Told through four alternating points-of-view, Kundera’s 1967 debut follows the repercussions of a joke told by an undergraduate student in soviet-occupied Czechoslovakian. Kundera draws on three traditions: the senseless labyrinth of fellow Czech writer Franz Kafka, the satirical works produced by citizens of and refugees from the Soviet Union, and the revenge tragedy in which the hero is hoisted by his own petard.
Kafkaesque
Kundera signals Kafka most directly in his Ludvik sections. After Ludvik Jahn sends a post card to a fellow member of the communist party, jovially mocking her over-enthusiasm, his life becomes a series of trials and interrogations, which result in his expulsion from the party and the university and his conscription into an unarmed military brigade whose main responsibilities include working in the mines. It is hard labor and every step he takes to disentangle himself from the title of “enemy of the state” only confirms his guilt more in the eyes of his superiors. If he works extra hard, it is because he is a capitalist looking for an advantage. If he tries to enjoy his comrades, it is only because they are just as evil as he is and as much despised. The “soldiers” are run ragged, first in the mines and then in weaponless drills that make no sense and prepare them for no battles.
Kostka faces similar trials. A Christian and a party member, he is integral during the days of the revolution when the party seeks to attract church-goers, but later his faith is viewed as suspicious. Cast out of the university as well, Kostka embraces a post at a state farm, not out of obedience to his party but out of his devotion to Christ, which drives him to seek out the lowly and offer them help.
Soviet Dystopia
In the same tradition as Yevgeny Petrov’s Twelve Chairs, The Joke satirizes the ridiculous unintended consequences of the communist system while also demonstrating the real damage it causes.
Hardly a character or ideal is left unharmed by the tyrannical system imposed on Czechoslovakia. Kostka’s religion is ridiculed, then suspected, and finally it ends his career at the state farm. Not his actions but his beliefs are his undoing. Similarly, Jaroslav finds his folk traditions, his love of Czech music and history, reduced to kitsch pageantry, the music appropriated in order to propagate communist ideas and deify soviet heroes. For Ludvik it is ideas in themselves that are attacked: free speech and the ability to make light of any and everything are outlawed under the soviet system. Ludvik cannot even make a joke about the comical zeal with which his classmates revere the communism and this is in itself his entire undoing. Because he dares to make light of the enthusiasm of his friend, his future is robbed from him.
Revenge Gone Wrong
In addition to a critique of the communist party and a contemplation of how Czech society has changed in the decades since the revolution, Kundera’s novel is also a revenge story. Ludvik cannot let go of the wrongs done to him by his classmates, his party, and his country. So when he sees an opportunity to avenge himself through the wife of his former inquisitor, he jumps at the chance. He schemes and connives and reduces the wife to a means to an end just as he was reduced by the state. In the end, the hatred he has reserved for others for two decades festers in his own heart. His revenge, when it comes, is crueler and more heart-breaking but, inevitably, less effective than we ever could’ve expected.
Steven J Kolbe 