The Trial

A short note to narrator Geoffrey Howard: Breathe. Take one deep breath. Allow readers a chance to hear a pause so they can press the stop button and not miss anything. End of note. Actually, Howard has a great voice for this modern classic's new translation. (Don't fast-forward past his reading of the translator's note. It explains a lot.) Howard's British accent and deep monotone set the proper dark tone for the book. He stays away from character voices, and that works too because his inflections carry the story's emotions along. Indeed, Howard acts as our intellectual guide by emphasizing key passages and marking them as worthy of interpretation and discussion. If only he would take a breath once in a while. R.I.G. (c) AudioFile, Portland, Maine


Veteran performer George Guidall knows what he's doing when he speeds up, backs off, and lurches from fear to relief to shock. It's a narration veering out of control and threatening to crash at any moment, as is Josef K., the character whose trial Guidall is describing. In a story that invokes the humiliatingly absurd, no-win predicaments we think of as Kafkaesque, Guidall shows his understanding of the characters. He also understands the importance of atmosphere to the story. As he describes the garrets, the courtrooms, the rats-in-a-maze thoughts running through Josef K.'s mind as he fights charges that are never spelled out to him, the listener feels trapped and claustrophobic, just as Kafka intended. A less skilled narrator would have made it easier on the listener. T.F. (c) AudioFile, Portland, Maine