Tag Archives: Trial

Kafka and America’s Disappeared

By Robin Bates | Published: March 26, 2025

America is “disappearing” people, bringing to mind the fate of K in Kafka’s “Trial.”

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged 1984, Franz Kafka, George Orwell, Handmaid's Tale, ICE, immigration terror, Margaret Atwood, Martin Niemöller | Comments closed

Imagining Trump as Kafka’s K.

By Robin Bates | Published: November 9, 2023

Satirist Petri imagines Trump as Kafka’s K–but in this case Trump’s mind, not the court, is Kafkaesque.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Donald Trump, Franz Kafka, judicial system, Trump bank fraud case | Comments closed

Russia’s Kafkaesque Legal System

By Robin Bates | Published: August 30, 2023

Kafka’s “Trial” describes the current Russian justice system.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Alexei Navalny, Franz Kafka, injustice, Russian dissenters, Russian justice, Vladimir Kara-Murz | Comments closed

History’s Arc Bends Towards Kafka

By Robin Bates | Published: July 13, 2023

The late Kundera has fascinating insights into how the novel has intersected with history.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Art of the Novel, authoritarianism, Castle, Don Quixote, Franz Kafka, Gustave Flaubert, Honoré de Balzac, Jane Austen, Madame Bovary, Miguel de Cervantes, Milan Kundera, sexuality, Slowness | Comments closed

Figaro vs. Kafka’s K: The Power of Rumor

By Robin Bates | Published: November 15, 2022

In our continuing discussion of rumor vs. truth, Figaro finds a way to defeat malicious gossip, Kafka not.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Barber of Seville, Enlightenment, Franz Kafka, Gioachino Rossini, Pierre Beaumarchais, Rumor, Socrates | Comments closed

Which Narrative Fits Mueller’s Report?

By Robin Bates | Published: March 24, 2019

Monday Two weeks ago I had an interesting interchange with reader Josh Grumet about which narrative would emerge once Robert Mueller submitted his report. While I said that liberals and NeverTrumpers were rooting for a Sherlock Holmes ending, I feared we would end up with a Samuel Beckett non-conclusion. Josh, meanwhile, compared Trump supporters to […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Alexander Dumas, Count of Monte Cristo, Donald Trump, Endgame, Franz Kafka, Mueller Report, Oxbow Incident, Russian Collusion, Samuel Beckett, Walter Clark, William Barr | Comments closed

Kafka’s K Would Feel at Home with FISA

By Robin Bates | Published: May 27, 2015

A “Washington Post” quiz comparing Franz Kafka’s “The Trial” with the United Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court comes up with some disturbing resemblances.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged court system, FBI, FISA Court, foreign intelligence agents, Franz Kafka, NSA, United Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court | Comments closed

The Brave New World of Twitterature

By Robin Bates | Published: May 31, 2012

Depending on your point of view, literature reduced to tweets is either comic or horrifying.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Catcher in the Rye, E. M. Forster, Franz Kafka, Gustave Flaubert, Howards End, In Search of Lost Time, J. D. Salinger, Jane Austen, John Milton, John Steinbeck, Madame Bovary, Marcel Proust, Metamorphosis, Of Mice and Men, Paradise Lost, Pride and Prejudice | Comments closed

Lit, an RX for Fanaticism?

By Robin Bates | Published: November 14, 2011

Israeli author Amos Oz believes that literature can provide “a partial and limited immunity to fanaticism.”

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Nose", Fanaticism, Franz Kafka, Nikolai Gogol, William Shakespeare | Comments closed