Take a photo of a barcode or cover
Milan Kundera seams to say in his first novel, that somebody is playing with our lives, somebody is connecting and disconnecting the events in which we are attracted with or without our will. It pushes us into a hollow or it offers us a sudden freedom, that we don't know how to use. Somebody is laughing about us by proposing us ideals that turn into their own semblance, without stopping to follow us and poison our existence. Somebody is looking merciless to us and records every move we make with a cold look which doesn't let any hope. And this face, characterized by this look, is the one that "The Joke" is offering us - the face of yesterday, today and forever, in which we all are challenged to identify ourselves.