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Title: The JOKE by Milan Kundera ISBN: 006099505X Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: January, 1994 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.69
Rating: 5
Summary: Kafka
Comment: From the moment I picked up the book, all I could think about was Kafka - The Castle, Joseph K in The Trial.... Kundera could not seem to escape his Masters - Kafka, etc. The novel is as intricate as any of his works and somehow sets the stage for future pieces. By far the most political of his novels, it is not a political novel. It is a story of human existence. Kundera picks apart a particular theme, on one level Kundera can be said to be exploring a sense of the absurd. The four part novel is cleverly written in the first-person narrative. The novel centers around Ludvik and Helena and the colorful storied surrounding them and their cohorts. Kundera sets up his heros as antiheros through a series of humanizing qualities - usually self-centered. Accused of portraying his characters from a male fantasy perspective, people lose sight of the intricate stories that he weaves - part advocacy, part parody. Centered around the narrative of the joke - Ludvik, who being a dedicated communist, finds himself the victim of a joke he outlined in an open postcard to a young lady he was trying to impress. Locked in this Kafkaesque drama, his life is one tragedy after another. He becomes a skeptic. He blames history. We are thrust into a tailspin of the "absurd situation" we find ourself in. Surface as this analysis has been, kindly look to the deeply insightful comment that Kundera makes on the human condition through the use of his characters. I am certain we will all find a little of ourselves in every character.
Miguel Llora
Rating: 5
Summary: Kundera¿s first novel, and maybe one of his best.
Comment: After reading several books by Kundera -one of my favorite authors-, I decided to try his first novel, "The Joke". Because it's the first one, its natural that the style would differ from his latest production...however, the author is the same and the style is similar in all of his work, he explores human thoughts and emotions beautifully, maybe not in a such profound way like Dostoievsky or Hesse, but close enough to be in the same league.
If you want a detail of the plot (I personally don't like to do that before reading a book), you will probably find that in other reviews, I'll just said that the story is about a man that lost all of his achievements just for a misunderstanding, a joke that was not well received in a communism society. Kundera explores the thoughts of this man (in several time periods of his life), but also takes other characters and gives them a protagonic level (the story is written in first person, in the view of all of the characters). The book gets more and more interesting as it develops, and the climax is at the end, the last 50 pages are brilliant. A dramatic story with a great end.
Five stars for the way Kundera allow readers to get to know and love his characters.....brilliant narrative, brilliant book.
Rating: 5
Summary: Genius
Comment: This was the first and, as yet, only Kundera novel I have read. I look forward to consuming all his works of fiction. The narrative seemed odd and stilted at first, but as I stayed with it I became completely absorbed. The main protagonist, Jahn, exhibits so many human traits and failings that most people would try consciously to repress that I found myself feeling greater and greater "humanity" as I followed his exploits. Kundera also lays bare in this book many of the myths about Communist eastern Europe (e.g., that intelligent people only went along with the dogma unwilllingly). A really excellent and original writer.
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Title: The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera ISBN: 0060932147 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: May, 1999 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Identity: A Novel by Milan Kundera ISBN: 0060930314 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: May, 1999 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Life Is Elsewhere by Milan Kundera, Aaron Asher ISBN: 0060997028 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: August, 2000 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: Laughable Loves by Milan Kundera ISBN: 0060997036 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: May, 1999 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: The Unbearable Lightness of Being : A Novel by Milan Kundera ISBN: 0060932139 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: May, 1999 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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