The Trial by Franz Kafka

The Trial was very difficult to read — I was always looking for an
escape. The chief clerk of a bank, a successful functionary in the
bureaucracy, is arrested by a court that operates in secret. One of its
rules is that the accused can never learn what the charges are. The
horror of this book is that the fantastic is recounted as if it were
perfectly normal. We are all aware of the counter productive aspects of
the bureaucracies in our lives (eVa and our health insurance providers,
for two examples!) , in The Trial reason is turned on its head and
paranoia is reasonable.