Golden Lane, No 22

Golden Lane, No 22

I have started listening to The Trial by Franz Kafka which is a book on the 1001 book list.  I read Metamorphosis a couple of years ago and thought it very clever and rather disturbing!  

I don’t know much about The Trial except that it is about a man who is arrested by people who won’t state who they represent, for a crime which he knows nothing about and the men won’t tell him what it is.

He is given the date and address of his hearing  by phone, but when he puts the phone down he realises he wasn’t told what time.  As most proceedings commence at 9am, he make his way to a strange block of flats in a run down area of town.  On arrival he is advised that he is 1 hour and 5 minutes late.

We know this man as K. (Josef K.) and being frustrated at this ridiculous situation he lets rip in the ‘court room’ demanding to know what exactly is going on.  That is as far as I have got.  I know that Kafka died before completing the novel, and as such it is apparently flawed with inconsistencies within the narration, but so far so good.

The picture above is of Kafka’s house.  It is actually a postcard that was sent to me by one of my original book clubbers who visited it on one of his European jaunts.  He told me that he was very surprised at how small it is. Amazing to think that these classics were written there.

As for my other reading, I've almost finished The Order of the Phoenix, and hopefully I can get through Somewhere in Time so I can start the Matheson short stories.

Had a busy night tonight, so going to have a cup of tea and watch the crazy team on Top Gear for half an hour.