolute. No initiate would ever believe that. No file is ever lost, and the court never forgets.
„Nu da prea multă importanţă comentariilor. Scriptura e invariabilă şi comentariile nu sînt, adeseori, decît expresia deznădejdii comentatorilor”.
„K. luă volumul de deasupra, îl deschise şi dădu cu ochii de o gravură indecentă: un bărbat şi o femeie şedeau goi pe o canapea; intenţia gravorului fusese vădit obscenă, dar stîngăcia desenului făcea să se vadă doar un bărbat şi o femeie exagerat de ţepeni, care păreau că ies din cadru şi nu izbuteau decît cu greu să se privească, din pricina perspectivei greşite. K. nu răsfoi volumul mai departe, ci deschise un altul, la pagina titlului; avea acum în faţă un roman intitulat: «Torturile pe care Grete le-a îndurat de la soțul ei, Hans»”.
„Opera lui Kafka a fost supusă unui adevărat viol în masă de către nu mai puțin de trei armate de interpreți. Cei care-l citesc pe Kafka drept o alegorie socială văd studii de caz ale frustrărilor și absurdității nebunești ale birocrației moderne și ale manifestării ei ultime în statul totalitar. Cei care-l citesc pe Kafka drept o alegorie psihanalitică văd dezvăluiri disperate ale spaimei în fața tatălui, anxietăți de castrare, sentimentul propriei neputințe, starea sa de sclav al propriilor vise. Cei care-l citesc pe Kafka drept alegorie religioasă arată cum K. din Castelul încearcă să obțină accesul în ceruri, cum Joseph K. din Procesul este judecat de tainica și inexorabila dreptate a lui Dumnezeu...” (Împotriva interpretării, București: Editura Univers, 2000, pp.18-19).
ذهب القفص يبحث عن عصفور
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مشى بصرامة بينهما(جلاديه)
وشكل ثلاثتهم كيانًا واحدا
وكان كيانا يمكن له أن يتشكل فقط من انعدام الحياة
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عند غرس المدية في رقبته بدا الأمر وكأن خزيه سيستمر بعد موته
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غرز الرجل الساطور عميقًا في قلبه ولفه مرتين
كما يموت الكلب-قال ك
لقد نسيت أن أسألك أي نوع من إخلاء السبيل تريد؟ فهناك ثلاثة أنواع: الأول و هو إخلاء السبيل النهائي. و الثاني إخلاء سبيل صوري. و الثالث تأجيل غير محدد المدة.إخلاء السبيل النهائي هو محض اسطورة لم تحدث إلا في حكايات الزمن الغابر و لا سبيل للتأكد منها.
لكن الناس جميعا لا يفكرون في قضاياهم مثلما تفعل أنت. فأنا مثلا قد قبض علي أيضا لكنني لم أقدم أية مستندات و لم أحاول أن أفعل شيئا من أي نوع. هل تعتقد أن لهذه الأشياء أهمية؟بطل الرواية هو جوزيف ك. أما جوزيف فهو اسم النبي يوسف أشهر بريء في هذا العالم الغير عادل بالمرة و على مر العصور. و أما ك فقد يكون هو كافكا نفسه و قد يكون أنت أو أنا أو أي فرد أرّقه مصيره و فكر في لحظة النهاية و جدوى الطريق.
قال الكاهن و هو يمد يده لمصافحة ك:و من منا يستطيع أن يتبين الطريق في هذا الظلام الدامس. ظلمات بعضها فوق بعض إذا أخرج يده لم يكد يراها. و سُبُل متفرقة على رأس كل منها شيطان مستعد و متشوق لأن يأخذ بيدك إلى طريق الضلال.
حسنا تستطيع أن تذهب.
لكنني لن أستطيع أن أجد الطريق إلى الخارج بمفردي وسط هذا الظلام.
انعطف إلى يسار الحائط ثم سر بجوار الجدار حتى تصل إلى الباب.
قال الكاهن ذلك و ابتعد عن ك خطوتين فاضطر ك أن يصيح:
انني أنتظر.
ألا تريد مني شيئا الأن؟
لا.
لقد كنت تعاملني برقة لفترة و قد شرحت لي الكثير و الأن تتركني أذهب و كأنك لا تهتم بي مطلقا.!
لكنك مضطر للرحيل.
نعم. و لكنك ترى أنني لا أعرف الطريق.