It portrays exactly what we see. Not a word is wasted. The Joke The concept of a joke pervades the novel. The title derives from a postcard the protagonist, Ludvik, writes to Marketa, the target of his affection, while she is studying Marxism in a Czech summer school in the early 60's: A healthy atmosphere stinks of stupidity! Despite her beauty, Marketa is credulous, intellectually dull and lacking in a sense of humour.
Ludvik's postcard is an attempt to play a silly joke on Marketa. However, the joke is lost on both Marketa and the state. The Trap In his preface, Kundera denies that the novel was designed to be a "major indictment of Stalinism". Instead, he argues that it's a love story. It is that, but I think he's being just a little ingenuous.
Kundera pays equal attention to the political. Whether or not society had similar problems under Communism and Capitalism, Kundera describes a rigidity and humourlessness that affects both individuals and the state. Later, he would write of "the trap the world has become".
The underlying problem is both social and political: Whatever the political system, a sense of humour is a safety valve that allows pent up personal and social pressures to escape. Humour can relax, relieve and release tension not to mention pretension. If humour isn't possible or it doesn't work in the circumstances, the person, the collective remains too highly-strung, too highly sprung. The joke is a spring, a coil that allows the situation to uncoil and the tension to dissipate.
A joke is what allows a tree to bend and sway in the wind. The Structure Kundera tells his tale in seven separate parts, each of which is divided into sub-parts. Each part is narrated by one of the major characters, three men, and one woman Helena. One of the other characters, Lucie, is a trigger point for much of the action. However, she doesn't tell her own story. Instead, the other characters shine a light on her from outside.
We are never confident that we have gotten to know her. After publication, a Czech critic observed that there was a mathematical structure to the novel that wasn't apparent to Kundera himself. If you broke the novel into 18 parts, Ludvik's monologue took up 12, Jaroslav three, Kostka two, and Helena one. I can't help picturing this as a fern-like fractal that furls and unfurls in the telling.
Thus, the coiling and uncoiling of the joke and its aftermath is reflected in the structure of the novel. The Punch Line Apart from the joke, as Kundera states, the novel is a love story.
We see what he does to women and why. It's not always a pretty picture, but it is truthful. Ludvik's goal isn't always his own sexual pleasure or that of his companion. His relationship with Helena whose story we hear from her is motivated by revenge on a rival which proves to be misconceived. Some readers might complain about Ludvik's or Kundera's sexism and cruelty. However, overall, the design of the novel allows us to witness different perspectives in a polyphonic manner.
When we see the situation from the other side s , we learn that Ludvik might equally have been the victim of a cosmic joke. In the Communist polit-speak used against Ludvik, it's a reproach of "traces of individualism" and "intellectual tendencies", the refusal to submit to the greater good whether of the couple or of society. However, these traces and tendencies go further than Communist society, hence the broader ambitions Kundera had for his novel.
Whatever the political environment, Kundera describes a "depression over the bleakness of our erotic horizons". How men in particular deal with this bleakness and depression reflects in their sexual behaviour. It's too easy for men to take it out on the woman closest to them. Ludvik comments on "the incredible human capacity for transforming reality into a likeness of desires or ideals There's a lack of reality in his perspective.
Inevitably, it compromises the relationship itself: For both genders, then, desire is often founded in self-deceit, if not also the deceit of others. The Vain Pursuit Ludvik defines women in relation to himself and his own needs. Lucie's truth is hidden from Ludvik, because his gaze is single-mindedly selfish: All I'd been able to perceive in my youthful egocentricity was those aspects of her being touching directly on me my loneliness, my captivity, my desire for tenderness and affection ; she had never been anything more to me than a function of my situation, everything she was in her own right, had escaped me entirely.
By extension, Kundera suggests that, both in our vanity and in our pursuit, we are the brunt of our own joke. View all 10 comments.
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View all 11 comments. View all 5 comments. Apr 03, Sidharth Vardhan rated it it was amazing Shelves: The above joke is a test of how satisfied men are from their marriages and must never be made in presence of wives, as some husbands have imprudence to laugh on it. But that is the thing about jokes. Almost all humor is invoked by the fact that we are almost always trying hard to put up an act in one way or other; when something happens which reminds us of the reason we are putting the act, laughter becomes one of many possible responses.
Now the thing is biggest acts humanity puts up with are five — nationalism, religion, political belief systems, property, and marriage. And they all prompt jokes both the good kind and the bad kind. Religious organizations will have you believe how God created the world, political ones will have you believe how their own values are best etc.
Even elementary schools — brush your teeth daily, take bath daily etc. Personally, I believe, institutions should rather be like music instruments — with different kind of notes joining together to create music, for now, they are more like trying to make all buttons create same sound. Some of the members of the institution might actually believe in its one-size-fits-all value system while others are only putting up an act.
Thus individuals are prompted to put an act - and thus leaving opportunities of humor. Not that he should not be seen, but that he should not see! If rightly done, it is the second most strongest of arguments — next only to silence. Our protagonist is trying to pretend that he is a good socialist, but he senses the humor in air.
