<html><head><style type="text/css"><!-- DIV {margin:0px;} --></style></head><body><div style="font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt"><DIV><FONT size=2 face=Tahoma><B><SPAN style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">From:</SPAN></B> David Duffy <A href="mailto:davidD@qimr.edu.au">davidD@qimr.edu.au</A><BR></FONT></DIV>
<DIV>[/The Trial/]</DIV>
<DIV><BR>> My memory of the book was pretty distant, as I had thought some court supplicant families had waited generations in a waiting room.</DIV>
<DIV>> 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</DIV>
<DIV>> anteroom when the court is not in session -- then they move their furniture out, except for the washtub ;). The court is in the ramshackle</DIV>
<DIV>> 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.</DIV>
<DIV>> 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</DIV>
<DIV>> 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</DIV>
<DIV>> entire length of his life.<BR></DIV>
<DIV>Thanks. I can see definite similarities. Of course, there's also the possibility of young Wolfe sitting in a waiting room and thinking, or saying,</DIV>
<DIV>"You could spend your life here. I mean, you could have babies and grow old and die here. And then your kids could carry on after you..."</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Jerry Friedman</DIV></div><br>
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