Camus's The Plague and Kafka's The Trial are commendable novels. What is the connection? Some people say that the former is intended to be an allegory of what Germany was doing to Europe during the occupation years of the second world war. The latter is a study in the psychology of oppression.
The circumstances created during occupation by a foreign power cannot necessarily compare to those of a deadly epidemic. There is in Camus great inventing in the detailed truths of fiction. Camus paints, appreciably, that dry atmosphere of a plague stricken French Algerian city, the gradual onset, the oppressive regime in oppressive weather, making greater sense of Camus' other famous work, The Outsider.
Auto suppression of negative human sentiments to oneself is the worst thing. No one disagrees that breaking any of the ten commandments is a cool thing. So what is the argument? Now, the difference between breaking the law and sinning, is that some people believe that no greater force than other people can ever punish you, so they try not to get caught and then there are other people who believe that God will punish you, if only later. They usually and willingly abide by the ten commandments and they stay sane.
In Orson Welles' film adaptation, The Trial, K's presumed guilt is like 'Rosebud' in Citizen Kane, a mere confection seemingly yet it nourishes the nightmare, guided by its own curious logic. It is marvellous how Welles renders on the screen the madding crowd anxiety and the unfathomable disorder that the book describes. A lot of it is shot in the interior of the then seldom used railway station in Paris the Gare d'Orsay which, as the myth goes, Welles found by accident. It was a decaying monument, thus perfect as a set, ready made. The background is very present in his films presenting material worthy of analysis all in themselves, especially for those who believe that there is a trinitarian link between architecture, the body and the soul, presuming that the soul still has an active role in the play set in this age one day to be bygone.