Young as he was, it was only a matter of time before he ended up joking about it. If they had read my postcard, they might have laughed. This is a lot more than a political novel. Kundera manages to create parallels in personal and political lives of characters. I especially liked narrator's love story at Labour camp.
I really liked Lucie's story. I don't like the idea of anyone forcing any kind of lifestyle on anyone. Not they aren't full of absurdities. Now try making a joke about that! It is beyond humor, right? Gayen Hamari mata hai, aaghe kuch nahia aata hai. Cow is our mama, know nothing more than that. They never seem to care about bull papas. I mean, do you know how screwed the sex ratios of cattle are is?
Even the worst of bull papas can have a harem. Is it father issues or what? I mean holy cow that is sexist man! This can go on and on But on some other day. View all 6 comments. Feb 17, Ali rated it liked it Shelves: Oct 19, Farhan Khalid rated it it was amazing Shelves: Faces Let me be perfectly honest: I was a man of many faces They were all real I had several faces because I was young and didn't know who I was or wanted to be Hidden eye She was constitutionally unable to look behind anything; she could only see the thing itself Optimism Optimism is the opium of the people!
Nihilist A nihilist likes a good laugh, said one of them.
The Joke (novel) - Wikipedia
He laughs at people who suffer Uncertainty The only human bond we had was our unc Faces Let me be perfectly honest: He laughs at people who suffer Uncertainty The only human bond we had was our uncertain future Destinies Slowly I came to realize that there was no power capable of changing the image of my person lodged in the supreme court of human destinies Loved ones Letters written by parents are messages from a shore we are forsaking; all they can do is make us aware of how far we have strayed from the port we left, enveloped in the selfless devotion of our loved ones.
Yes, their letters say, the port still exists, it's still there in all its comforting, pristine beauty; but the road back, the way back is lost Melancholy Nothing brings people together more quickly and easily than shared melancholy It's not easy to live with people willing to send you to exile or death, it's not easy to become intimate with them, it's not easy to love them Life All the basic situations in life occur only once Fate As it turned out, nothing was in my hands. Neither our estrangement nor our reunion was in my hands So I hope that they were in the hands of time Newspaper In my view newspaper have one extraordinary attribute: That sense of injustice still determines every step you take Mirrors Other people are mere walking mirrors in which he is amazed to find his own emotions, his own worth And this seeming unreality made me think that everything around me was not present but the past Awakening My entire life, it seemed to me, had always been overpopulated by shadows Where sorrow is not lightness, laughter is not grimace, love is not laughable Where love is still love and pain is still pain, where values are not yet devastated And it seemed to me that inside these songs I was at home View all 7 comments.
Thorns Thou Sow in the Garden of the Soul I was surprisingly impressed with the depth, accessibility and enjoyability of this novel, which Kundera wrote in and it was published in and apparently played a role in the Prague Spring that year. In the early s Czechoslovakia, Ludvik Jahn, a university student with a great sense of humor, was a strong supporter of the Communist regime after World War II. Attempting to show his girlfriend a bit of charm and a sense of humor over the summe Thorns Thou Sow in the Garden of the Soul I was surprisingly impressed with the depth, accessibility and enjoyability of this novel, which Kundera wrote in and it was published in and apparently played a role in the Prague Spring that year.
Attempting to show his girlfriend a bit of charm and a sense of humor over the summer when they are on break from classes, he wrote in a postcard to her: A healthy spirit stinks of stupidity! Although he eventually gains decent success in his scientific profession, he harbors a grudge against party members who were responsible for his fall from grace.
When he sees an opportunity to exact revenge on Zemanik who led the charge against him, Ludvik seduces Zemanik's wife and the joke may be on him, with the wife a "civilian" casualty. I love the structure of this, Kundera's first novel, with three narrators. I'm not a big fan of, as in The Book of Laughter and Forgetting , his carrying the reader through his writing thought processes about the possibilities as he becomes a part of the novel as "author," not just narrator, which ruins my ability to temporarily suspend disbelief.
For me, this novel was outstanding at revealing the truth of the human condition that "redressibility" of wrongs against us is just not possible, and others, including the perpetrator of the wrong, will have forgotten the misdeed anyway by the time you think you've gotten to the point of revenge. Thus one carries the poison of resentment around, as Oscar Wilde put it, as an "adder in one's breast" to "rise up every night to sow thorns in the garden of one's soul.
There was a time when I read a lot of Milan Kundera but with the exception of The Joke they have blended together in my memory. The novel is a twist on a revenge novel like The Count of Monte Cristo. There has been a wrong here too, and the perpetrator of it has moved in on the Hero's love. The digging though, is part of the punishment and not a means to escape.
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The twist is that the attempt at revenge goes awry view spoiler [ mind that is not much a twist really hide spoiler ]. What we see inst There was a time when I read a lot of Milan Kundera but with the exception of The Joke they have blended together in my memory. What we see instead is a series of contrasts between the plans, hopes and expectations that people lay upon those who surround them and how all of them go miss as people slip out of the roles intended for them. The last joke in the novel will amuse most those who find the idea of people taking laxatives accidentally funny what!
Kundera and his magic pen! Four different characters, four different points of view, narrate through 20 or so years in a fast-changing world.
