“Somebody must have made a false accusation against Josef K., for he was arrested one morning without havingdone anything wrong.” As in Kafka’s long story Metamorphosis—which begins with the line “Gregor Samsa awoke onemorning from uneasy dreams to find himself41in his bed into a gigantic insect”—the entire narrative of The Trialemerges from the condition that announces itself in the opening sentence. The protagonist, Josef K., never discovers whathe is being42, and is never able to understand the principles governing the system of justice in which he findshimself ensnared. Instead, the narrative follows his exhausting determination to understand and to43his innocencein the complete absence of any doctrine that would explain to him what it would mean to be44, or indeed, of whathe actually stands accused. In following Josef K.’s struggle toward45, the novel presents us with an astonishinglymoving account of what it is to be born naked and defenseless into a completely incomprehensible system, armed onlywith a devout conviction of innocence.