Kafka-esque

I'm having a bit of difficulty getting my head around this particular case. Simmi had sent me a link to a website that spoofs up real news stories. Simmi's comment to me was along the lines that my beloved Tony was suffering a bit of heat stroke (not quite what she said, but a more blog-friendly version:)

It seems that the UK has extradited three bankers to the US. They have been charged with some kind of fraud against the NatWest bank in the UK, but they have been handed over to the US under some kind of treaty which Deadbrain tell us has been ratified only by the UK and is designed to deal with terrorists.
I thought the article was amusing but didn't think too deeply about the plight of another bunch of rich blokes who have potentially defrauded another major organisation that makes money out of everyone's money. I think I suggested that it might be an interesting use of Guatanamo Bay before it gets closed forever.

But then today's Observer made me think again. In fact it sent my brain into Kafka territory. Since the whole sorry tale has not drawn me in enough to notice until now, I've had to reverse engineer using the Grauniad's archives and thus I have many questions, feel free to leap in with answers if you HAVE been paying attention.

Kafka's 'Metamorphosis' starts like this,
"One morning, as Gregor Samsa was waking up from anxious dreams, he discovered that in bed he had been changed into a monstrous verminous bug."

Ok, so instead of that, you have to imagine that you already are a monstrous verminous bug because you are working in the kind of industry where that is an advantage, but that you and your two co-bugs wake up one morning in 2002 and discover that your life is about to take a turn for the Kafka-esque. Something you may or may not have done in 2000 has popped up to haunt you. It is unclear to me whether advising NatWest to sell their interest in an Enron company for less than it is worth results in you getting to keep the money, I suppose it must mean you made some money otherwise you wouldn't have done it.

I wonder if they felt like K in 'The Trial'

"SOMEONE must have traduced Joseph K., for without having done anything wrong he was arrested one fine morning. His landlady's cook, who always brought him his breakfast at eight o'clock, failed to appear on this occasion."

It seems unclear, or at least without spending more than one decaf's worth of time looking I can't find out, what happened between 2002 and 2004 when a court ruled that they could indeed be sent to the States for trial.

Maybe there was a bit more Metamorphosis,
""What's happened to me," he thought. It was no dream. His room, a proper room for a human being, only somewhat too small, lay quietly between the four well-known walls....Gregor's glance then turned to the window. The dreary weather—the rain drops were falling audibly down on the metal window ledge—made him quite melancholy. "Why don't I keep sleeping for a little while longer and forget all this foolishness," he thought."

They most certainly must have wondered how they were now in some kind of prevention of terrorism-type scenario. Back to the Trial, might this kind of thing have run through their heads....

""You can't go out, you are arrested.""So it seems," said K."But what for?" he added. "We are not authorized to tell you that. Go to your room and wait there. Proceedings have been instituted against you, and you will be informed of everything in due course. I am exceeding my instructions in speaking freely to you like this. But I hope nobody hears me except Franz, and he himself has been too free with you, against his express instructions. If you continue to have as good luck as you have had in the choice of your warders, then you can be confident of the final result." "

Then in 2006 they actually get sent to the States where now the full absurdity becomes bitter reality.

Metamorphosis again,
"But to continue was difficult, particularly because he was so unusually wide. He needed arms and hands to push himself upright. Instead of these, however, he had only many small limbs which were incessantly moving with very different motions and which, in addition, he was unable to control. If he wanted to bend one of them, then it was the first to extend itself, and if he finally succeeded doing what he wanted with this limb, in the meantime all the others, as if left free, moved around in an excessively painful agitation. "But I must not stay in bed uselessly," said Gregor to himself."

Sent to the States, having to support themselves but without being able to work, having to sleep on the floor of your attorney's appartment and unable to go back to Britain where the evidence and your means of making a living are.

The Trial,
"They both examined his nightshirt and said that he would have to wear a less fancy shirt now, but that they would take charge of this one and the rest of his underwear and, if his case turned out well, restore them to him later. "Much better give these things to us than hand them over to the depot," they said, "for in the depot there's lots of thieving, and besides they sell everything there after a certain length of time, no matter whether your case is settled or not. And you never know how long these cases will last, especially these days. Of course you would get the money out of the depot in the long run, but in the first place the prices they pay you are always wretched, for they sell your things to the best briber, not the best bidder, and anyhow it's well known that money dwindles a lot if it passes from hand to hand from one year to another."

I wonder how it will end and how long it will carry on. If it takes another two years to prepare for trial it could end like Kafka's beetle.

"Early in the morning the cleaning woman came. In her sheer energy and haste she banged all the doors—in precisely the way people had already asked her to avoid—so much so that once she arrived a quiet sleep was no longer possible anywhere in the entire apartment.........She pulled open the door of the bedroom and yelled in a loud voice into the darkness, "Come and look. It's kicked the bucket. It's lying there, totally snuffed!"