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'Someone must have been telling lies about Josef K.
“一定有人诬陷了约瑟夫·K。
He knew he had done nothing wrong, but one morning, he was arrested.'
他知道他自己没有做错任何事，但在某一天的早上，他被捕了。”
Thus begins 'The Trial,' one of author Franz Kafka's most well-known novels.
于是《审判》开始了，这是作家法兰兹·卡夫卡的著名小说之一。
K, the protagonist, is arrested out of nowhere and made to go through a bewildering process
K这位主角，莫明奇妙地被捕，并经历了一段茫然无措的过程，
where neither the cause of his arrest, nor the nature of the judicial proceedings are made clear to him.
没有逮捕他的任何原因，也没有向他解释司法程序，就这样逮捕他了。
This sort of scenario is considered so characteristic of Kafka's work that scholars came up with a new word for it.
这种情节一般被认为是典型的“卡夫卡”作品，学者还为此发明了一个新词。
Kafkaesque has entered the vernacular to describe unnecessarily complicated and frustrating experiences,
“卡夫卡式”，这个词已被归纳为一种日常用语，用来形容无谓的、复杂的和不顺遂的历程，
like being forced to navigate labyrinths of bureaucracy.
就像被迫于应付繁沉的官僚体系。
But does standing in a long line to fill out confusing paperwork really capture the richness of Kafka's vision?
但站在大排长龙的队舞中，填写着摸不着头绪的文件是否真正诠释了“卡夫卡式”的丰富想象力呢？
Beyond the word's casual use, what makes something Kafkaesque?
这个词除了日常的使用外，卡夫卡式究竟还有什么含义呢？
Franz Kafka's stories do indeed deal with many mundane and absurd aspects of modern bureaucracy,
法兰兹·卡夫卡的故事确实讨论了许多有关当代官僚主义的单调和荒谬，
drawn in part from his experience of working as an insurance clerk in early 20th century Prague.
部分灵感是来自他当时在20世纪初的布拉格担任保险员的时候。
Many of his protagonists are office workers compelled to struggle through a web of obstacles in order to achieve their goals,
故事里许多角色，是在描述办公室里的同事，他们被迫得克服一大堆障碍来完成他们的目标，
and often the whole ordeal turns out to be so disorienting and illogical that success becomes pointless in the first place.
然而在这一切的苦难之后，结局却经常令人迷惘而不合逻辑，使得在获得成功的当下，变得毫无意义。
For example, in the short story, 'Poseidon,'
举例来说，在短篇小说《海神波塞冬》中，
the Ancient Greek god is an executive so swamped with paperwork that he's never had time to explore his underwater domain.
这位古老的希腊神是一位行政官有应接不暇的文书工作，他从未有闲暇时间来巡视他的海底王国。
The joke here is that not even a god can handle the amount of paperwork demanded by the modern workplace.
笑点在于，哪怕是神明也无法应付现代职场所要求的文书工作量。
But the reason why is telling.
原因很简单。
He's unwilling to delegate any of the work because he deems everyone else unworthy of the task.
他不愿意将任何一项工作委派给他人，因为他认为没有人配得上这样的任务。
Kafka's Poseidon is a prisoner of his own ego.
他就是他自我意识的俘虏。
This simple story contains all of the elements that make for a truly Kafkaesque scenario.
这简单的故事包含了所有卡夫卡式情节的元素。
It's not the absurdity of bureaucracy alone,
它不仅反映了官僚体制的荒谬，
but the irony of the character's circular reasoning in reaction to it that is emblematic of Kafka's writing.
更讽刺了故事角色在面对恶行循环时的反应，这就是典型的卡夫卡作品。
His tragicomic stories act as a form of mythology for the modern industrial age,
他悲欢离合的故事架构为现代的工业世代增添了神秘感，
employing dream logic to explore the relationships between systems of arbitrary power and the individuals caught up in them.
他用梦幻般的逻辑手法，来诠释权力机构和个体之间的冲突关系。
Take, for example, Kafka's most famous story, 'Metamorphosis.'
以卡夫卡最著名的小说《变形记》为例。
When Gregor Samsa awaken's one morning to find himself transformed into a giant insect,
当格里高尔·萨姆莎有天早晨起床时，发现自已变成了一只巨大的昆虫，
his greatest worry is that he gets to work on time.
他最关心的竟然是如何准时上班。
Of course, this proves impossible.
当然，这是不可能的。
It was not only the authoritarian realm of the workplace that inspired Kafka.
专制的工作环境不仅启发了卡夫卡的灵感。
Some of his protagonists' struggles come from within.
许多角色内心的挣扎桥段也来自于它。
The short story, 'A Hunger Artist,' describes a circus performer whose act consists of extended fasts.
短篇小说《饥饿艺术家》中，述说了一位马戏团里长时间禁食的表演者故事。
He's upset that the circus master limits these to 40 days, believing this prevents him from achieving greatness in his art.
他很不高兴马戏团团长限制他的表演只能进行四十天，他认为这是在妨碍他伟大艺术的实现。
But when his act loses popularity, he is left free to starve himself to death.
但当他的表演不再受到欢迎，他干脆就把自已饿死。
The twist comes when he lays dying in anonymity, regretfully admitting that his art has always been a fraud.
在他临终前，故事急转直下，他懊悔地承认，他的艺术表演一直以来都是一场骗局。
He fasted not through strength of will, but simply because he never found a food he liked.
他不是靠意志力禁食，其实只是因为没有找到他喜爱的食物而已。
Even in 'The Trial,' which seems to focus directly on bureaucracy,
即便在《审判》这本书里，似乎直接说明了官僚体系的腐败，
the vague laws and bewildering procedures point to something far more sinister:
模糊的法律和令人费解的程序，也指出了险恶的事情在发生：
the terrible momentum of the legal system proves unstoppable, even by supposedly powerful officials.
法律系统的可怕动机势不可挡，即便是极具权力的官员。
This is a system that doesn't serve justice, but whose sole function is to perpetuate itself.
这套权力系统并不主持正义，它唯一的功能就是保护它自己不致崩溃。
What political theorist Hannah Arendt, writing years after Kafka's death, would call 'tyranny without a tyrant.'
这就像政治理论家汉纳·鄂兰在卡夫卡过世多年后的著作中写道，法律是“没有暴君的暴政”。
Yet accompanying the bleakness of Kafka's stories,
然而，卡夫卡故事里的苍凉，
there's a great deal of humor rooted in the nonsensical logic of the situations described.
却伴随着深深的幽默，深根在故事情节里的荒谬逻辑中。
So on the one hand, it's easy to recognize the Kafkaesque in today's world.
另外，阅读他的小说，可以帮助我们轻易地辨认出当今世界的卡夫卡式现象。
We rely on increasingly convoluted systems of administration that have real consequences on every aspect of our lives.
我们依靠日趋复杂的行政系统来管理我们的社会，它们已经占据了我们生活的各个层面。
And we find our every word judged by people we can't see according to rules we don't know.
我们发现我们的言论，根据着我们不知道的规则，被我们不认识的人所批判着。
On the other hand, by fine-tuning our attention to the absurd, Kafka also reflects our shortcomings back at ourselves.
另一方面，通过调整我们的注意力来观察那些荒谬，卡夫卡也反映了我们自身的缺点。
In doing so, he reminds us that the world we live in is one we create, and have the power to change for the better.
因此，他提醒我们这个世界其实也是我们自己所创造出来的，所以我们也有能力可以把世界变得更好。
