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Milan Kundera (Czech, 1929)
"Smesne Lasky/ Laughable Loves" (1965) "Zert/ The Joke" (1967) ++ is basically conceived as a set of interconnected stories, each told by an unnamed character who is named in the other stories. 2. A woman relates how she got married to Pavel out of communist fervor, and how he ignored her and led her to desperation. She has just met a Ludvik who has seduced her but she is still attached to Pavel, from whom she had a daughter, Zdena. But Ludvik is coming to see her and she is excited about their meeting. 3. Ludvik recounts how he met Lucie when he was still a student., following a bad joke he wrote to his then girlfriend Marketa. Since Marketa was so serious about her communist training, Ludvik (who was also a member of the party) sent her a postcard that quoted ironically Trotsky. The postcard fell in the hands of the censors who expelled him as an anti-party element. He was even assigned to forced labor. He entered a rather decadent and melancholy stage of his life, until one day he met Lucie the way one has a revelation. Ludvik felt reborn through the relationship with this ordinary woman, who was alien to the whole communist propaganda. But she confessed being still a virgin and too frightenened to have sex. Then Ludvik was confined in the camp because of a collective punishment. He was so determined to have Lucie that one night he managed to escape. But, to his dismay, Lucie again refused to lose her virginity, and he had to return to the camp more frustrated than ever. Lucie disappeared. Ludvik had already lost two friends in the camp and a third one committed suicide. He spent a few more years as a miner before finally being discharged. 4. The father of Vladimir and husband of Vlasta, an expert in folk culture who suffers at his teenage son's indifference towards it, sees his old friend Ludvik, but Ludvik pretends not to see him. They had seen each other for the last time when Ludvik, released from prison and the mines, had come back to resume his studies. On that occasion they had had an argument about the heroes that the communist authorities forced them to worship, but Ludvik had clearly been afraid to continue the conversation. 5. Ludvik has accidentally seen Lucie and is now less excited about his ecnounter with Helena, Pavel's wife. Ludvik has planned this romance with Helena as an act of revenge against her husband. Ludvik remembers vividly how Pavel directed the proceedings against him and sentenced him to expulsion. Ludvik makes love to Helena, consumes his revenge. She is madly in love with him, a fact that only increases his evil satisfaction. 6. A male (Kostka) relates how Lucie was discovered living like a tramp and allowed to work at the same farm where he worked. She confessed that she had been gang raped, and he consoled her with his Christian faith. He was an old friend of Ludvik, whom Ludvik had helped. Lucie eventually got married (unhappily) and moved to the same town where Kostka lived, and where Ludvik eventually found her. 7. The first chapter that alternates narrating voices. As Kostka tells Ludvik the real story of Lucie, Ludvik realizes that all those years he had been loving a mirage, a Lucie that did not exist. The real Lucie was not a shy virgin but an abused woman disgusted by sex. Ludvik joins the folk festival that is about to start, organized by Jaroslav who is proud to see his son Vladimir as the king of the parade. n the meantime, Pavel's wife Helena mentally thanks Ludvik for saving her from desperation. Ludvik follows the parade, and spots Lucie in it. Jaroslav who has seen Ludvik but avoided him is exhausted but proud of his son, until a gfriend tells him that it is not his son: his son has snobbed the whole event, the event that his father dedicated his life to. In the crowd Ludvik meets Pavel. Pavel has changed. He has become an idol of his students, a critic of the establishment. Now Ludvik should be on his side, but Ludvik needs to hate him, that's what he lived for. The existential tragedies of Ludvik and Jaroslav proceed in parallel while the parade tours the town. Pavel is not only friendly to Luvvik\: he even knows of his affair with Helena and is perfectly happy about it, because he now has a young and cute student as his lover. In fact, they meet Helena and Pavel leaves her with Ludvik. But now Ludvik is disgusted by his own joke, and tells Helena the terrible truth: that he only meant to take revenge on an old enemy, Pavel, that he has no intention of seeing her again. Helena is so desperate that she takes some pills to flirt with suicide. The pills belong to a boy, Jindra, whois madly in love with her. She sends Jindra to deliver a farewell message to Ludvik. Ludvik understands the gravity of the situation and looks for her. They find her in a toilet‡ it turns out that the pills are laxatives that Jindra has to take. A joke within the joke. JAroslav has faced the truth‡ his own wife Vlasta helped their son Vladimir take off with friends instead of wearing the king's costume. The kids hate the whole parade. His son is ashamed of his father. At the peak of the festival, Ludvik decides to join the folk band of Jaroslav. It is his way to cleanse himself of all the hatred, to return to his roots. Jaroslav is touched, but they both know that their age is gone and the young audience is only interested in getting drunk. Jaroslav has a heart attack that almost kills him. My old Italian text:
Ludvik torna alla citta` natia e trova ospitalita` presso l'amico Kostka.
Riconosce nella barbiera del quartiere una vecchia conoscenza, Lucie Sebetka.
Il romanzo descrive una crisi esistenziale, e lo fa bilanciandola contro le crisi esistenziali degli altri, dei veri protagonisti della sua esistenza, tutti malinconicamente sconfitti dalla storia. "Zivot je Jinde/ Life is Elsewhere" (1973) "Kniha Smichu a Zapomneni/ Book of Laughter and Forgetting" (1979) "Nesnesitelna Lehkost Byti/ Unbearable Lightness of Being" (1984) + "Majitele Klicu/ Owner of the Keys" (1962) [t] "Jakub a Jeho Pan/ Jacques and his Master" (1971) [t]
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