SOMEONE must have slandered Josef K., for one morning, without having done anything truly wrong, he was arrested.” Thus begins Kafka’s famous novel, The Trial, a story told blandly about something not at all bland: something crazy, disturbing, and yet also sensed as true. The Trial is a story about a gaping hole where justice is spoken of but never appears.

K. is arrested and is to face trial, probably to be convicted and sentenced, but the