Lies, truths and other mysteries

Featured in

  • Published 20070605
  • ISBN: 9780733321221
  • Extent: 264 pp
  • Paperback (234 x 153mm)

Someone must have been telling lies about Joseph K, for without having done anything wrong he was arrested one fine morning. Someone must have been telling lies about me too, for without having done anything wrong I was, one fine morning, subjected to my own ordeal. Maybe not the bureaucratic nightmare suffered by Joseph K, the hero of Kafka’s The Trial, but a perplexing and disturbing petit-bourgeois trial nonetheless.

This is a story that has to start at the end. Here is the end. One Sunday morning I was sitting in a cafe in Sydney with my wife, Wenona, and our two young children. It was the usual mismatch of hope and reality: the image of a relaxing breakfast frayed by children emptying sugar sachets, poking cutlery at each other, harassing other tables. I watched them like a mangy guard-dog, too old for this.

Already a subscriber? Sign in here

If you are an educator or student wishing to access content for study purposes please contact us at griffithreview@griffith.edu.au

Share article

About the author

Malcolm Knox

Since 2000, Malcolm Knox has published six books including the novels Summerland and A Private Man, winner of a Ned Kelly Award and a finalist in seven...

More from this edition

Reality beyond the whiteboard

EssayIn May 2003, a week after President Bush had declared victory in Iraq from the foredeck of the USS Abraham Lincoln, I made my first...

Surrendering nationalism

EssayTEN YEARS AGO, most Australians quietly cringed when Pauline Hanson wrapped herself in a cape of blue to launch her One Nation Party. Yet...

Stay up to date with the latest, news, articles and special offers from Griffith Review.