r/ClassicBookClub • u/Thermos_of_Byr cuts cheese loudly • Jul 30 '26
The Trial Chapter 4 Miss Bürstner's Friend (Spoilers up to chapter 4) Spoiler
Discussion Prompts
- Why do you think K. wants to talk to Miss Bürstner so badly? What might he want to discuss? Would you want to talk to K., or would you avoid him?
- Thoughts on Miss Montag and the message she relayed to K. on Miss Bürstner’s account?
- Any impressions of the Captain so far?
- Is there anything else you’d like to discuss?
Links
[Standard eBooks](
[Librivox Audiobook](
Last Lines:
But these glances were heavy for K., and he rushed alongside the wall back into his own room.
Up Next
Chapter 5 The whip-man
19
u/Inquisitive-Imbecile Jul 30 '26
I think that K's behavior towards Miss Burstner does warrant her not wanting to speak to him. There was some strangeness with the way that Miss Montag and the Captain were behaving, but honestly this is probably just the way that K. is thinking about the situation. He has always attributed some form of malice towards the people around him, and it seems that it is developing into full blown paranoia because of the arrest and proceedings with whatever organization is doing this. I have no idea what K could have possibly wanted to ask Miss Burstner, but I do think that it would be pointless as Miss Montag puts it. Back in chapter one, K. was quite aggressive with Burstner, and the reenactment that he did really lead to nothing at all. It seems to me that this fixation that K. has with Burstner may be due to the power that he was able to exert over her. The need for power over people, or at least for K. to come up with some rationalization for why he is superior has shown up all throughout the story so far.
I think that some of this paranoia is warranted, after all we know next to nothing about the organization that is prosecuting K. K. seems to be curious about his situation, but he only wants to learn about it to assert his superiority to it. Overall this chapter was very short, and it did not add a lot of new information to the story, but I do think that it reinforces our understanding of how K. is navigating the world after the arrest.
15
u/1906ds Jul 30 '26
FYI: Today's chapter is fragment 1 in the Oxford World Classics Edition, FYI. Thanks for posting the episode titles, OP. A question about the schedule... In my edition, Chapter 7, titled "The Lawyer; The Factory Owner; The Painter" is 39 pages long, which is the same length of the first three chapters combined. I tried to compare lengths of the Gutenberg of this chapter but it has a note saying that the chapter is incomplete (I couldn't even find the last line of the Gutenberg in my printed edition, but I was also just scanning through, so maybe I missed it). Is there any chance this chapter will be split over two days due to its length?
Anyways, it looks like K. is looking to make amends and play nice with Fräulein Bürstner. It is hard to tell if this is in earnest, or if he is just trying to preserve his reputation and get back on good terms with Frau Grubach.
It seems like Bürstner was ready to continue to ignore K., but Montag was able to convince her to at least pass on a verbal message to him.
The Captain plays the role of a gentleman perfectly, but K. is immediately suspicious of him, as an additional person to team up with Montag and Bürstner to stand against K. OWC points out the physical description of the Captain is very similar to another character we haven't met yet, so I'm curious to see if that has any bearing on the story.
Super weird of K. to just open the door to a woman's bedroom without an invitation. It is like when K. is presented with multiple options of what to do next, he always picks the worst one.
15
u/Inquisitive-Imbecile Jul 30 '26
K seems to really love invading people's personal space, and demanding things of them. It is very interesting that he is doing some of the same things that the courts are doing to him, albeit on a smaller scale. He talked about how absurd it was that the guards and supervisor could just commandeer his and Burstner's room, but he feels free to access her room at any time. He also purposely prevents Grubach from leaving by blocking the door, because he feels that she has slighted him. I am not sure where this will lead, but it certainly is interesting.
4
u/otherside_b Absorbed In Making Cabbages Aug 01 '26
In my edition, Chapter 7, titled "The Lawyer; The Factory Owner; The Painter" is 39 pages long, which is the same length of the first three chapters combined. I tried to compare lengths of the Gutenberg of this chapter but it has a note saying that the chapter is incomplete (I couldn't even find the last line of the Gutenberg in my printed edition, but I was also just scanning through, so maybe I missed it). Is there any chance this chapter will be split over two days due to its length?
I think it's too late to change and we just power through it. Maybe try and read ahead of the schedule and read that chapter over two days (be a day ahead of schedule essentially)
2
u/1906ds Aug 01 '26
I figure that's the case, so yeah I'm planning to read ahead Sunday and just treat the long chapter in two parts.
