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There's something to this. When I read The Trial, I was struck by the sheer absurdity of it all. Josef is never charged with a crime, is never coerced into any action, yet at every step remains a willing participant in his own punishment. Up to his own death. It's as if his real crime was not refusing to go along with the farce.


Kafka's friend, Max Brod, talked of how Kafka found humour in his dark works - especially the chilling "The Trial", which he thought a hoot, laughing so hard while reading the first chapter aloud, that he repeatedly had to stop to collect himself.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2008/jul/03/post...


maybe he was rationalizing his own fate, like Rubashov in Koestlers "Darkness at noon".

A common response by those arrested during Stalin's purges is said to have been "this is a all a mistake, it will be sorted out soon"...




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