- Paperback: 226 pages
- Publisher: Ecco Pr (April 1986)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0880010908
- ISBN-13: 978-0880010900
- Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 13 x 1.5 cm
- Shipping Weight: 272 g
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Library Journal
Danny Smiricky, already known to Skvorecky's readers, is obsessed with jazz and with girls. His vain pursuit of six provincial beauties is the basis of these stories, set during the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia. To win over these girls, Danny does their homework, sets up elaborate schemes to be alone with them, even engages in modest anti-Nazi action. But things always go wronga girl's father interferes, the courted girls gang up on him, he is upstaged by a less notorious young manand he is left with only his music as consolation. While Danny's erotic pursuits are at times humorous and his adolescent wistfulness is captured accurately, this is a minor work of the acclaimed Czech emigre author of Engineer of Human Souls ( LJ 7/84). Marie Bednar, Pennsylvania State Univ. Libs., University Park
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Book Description
In the six tales of The Swell Season, Skvorecky traces the libidinous ardours of young Danny, a teenager growing up in the forties. These wonderful tales, full of wry humour and unexpected plot twists, seem to add up to a fond portrait of an innocent era - this is, however, wartime Czechoslovakia, and the fragile world of the adolescent falls under the shadow of the Nazi presence.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4.7 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews)
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
If you like Milan Kundera..., Feb 20 2002
By A Customer - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Swell Season (Paperback)
If you like Milan Kundera check out this author. He speaks of human folly with humor honesty and tenderness. He addresses major human issues with incredible specificity and with a little more sensitivity than Kundera. Enjoy.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
The book of loving, Jan 22 2010
By Merry Jester (Weston, FL) - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Swell Season: A Text on the Most Important Things in Life (Paperback)
The Swell Season is one of the loveliest books I have ever read. It is the story of a young man searching for intimacy with the lovely young female friends of his small hometown during the Nazi occupation of Chekovslovakia. The young girls listen to his lovely musical overtures, but they never give in. Danny loves them, is fascinated by them, and he never fails to tell them this. But he never seems to be able to convince them to yield to him. But they all want to be loved by him. They revel in his love letters. They are jealous when he seems to favor others. He is there perfect lover...pure...and never to be had.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Superbly funny, haunting writing, Feb 26 2012
By Peter S. Oliphant, Ph.D. - Published on Amazon.com
Danny Smíri'ek chases every school girl in town, but loses his quarries at the last moment. He trips over his desperation, mostly, but the girls, knowing his reputation as a chintz-chaser, sometimes hoax him.Jazz swing music backgrounds the story. Since Danny is a swing jazz musician, we hear the lyrics of familiar songs of the era in some of the episodes. These point to recording artists that few recognize now, like the (amazing) Boswell Sisters and Václav Irmanov. (It's May in January," [...]; "Card Cheat," [...]; and Tears on my pillow; [...] )
Beyond the background music are lyrical descriptions of the weather, gardens, and forests, worthy of Colette. These environ the episodes, each tied to the most poignant moments.
Danny and his schoolmates are humorously tolerant of sex (as Czechs tend to be), even if the fathers of the girls are outwardly severe. Danny is mostly after the girls in the choir, so he worries about the sinfulness of his yearnings.
Deeper in the background is the frame of the era of Nazi occupation. The presence of a German soldier in the street hints at the occupation. Danny and a friend conspire to falsify church marriage records to conceal a marriage of Christian and Jew. The Nazis ban music and dancing, but the teenagers find venues for their band and their dancing.
As the war closes in on the town, Danny finally gets somewhere, even as radical students foreshadow the post-war Soviet takeover.
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