Diary of an up and coming sociopath

I finished reading The Trial yesterday, having frustratingly read up until the last few pages right as the train pulled into Northfields, forcing me to abandon my “only read books on the tube” ethos. As I expected, it’s a pretty depressive book, about one man trying to fight a system that barely acknowledges him and actively keeps itself secret, even from those who are accused of a crime by it.

As with all Kafka, it’s pretty heavy on symbology, and I was getting very definite existentialist vibes from it. I don’t normally get on very well with existentialism, having long since concluded that life has no meaning and the pursuit of such is utterly pointless, but The Trial was quite engaging. It’s the little details like how he aims to arrive at court 9am even though no-one has told him to be there at that time which drive home the central theme of the book, the way he is imprisoned without being jailed. Even though no-one, least of all the reader, knows what the trial is really about, I began to suspect about halfway through that Joseph K, the main character, was only guilty because he was protesting innocence, and the rest of the book played out with that assumption quite logically. The character never reaches such a conclusion, though, so I guess I’ll never find out.

I’m now trying to decide what book to go with next. Douglas Coupland’s next book, jPod, is still a couple of months away, and part of me is hungry for more Kafka, but his prose makes a challenging read for me and I’m wondering if I might not go with something that requires a little less concentration, though he does have short stories, and I’m always partial to reading those on the tube… I suspect a trip to borders will solve my indecision though.