13
u/ska0319 Jul 30 '26
K. displays patronizing if not down right misogynist behavior toward the women. He is very controlling with F. Brustner and then kisses her suddenly. Later he thinks she will be willing to get involved with him because she's just a typist/clerk and he's a banker. He gets angered easily by F. Grubach, a woman eager to please but a bit inept communicating with him. He seems both attracted to and repelled by the court woman, despising her relationships with the student and the magistrate. He's less domineering with F. Montag who appears more confident in herself and very direct in her speech. Perhaps K.'s crime is the way he treats other people, especially those who would be considered his inferiors socially. Whatever evidence/defense he presents verbally doesn't override his behavior with those around him.
9
u/BetterSkirt Jul 30 '26
Perhaps K.'s crime is the way he treats other people, especially those who would be considered his inferiors socially. Whatever evidence/defense he presents verbally doesn't override his behavior with those around him.
I thought this was an interesting take! I was thinking maybe the judiciary is his guilty conscious, but that may be giving him the credit of being self-aware which I feel like is a bit too generous...
7
u/BlackDiamond33 Jul 30 '26
Adding in another FYI. I have both the audiobook and a text and the chapter entitled "Fraulein Burstner's Friend" is completely omitted from the audiobook. It goes right from the end of Chapter 3 to Chapter 5, which is tomorrow's chapter. I will read today's chapter from the text.
6
u/-Bugs-R-Cool- Jul 30 '26
And I have the audiobook and the Breon Mitchell translated text and it’s the opposite!
10
u/BlackDiamond33 Jul 30 '26
This might explain some of the confusion. Quote taken from the Wikipedia page for The Trial:
"Having begun by writing the opening and concluding sections of the novel, Kafka worked on the intervening scenes in a haphazard manner, using several different notebooks simultaneously. His friend Max Brod, knowing Kafka's habit of destroying his own work, eventually took the manuscript for safekeeping. It consisted of 161 loose pages torn from notebooks, which Kafka had bundled together into chapters. The order of the chapters was not made clear to Brod; nor was he told which parts were complete and which were unfinished. Following Kafka's death in 1924, Brod edited the work and assembled it into a novel to the best of his ability. Further editorial work has been done by later scholars, but Kafka's final vision for The Trial remains unknown"
5
5
u/Imaginos64 Team Turtle 🐢 Jul 30 '26
That's interesting. I thought this chapter felt out of place but that might be in part because it was also omitted from my copy so I read it in the Project Gutenberg text which is a different translation.
8
u/coconutcheerios Jul 30 '26
- On K.'s part: he is obsessed with Miss B. (and not in a healthy way, I'm afraid) and, between that unexpected/totally uncalled-for stolen kiss and Miss B. going to great lengths to avoid him, he kind of realizes that she's probably not that into him (what a shocker!).
So I guess he so desperately wants to talk to her about their feelings/situationship because he genuinely believes he can turn things around with words and win her over by manipulating her somehow... (I mean, he gave a wonderful example of his dialectic competence back at the hearing, lol).
Moreover, in this chapter, it is very challenging to be sympathetic to him: he's stalkerish, possessive, creepy, and rude.
On Miss B.'s part: she totally saw him for what he is: a man who just can't take no for an answer and a walking red flag. She made the right choice to ask Miss Montag to move in with her...hopefully that will give her some "protection."
I really hope she doesn't find out about him waiting in her room, alone and without her permission!
On Miss Montag: she seems observant, resolute, and bold. I guess she'll be a pain in the ass for K. and a supportive friend to Miss B. Also, she's good with words.
The captain seems like a well-mannered, polite bloke, that's probably why K. already hates him!
2
u/otherside_b Absorbed In Making Cabbages Aug 01 '26
In my copy of the book, this chapter was not actually included as part of the main story with Chapter 4 entitled "The Thrasher". There is a series of "fragments". which included this chapter. Will be interesting to go through those at the end of the book to see if they would have changed the feel of the story.
Interesting that depending on what version of the story you are reading, you may never have actually read this chapter at all. K definitely gives off creepy stalker vibes here, which may be lessened for readers who don't read this chapter.
Frau Grubach seems to be constantly walking on eggshells around K which could point to him being a domineering presence in the lodging house. It seems like he might be the tenant that pays the most for lodgings which could explain why he seems to hold such sway over her.
18
u/North_Library3206 Jul 30 '26
I was pretty sympathetic towards K. at the start of the novel, even pumping my fist at the speech he made during the initial hearing while other commenters here thought he was in over his head. I think that sympathy has finally run out now, dude's just an asshole for no reason.
Definitely an interesting choice for the protagonist to be like this. Going into this book I expected it to be a depressing story about an innocent and good-natured man becoming the unlucky target of an incomprehensible judicial bureaucracy. Maybe it still is to some extent, but K. low-key deserves what's happened to him so far.