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Welcome back to The Invisible College, my series of literature courses for paid subscribers. The introduction to and schedule for the 2025 season is here. The 2024 archive is here. This episode, of which the first 20 minutes are free, concerns Franz Kafka’s The Trial. I discuss Kafka’s biography and the many myths surrounding his life and icon; I offer a strange interpretation of The Trial, one resistant to the cliché that it’s a political dystopia or that its hero is an innocent victim; and, in tribute to the novel’s own staging of the interpretive process, I consider major critical voices on Kafka’s significance (Walter Benjamin, George Steiner, Gilles Deleuze, and Harold Bloom). Please like, share, comment, and subscribe! The slideshow corresponding to the episode can be downloaded behind the paywall: