Kafka's The Trial will be the book to read for new students in 2004

By Franklin Crawford

Someone must have slandered Joseph K., for one morning, without having done anything truly wrong, he was arrested.

So begins The Trial, Franz Kafka's prophetic -- some have argued comically absurd -- novel. And so too begins the first chapter in Cornell's fourth annual New Student Reading Project. Written in 1914, The Trial will be required reading for more than 3,000 incoming freshman and transfer students this fall. And more than 20,000 alumni also will join in what has become an annual rite of passage for new students. If previous reading projects are any indication, students and faculty, as well as the Cornell and Ithaca communities, will have plenty to say about Kafka's prescient masterpiece.

"It's a provocative work and yet another example of a timeless text that raises timely themes," said Isaac Kramnick, vice provost for undergraduate education, echoing his comments on last year's required reading of Sophocles' Antigone. "In the age of the Patriot Act, the book raises all kinds of questions about the nature of justice and the role of the state."

Kramnick said the unprecedented number of alumni participating in the reading is "amazing evidence of alumni desire to remain close to the intellectual life of the campus." Some 23 Cornell alumni classes have purchased books for their members.

In The Trial, Joseph K., a banker, must defend himself against charges that are never described to him, through the alienating processes of an illogical legal system. Kramnick said the novel pits protagonist Joseph K., "a lonely, isolated individual," against "the impenetrable, incomprehensible, bureaucratic and juridical nightmares of an impersonal, unfeeling world."

The term "Kafkaesque," now part of the cultural lexicon in 110 languages, is derived largely from The Trial, Kramnick said.

"Like the notion of a Frankenstein monster, the concept of something as being Kafkaesque has transcended its literary origins and has become part of our culture," he said. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein was the required reading for the 2002 reading project.

The Cornell reading project was the brainchild of Provost Biddy Martin, who conceived the initiative as a way to encourage intellectual as well as social rapport among incoming students. The project is sponsored by the Provost's Office, with assistance from Kramnick, and the office of Vice President for Student and Academic Services Susan Murphy.

Together with their entering classmates and professors, new Cornell students will discuss, criticize and evaluate The Trial at required campus events during the university's orientation week, including a large-group symposium and small-group discussions. A faculty member will lead each small-group discussion with the assistance of an upper-level student. When classes begin, many new students also will have opportunities to write about some aspect of the novel in their first-year writing seminars.

"The New Student Reading Project brings the entire campus community together in a renewal ritual, often with surprising results," said Kramnick. "It has unexpectedly brought town and gown together as well, with the involvement of the Tompkins County Public Library and area high schools."

The project also is another way for Cornell alumni to connect with campus activities, Kramnick said. Alumni reading groups "flourish in Cornell clubs around the country."

In addition, each member of the Cornell Board of Trustees and many members of the Cornell University Council get copies of the book, and during Trustee-Council Weekend in October there will be seminar discussions of The Trial.

Incoming students will receive copies of a Cornell edition of The Trial in their orientation materials. The text is a recent translation by Breon Mitchell, professor of German Studies and comparative literature at Indiana University, and is published by Schocken Books of New York, a division of Random House. Breon's translation endeavors to restore the text as closely as possible to the original manuscript, and includes a bibliography and a chronology of the author's life. According to Library Journal, The Trial was left unfinished at the time of Kafka's death in 1924. The original 1925 volume -- and subsequent editions -- were edited "according to the standards of the day," and scholars believe many errors were made.

According to publisher's book notes, the Cornell version is "based upon the work of an international team of experts who have restored the text, the sequence of chapters, and their division to create a version that is as close as possible to the way the author left it."

For more information about the New Student Reading Project, contact Michael Busch, in the Office of the Vice Provost, 255-3062, or e-mail mpb3@cornell.edu.