Joke

Awesome

Kundera.. One of the best writers of the time...

Go for it

I am a fan of Milan Kundera and this book is one of his bests.

it's just beautiful. an insight into a different era, a different political system, the mind of young men, and even the musical heritage of Moravia. impossibly for me to describe. so in short: beautiful.

This is Kundera's first major success, finished in 1965 and eventually published 1967 in the original Czech version ("Zert"), after managing to slip by the censors that had become a little relaxed as part of the beginning of the famous "Prague Spring." Earlier English (and French) translations were not very good; be sure to get the "definitive version, fully revised by the author" (for the English version, that generally means published in1992 or later).I read it in French (La plaisanterie) and English side by side - a wonderful way to compare the effect and "feeling" of the two languages, by the way. Later in his life, Kundera, who had managed to emigrate to France after falling out of favor with the post-1968 authorities in his native Czechoslovakia, started to write in French - so that version may even be a little closer to the original author's intent (he personally revised that translation also).This novel is an absolute masterpiece. With both surgical precision and a painter's eye for all shades of human frailty, Kundera exposes human confusion in the hapless pursuit of happiness, and many of the built-in traps that thwart success in that endeavor. He manages to be kind, wise, and simply honest, in the face of utter baseness and hopelessness. It is an intense exposure of the human predicament, and at the same time it makes you smile. Reading this book was a very incisive experience.If you read French, I would recommend reading that version side by side, and to also study Alain Finkielkraut's review and analysis of this novel (a chapter in his "Un coeur intelligent").

I came to this very late: 'The joke' was Kundera's first novel, published in (what was then) Czechoslovakia in 1967, and having gone through 4 or 5 English translations before settling on this, the definitive English translation (according to Kundera's own note at the end of the book). I feel it's a good introduction to Kundera's work for those who haven't read any of his other books; and after all, this is where it all started...The Joke alternates between the perspectives of different characters: Ludvik (who feels the central figure); Helena, Jaroslav and Kostka. And I would also add: Lucie, although it is through the voice of others that we hear her voice, but it is a very distinctive voice indeed.The joke in question occurs at the beginning; it has to do with Ludvik's playful and meant-to-be-funny remarks on Trotskyism on a postcard sent to a girlfriend. Within the tight, repressive, paranoid and (of course) humourless restraints of the Czechoslovakia communist regime, this postcard is taken as proof that Ludvik has strayed from the party's orthodoxy; he is seen as a 'cynic' and a 'skeptic', thus potentially dangerous for the party that needs pure, unthinking followers. So his studies are forcefully interrupted & he is sent to the army which then leads to prison. Once in isolation and having lost everything that meant anything to him, Ludvik is led through a journey which comes to doubt meaning itself and where he comes to doubt his own intentions and underlying beliefs when 'joking'. Was what he had written, after all, funny? Funny to whose ears? This leads to some interesting thinking regarding the seriousness of jokes- let's not forget Freud's own book on Jokes- and also regarding, ultimately, the absurdity of life's turns, the sense of inevitability but also of randomness that comes to penetrate Ludvik's life to the point where he almost completely loses sight of what (if anything) matters to him.What comes to matter, eventually, is revenge. But in the process of his (failed) effort to get revenge against those who seemed to believe they had all the answers but who, as he sees it, destroyed his life, Ludvik comes to realise that it is here, in the process of revenge, where the greatest absurdity and meaninglessness occurs. Crucially, the greatest humiliation can occur too just because revenge can force us to face the true meaning of forgetting, of time passing. But in the process of Ludvik's efforts at revenge the reader has the pleasure to finally laugh with some relief at what is a real (if tragic and grotesque) joke. I leave you to discover that one yourselves...A beautiful book, well worth returning to. It's particularly good to read this from a distance, now that life in the 50s and 60s Eastern European Communist regimes feels so far behind us (although it was not that long ago). Made me think about the passage of time and the crushing role of forgetting within it. What once seemed, at the time Kundera writes about, essential and true, seems so very distant now that we almost forget the whys and hows of that time. We can also easily forget the reality and inevitability that everything at the time meant to the people living through that period. And I suppose that's a thought to hold on to about our own lives too.

