Ryan Cordero Ch. 9

            This next chapter, including the final one, was not written by Kafka himself. Just thinking about this leaves me rather annoyed and frustrated because I will never know how the book is actually supposed to end. With that said, this chapter does emulate Kafka’s writing style and general bizarreness of the novel. Like in the other chapters, the characters that appear have a sort of double life/area of influence, for example, the chaplain from the cathedral also knows details about K.’s case. How K. ended up it the cathedral was equally as random, as he was supposed to meet an Italian client who never showed up.

            I think K. trying to learn Italian but ends up not being able to fully understand the client is a metaphor for K.’s trial. At first, K. was confused about the court system but thought he knew enough to make a stand, seen when he gives a speech in front of the entire courtroom. Then K. decides to brush up on his Italian and spends the night studying the language; regarding his case, K. decides to seek out help and find out more about the actual status of his trial. The next day when he meets the Italian client, K. realizes he cannot understand that man that well and basically gives up. After seeing Block’s situation, K. realizes its time to take a step back and let the trial work itself out.

            So far this chapter seems as if it could be written by Kafka, especially the fact that the Italian man ends up not showing up and more characters are introduced, namely the chaplain from the cathedral. At this point in the novel I really have no idea how the story will end. After every chapter I feel as if we just started reading the book. When we first started reading the book I said that I thought we would never learn what K. is accused of and my prediction still stands and will probably stand through the end of the novel. After the first couple of chapters, it didn't really matter what he was arrested for. I am interested to see how this editor will end the novel, because maybe Kafka did not finish the book because he did not know how to, or because he planned on making the novel much longer.