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From Publishers Weekly
In this new English-language version of Kundera's classic first novel, completely revised by the author to incorporate the most accurate portions of two previous translations plus his own corrections, the narrator Ludvik wonders, "What if History plays jokes?" This politically charged question, coupled with Ludvik's fate as an unintentional dissident, struck a chord in Czech readers; the novel's 1967 publication was a key literary event of the Prague Spring. Looking back on the tense, McCarthy-like atmosphere of the late 1940s, it chronicles the disastrous results of Ludvik's prankish postcard to a girlfriend criticizing the Czech communist regime. He is expelled from the Communist Party, forced to leave the university and join a special army unit with other enemies of the state. Years later, after he has resumed his studies and become a successful scientist, his lingering anger at the man who engineered his expulsion culminates in an act of destructive sexual revenge that serves only to show Ludvik he has never really understood any woman and is indeed the butt of one of history's many cruel jokes. The fresh descriptions and masterful employment of several narrators testify to Kundera's power as a novelist, unmistakable even in this early work.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Library Journal
This fifth English-language version of the ingenious first novel by the best-selling author of The Unbearable Lightness of Being ( LJ 5/1/84) is based on Michael Henry Heim's translation (Harper & Row, 1984), which Kundera originally praised but found wanting after more careful review. The new version replaces words and phrases with more idiomatic or precise substitutes, occasionally recasting whole sentences. As a result, the narrators are better differentiated and the language more alive and natural, particularly in the reflective passages. The story of Ludvik Jahn's misfired joke, which ruins his life by giving him a reputation as an enemy of the state, and his equally misfired attempt at revenge (seduction of the wife of the Party official he holds responsible for his misfortune) is well worth reading--and purchasing--again in this definitive version fully revised by the author.
- Marie Bednar, Pennsylvania State Univ. Libs., University Park
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
- Marie Bednar, Pennsylvania State Univ. Libs., University Park
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
"SO HERE I WAS, home again after all those years." Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
"SO HERE I WAS, home again after all those years." Read the first page
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Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
I loved it . . . no joke,
This review is from: Joke (Paperback)
The first thing you notice about this brilliant novel is the narration. It switches narrators repeatedly (a technique that Kundera cannot use today because he puts himself into his novels as the first person writer/narrator, much the same way that McCrae does in his "Bark of the Dogwood"). The idea is that events in real life do not come to us fully formed - we hear one point of view, and another, and another, and it is up to us to unravel the various stories to find out what "really" happened. As everyone knows, one person's point of view will never be the same as another's. The Joke's genius lies in its unabashedly saying exactly that.
3.0 out of 5 stars
Well Written Book Has HUGE Ego,
By A Customer
This review is from: Joke (Paperback)
While reading the Joke I was spellbound. The book itself was fantastic. It was well written, interesting, well-paced, and moving. The ideas conveyed within the story are especially vivid and yet are described so brilliantly that many appear only as subtle reflections in a small sentence.The reason, however that I cannot award this book its proper 4-5 stars, is because of what someone else has already said. Whoever said that Kundera has a terribly huge ego was absolutely right. In the author's note he complains how annoying it was for him to be published and mistranslated, which while certainly reason to complain there seems to be a very crisp wave of arrogance. He goes so far as to say he left one of his publishers simply because they wished to change a few of his semi-colons to periods. Shame on you Kundera, if only it were not for your narciccistic ways your books would be so wonderful, please remove that author's note and let us enjoy the book... not despise the author!
5.0 out of 5 stars
Genius,
By Julius Everhardt (Warsaw, Virginia) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Joke (Paperback)
This was the first and, as yet, only Kundera novel I have read. I look forward to consuming all his works of fiction. The narrative seemed odd and stilted at first, but as I stayed with it I became completely absorbed. The main protagonist, Jahn, exhibits so many human traits and failings that most people would try consciously to repress that I found myself feeling greater and greater "humanity" as I followed his exploits. Kundera also lays bare in this book many of the myths about Communist eastern Europe (e.g., that intelligent people only went along with the dogma unwilllingly). A really excellent and original writer.
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