クンデラを読むのはこれが２冊目である。１冊目はもちろん “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” で、これを読んだのは10年以上前。とても緊迫感のある良い小説だったが、20代の時に読んだ、同じく共産主義政権下における知識人の苦悩を描いた小説、ソルジェニーツィンの『ガン病棟』『煉獄の中で』と比べると、そのスケールの大きさにおいて見劣りするような気がして、その後クンデラには手を出していなかった。　最近、あることが切っ掛けで、もう一度クンデラを読んでみようと思い、どれにしようか迷ったすえ、”The Joke” にした。理由は２つ。　１つはこれがクンデラの最初の長編小説であること。よく言われることだが、「処女作にはその作家の全てが詰まっている」のではないか。　もう１つは、この Harper Perennial の版が “Definitive Version Fully Revised by the Author” となっていることであった。そこに至る経緯はこの本の最後に Author’s Note として詳しく書かれているのでそちらを御覧頂きたいが、”The Joke” がチェコ語で出版されたのは1967年、この “Definitive Version” は1992年、その間25年である。それほどに英語の翻訳に拘った作品であるなら、作者の思い入れもさぞかし深い作品だろう。（最初の英語版が出版されたのは1969年。その後訳者が替わったり改訳されたりと計４回の英語版が出版されたそうだが、クンデラはどの翻訳にも満足できず、最終的には Michael Henry Heim の翻訳を基に、HarperCollins 社の編集者 Aaron Asher と協議し、自ら筆を入れて現在の版を作ったとのこと。Author’s Note の最後にクンデラは ‘To my readers, a promise: there will not be a sixth English-language version of The Joke.’ と冗談交じりに記している。）　　筆者自らが英語版の翻訳に手を入れただけあって、この翻訳は明晰で読みやすく、美しい英語になっている。（浅学の者の言うことゆえ当てにはなりませんが。）　しかし書かれている内容は重く、決して気楽に読めるものではない。読んでいる間中、常に読者は、登場人物の生き方・考え方を自分のそれと比較し、現在の自分の在り方を再考せずにはおれない。そんな真摯さと力強さとをこの作品はもっている。だから、読後の印象は爽やかでもないし、ほのぼのとしたものでもない。（大衆小説と純文学の違いと言っても良いだろう。）　この作品の主題は何だろう。私には、人はひとを真に理解できるのか、ということのような気がした。たとえ親子であっても、友人同士であっても、恋人同士であっても、人がひとを真に理解すること、もっと言えば、自分自身をさえ真に理解することは不可能なのではあるまいか、取り分け言葉のレベルにおいて、肉体のレベルにおいて。しかし、音楽は時にそれを可能にする。最後の場面で Ludvik は嘗ての音楽仲間 Jaroslav 率いるシンバロンの楽団で10数年ぶりにクラリネットを吹き、チェコの民族音楽を奏でる。その時彼は、この10数年敬遠し嫌悪していた Jaroslav に人間としての親近感を憶え、同時に自分がチェコ人以外の何ものでもないことを納得する。それが音楽の持つ力だ、音楽には言葉や肉体を超えた親和力がある――そうクンデラは言っているかのようだ。（因みにクンデラはプラハの音楽芸術大学を卒業している。また130ページ、131ページには楽譜も登場する。）　もちろん複雑・微妙に織りなされたこの小説の主題がこの１つだけでないことは当然であろうし、他に様々な読み方があってよい。（クンデラ自身はこの小説はラブストーリーだと言っているそうだ。）　文学とはそういうものだ。結論：　明晰な英文で書かれた実存主義的純文学を味わってみたい方にはお勧めの一冊である。ただし、これだけを読んで “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” をお読みにならないとしたら、それは勿体ない。