(urth) Faterh Inire Theory cont.

[David Duffy]

On Sun, 12 Dec 2010, Jerry Friedman wrote:


> From: David Duffy <davidD at qimr.edu.au>
>> I always took this as an homage to _The Trial_.
> On Sun, 12 Dec 2010, Jerry Friedman wrote:
>
> Sorry, I haven't read _The Trial_.  What's the homage?  The architecture 
> of the antechamber? The possibility of waiting indefinitely?  (Though 
> Wikip tells me Josef K.'s case was disposed of in a year.)

My memory of the book was pretty distant, as I had thought some court 
supplicant families had waited generations in a waiting room.  When I 
looked over an online copy last night, the analogies were less direct. a) 
People (eg the usher and his wife) live in the court anteroom when the 
court is not in session -- then they move their furniture out, except for 
the washtub ;). The court is in the ramshackle attics of a tenement 
building. b) Supplicants are always waiting in a long corridor, even 
when the court is not in session. c) When K. opens the door of the junk 
room at his bank, he finds the _whip man_ punishing the two police who 
arrested K., for corruption (one of them ate K.'s breakfast) ; d) The 
story of the Doorkeeper, where the protagonist waits outside the door of 
the Law to be let in, for the entire length of his life.

Cheers, David Duffy.