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3.89 AVERAGE
3.89 AVERAGE
Milan Kundera's The Joke is a beautiful novel, which is an extremely personal story, and at the same time, very political. It deals with the individual and the state, and the overlap of the two.
It tells the tale of several strange love stories, but my favourite part has to be what Ludvik is thinking, after his relationship with Lucie ends:
“It seemed to me an error in reasoning for a man to isolate a woman he loves from all the circumstances in which he met her and in which she lives, to try, with dogged inner concentration, to purify her of everything that is not her self, which is to say also of the story that they lived through together and that gives their ove its shape.
After all, what I love in a woman is not what she is in and for herself, but the side of herself she turns toward me, what she is for me. I love her as a character in our common love story.”
The novel is stellar storytelling, with a nonlinear plot and multiple storylines that all converge in the depressing and hilarious last section of the book. All characters are caricatures, they are all serious and ridiculous. The characters are powerless to their circumstances, in spite of the rage and stubornness with which they try to control their fate. Ludvik and his friends are, indeed, the victims of "the joke history has plated on them".
The Joke> challenges the optimistic communist belief that reality can be mastered and controlled by man's intellect, and that man can control his own destiny. "Optimism is the opium of the masses", as Ludvik writes in the postcard that ironically gets him into trouble in the first place.
It tells the tale of several strange love stories, but my favourite part has to be what Ludvik is thinking, after his relationship with Lucie ends:
“It seemed to me an error in reasoning for a man to isolate a woman he loves from all the circumstances in which he met her and in which she lives, to try, with dogged inner concentration, to purify her of everything that is not her self, which is to say also of the story that they lived through together and that gives their ove its shape.
After all, what I love in a woman is not what she is in and for herself, but the side of herself she turns toward me, what she is for me. I love her as a character in our common love story.”
The novel is stellar storytelling, with a nonlinear plot and multiple storylines that all converge in the depressing and hilarious last section of the book. All characters are caricatures, they are all serious and ridiculous. The characters are powerless to their circumstances, in spite of the rage and stubornness with which they try to control their fate. Ludvik and his friends are, indeed, the victims of "the joke history has plated on them".
The Joke> challenges the optimistic communist belief that reality can be mastered and controlled by man's intellect, and that man can control his own destiny. "Optimism is the opium of the masses", as Ludvik writes in the postcard that ironically gets him into trouble in the first place.
dark
funny
reflective
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Didn't stand out among the hundreds of mid-20th century political satires as particularly important and wasn't even really that funny. Once you understand what Ludvik's mission is (around a third of the way through the book) it just becomes puerile and trite. Look at me, panning Kundera, the giant. Oh well, what else could I expect fresh off Hemingway?
dark
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Kundera es un de mis autores favoritos, la forma en que describe los escenarios de su tierra natal me fascinan, es un buen aire conocer esto después de tener muchas historias que ocurren en países angloparlantes.
ummmm best book of the year??? shockingly good. told me about 100 different meanings of lives and all of them turned out to be wrong and i've come out wishing i had a book like this to read the rest of my life. everyone should read this. and it also rly expanded my slovni zasoba it was wow. loved it. i loved it. could not stop reading. read it every day whenever i got a second of time. amazing. 5/5 but no 5 has ever been juicier than this one.
Would give this 4 stars but it loses one for the misogyny and the treatment of women.
I found this book very hard to get into, as I found the beginning quite complicated. However later during the last two thirds of the book I would say a kind of enjoyed reading.
I also do find very interesting the composition of the piece as it creates a unique structure and adds to the story line in a very unique manner.
I found this book very hard to get into, as I found the beginning quite complicated. However later during the last two thirds of the book I would say a kind of enjoyed reading.
I also do find very interesting the composition of the piece as it creates a unique structure and adds to the story line in a very unique manner.