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Prima sezóna
by Josef Škvorecký
The subtitle for this book is A Text On the Most Important Things in Life; a rather cheeky one since the principal character is incapable of earning the most-important-thing that he's after: a night in bed with just one of twenty-two girls.
Danny Smiricky, a young saxophonist and student, ambles through numerous aborted attempts to bed one of six women the novel focuses on, each of whom either refuse his advances outright (his reputation as a skirt-chaser precedes him), except for two young sisters whose "spiritual sadist" of a father foils each of Danny's attempts to bed one of them.
The schemes Smiricky designs to be alone with these women all lead to situations that are absurd and border on utter farce - The swapping-places of two sisters who are similarly dressed with differences only in smaller details leads Danny to believe he is courting a witch who can change her clothes and erase a tell-tale hickey from her neck by sheer force of will. Smiricky's explanation to an upset father that he was only helping her daughter with her math homework leads to a grueling, hours-long series of solving equations written by the father to test Danny's mathematical knowledge which he labors over until midnight.
The novel takes place in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia, characterizing the setting as one of frustrated desires and aborted dreams; one in which only failure and, come the novel's conclusion, tragedy can occur.
Danny Smiricky, a young saxophonist and student, ambles through numerous aborted attempts to bed one of six women the novel focuses on, each of whom either refuse his advances outright (his reputation as a skirt-chaser precedes him), except for two young sisters whose "spiritual sadist" of a father foils each of Danny's attempts to bed one of them.
The schemes Smiricky designs to be alone with these women all lead to situations that are absurd and border on utter farce - The swapping-places of two sisters who are similarly dressed with differences only in smaller details leads Danny to believe he is courting a witch who can change her clothes and erase a tell-tale hickey from her neck by sheer force of will. Smiricky's explanation to an upset father that he was only helping her daughter with her math homework leads to a grueling, hours-long series of solving equations written by the father to test Danny's mathematical knowledge which he labors over until midnight.
The novel takes place in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia, characterizing the setting as one of frustrated desires and aborted dreams; one in which only failure and, come the novel's conclusion, tragedy can occur.