Milan Kundera, THE JOKE

The six of us met at MyPierogis, a Polish restaurant. With no one else than our book club being present, the place was a very quiet and pleasant place to meet. We all followed Monika’s competent advice and had Pierogis (Polish dumplings filled with meat - Clare and Philippe’s favorites- or potatoes and mushrooms - Monika’s favorites) and Polish beer, plus desert for the greedy ones. 

Since the book was originally written in Czech (some of us (half)read it in English, others in French or Polish), we started things with a discussion on the translation and wondered whether, and if yes, to what extent, an author is always aware of the quality of his translated works. As for Kundera, whose level of English is good enough, he had his « Joke »  retranslated five times (the sixth being the definite Kundera-approved version, if I’m not mistaken) so, in the end, we were not even sure if we had read the same translated English version.

Maren and Monika found it a bit hard to get into it because it reminded them of the painful moments that they, or rather their parents, had lived under a communist regime. None of the characters is very likeable, except for Jaroslav, the musician. Philippe pointed out that the book is very much about the powerlessness of man under a bullying regime. Caroline who read the French version found the style a bit stilted.

Nobody seemed to have totally disliked the book but no one was a great defender either. We all agreed that « The Joke », with its post-war communist backdrop in Czechoslovakia, is not funny at all but rather a grim, pessimistic book but all the same very much worth reading, not least because it gives insight into a very dark period of European history.

Philippe