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A review by arthmrnk
The Joke by Milan Kundera
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
'Joke' by Milan Kundera (1967) - a great novel about little fatal events changing one's entire life - and about the abnormality of such things.
The protagonist, Ludvik, enjoys a comfortable social status - a student at a university and member in several youth organizations, he commits an unnoticeable, seemingly innocent act - he makes a silly joke. It doesn't matter what kind of joke - it is suffice to say that this entire act was thoughtless and inofensive per se, small in comparison with greater events in his life.
But Ludvik lived in an epoch where there was no time and place for jokes - as people, with religious devotion, served an omnipotent ideology, frantically willing to devour, crush everything that couldn't correspond to new standards. It was the short but notable period when Czechoslovakia, the writer's native country, was shaken by a wave of fanatism and repressions - the 1950s, the age of Stalinism.
Thereby, after some months, the joke - which everyone had taken seriously - is placed in the limelight and regarded as an act of heresy, as an insult of the very core of collective ideology. The colleagues and friends turn their vindictive fury against Ludvik, and his timid acts of self-defense are nullified by the zeal of his inquisitors - indeed, the wheel of history itself proclaimed him guilty.
And, finding himself estranged, forced to abandon his status, Ludvik grows a strong grievance against the society that committed such a heinous act of alienation - labeling him an enemy, without the right to appeal. The years of his youth are now marked by this profound alienation, exclusion from the civilized society - and even after his pardonement owing to the dawn of a more lenient time, his estrangement is kept intact - not by any external power, but by his inner soul.
And so, even after entering once again an intellectual's smug life, Ludvik is living, to paraphrase one of the narrators, in a personal hell. His actions, his thoughts are all stemming from the old but vivid trauma, making him un unlikeable but relatable character-narrator. His ultimate actions, as well as the recollections of his early past, are presented through various perspectives of his pals, former friends, and victims.
The novel, in my opinion, focuses on the long-term consequences of a fatality - but also condemns the circumstances that allow such fatalities to occur; the historical epoch when such things were the norm, a time which, the author concludes, will have to be ultimately forgotten.
Originally published by me on r/literature in July 2024
The protagonist, Ludvik, enjoys a comfortable social status - a student at a university and member in several youth organizations, he commits an unnoticeable, seemingly innocent act - he makes a silly joke. It doesn't matter what kind of joke - it is suffice to say that this entire act was thoughtless and inofensive per se, small in comparison with greater events in his life.
But Ludvik lived in an epoch where there was no time and place for jokes - as people, with religious devotion, served an omnipotent ideology, frantically willing to devour, crush everything that couldn't correspond to new standards. It was the short but notable period when Czechoslovakia, the writer's native country, was shaken by a wave of fanatism and repressions - the 1950s, the age of Stalinism.
Thereby, after some months, the joke - which everyone had taken seriously - is placed in the limelight and regarded as an act of heresy, as an insult of the very core of collective ideology. The colleagues and friends turn their vindictive fury against Ludvik, and his timid acts of self-defense are nullified by the zeal of his inquisitors - indeed, the wheel of history itself proclaimed him guilty.
And, finding himself estranged, forced to abandon his status, Ludvik grows a strong grievance against the society that committed such a heinous act of alienation - labeling him an enemy, without the right to appeal. The years of his youth are now marked by this profound alienation, exclusion from the civilized society - and even after his pardonement owing to the dawn of a more lenient time, his estrangement is kept intact - not by any external power, but by his inner soul.
And so, even after entering once again an intellectual's smug life, Ludvik is living, to paraphrase one of the narrators, in a personal hell. His actions, his thoughts are all stemming from the old but vivid trauma, making him un unlikeable but relatable character-narrator. His ultimate actions, as well as the recollections of his early past, are presented through various perspectives of his pals, former friends, and victims.
The novel, in my opinion, focuses on the long-term consequences of a fatality - but also condemns the circumstances that allow such fatalities to occur; the historical epoch when such things were the norm, a time which, the author concludes, will have to be ultimately forgotten.
Originally published by me on r/literature in July 2024
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content