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Ludvik, the main character wishes to take revenge from a man who kicked him out of the Party when he was a student due to a joke he made, by humiliating his wife. Things don't go as planned though and a lesson is taught the hard way. Heraclitus said that one cannot step into the same river twice. Everything is in a constant state of changing. Things that o Kundera and his magic pen! Things that once were, now are just a memory.
Ideas that once were considered constitutions, now seem ridiculous. Now we laugh over things which once we cried about. Tables always turn and there is something laughable in the petty attempts we make to regain our lost dignity. This is the ultimate Joke that history pulls on us. The Joke was Milan Kundera's first novel. Kundera didn't like the English translation as the translators completely changed the structure of the book. The irony that the book was published in Communist Czechoslovakia uncensored but completely altered and re-arranged when published in the West was not lost on Kundera.
The translation that I read is by Michael Henry Heim and was approved by Kundera and published in Looking at the Author's Note in a more recent translation it appears that Kundera had second thoughts about aspects of this translation and personally altered it and republished it in For me this is a re-read and re-reading books is something I've been doing and enjoying just lately and which I plan to continue doing.
Although I've read and re-read most of Kundera's books, at least up to Immortality , The Joke was one that I kept meaning to re-read but never quite got round to it. My reluctance was in part because I didn't enjoy my first reading that much; I remember it being a bit bland, but this was after reading his later books. However, I've really enjoyed re-reading it and my relatively lower opinion of it was a bit unfair. I think now I would say it stands up there with his other works - no problem. When deciding to read this book I did wonder if Kundera would object to us including Czechoslovakia in Eastern Europe rather than Central Europe and whether modern-day Czechs and Slovaks would have any objections as well.
Maybe it's not an issue but it's similar to the point that Kundera made in the preface to my edition; that the West quickly thought of Czechoslovakia and the other Soviet Bloc countries as being part of the U. The book is split into seven parts with the first six parts focusing on one of the characters where we see events through their eyes. Ludvik Jahn is the main character and he has three parts to himself whilst Jaroslav, Helena and Kostka all have a part each. The last part is a mixture of viewpoints as all the characters are brought together.
Then it starts to rain. It just seems to be that sort of summer. Diamonds in the night is the tense, brutal story of two Jewish boys who escape from a train transporting them from one concentration camp to another. Ultimately, they are hunted down by a Set against the backdrop of a repressed Czechoslovakia, five non-related vignettes are presented, each showcasing the need and want for human connection. Baltazar's Death", a middle Ondrej, a young boy who loves bees and bats, is introduced to his new mother, a woman much younger than his father.
He brings her a basketful of flowers which she starts to throw in the air Engineer Jan Sebek Jan Kacer is undergoing treatment in a mental home after his unsuccessful attempt to commit suicide. His therapist, via discussions both with the patient and with Husband senior ministry official and wife find their house is riddled with listening devices put there by his own ministry. A harrowing night follows reminiscent of 'Who's Afraid Of Klara and Viktoria are sisters. Their father dies, leaving most of his property to Klara. When Klara becomes involved with a man that her sister loves, Viktoria begins to plot her murder.
After death sentence it was ninety nine Inspired by fairy-tales such as Alice in Wonderland and Little Red-Riding Hood, "Valerie and her Week of Wonders" is a surreal tale in which love, fear, sex and religion merge into one fantastic world. One of the most important images of the Czech New Wave 60s, which was ranked among the top ten domestic films of all time.
- Cómo preparar un gran viaje.: El manual de los trotamundos. (Spanish Edition);
- Die Beute: Erotische Erzählungen (German Edition).
- Follow A Broken Heart.
Feature debut screenwriter and director Ivan Passer is currently In the 's, Ludvik Jahn was expelled from the Communist Party and the University by his fellow students, because of a politically incorrect note he sent to his girlfriend. Fifteen years later, he tries to get his revenge by seducing Helena, the wife of one of his accusers. Written by Will Gilbert. Nevertheless, viewed as an independent art piece shorn of its erstwhile political context, it still can hold courts in terms of Jires' nifty visual and editing modality, but at the same time, is severely undermined by several unsavory blemishes, not least its blinkered misogynous treatment.
The joke recoils badly and Ludvik is sent to "re-education" in the military where sadistic corporeal punishment is subject to those political dissenters. In the face of the film's year-apart past-and-present correlation, Jires adopts an impetuous cross- cutting technique to juxtapose those two time-frames together, often predicating upon the incidents in the present time a celebration of newborn babies, a music rehearsal of his old band-mates etc.
His plan works, to our utter incredulity because Somr's Ludvik is the antithesis of his dashing counterpart in Kundera's source novel, a bald, portly, reticent type, inept in his action and disaffected in his cynical gaze, so, the reason why Helena falls for him so hard is a total myth and very much contrived, loneliness maybe, but as a successful TV anchorwoman, she is not shy of suitors, even younger, prettier ones. To shame a man by sleeping with his wife, the stratagem itself is petty, malicious and misogynous to a fault, if Jires' intention is to make Ludvik a miserable reprobate, he has it on a silver platter.
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