![]() ![]() So begins ''The Joke,'' a mordant farce by the enormously talented Czech writer Milan Kundera, who now lives in Parisian exile. It comes, like everything else in his life, to nothing. ![]() On his occasional leaves from the mines, Ludvik has a frustrated love affair with a frightened, almost speechless girl named Lucie. Party and university expel poor Ludvik, and he is shipped off, for ideological rectification, He is soon brought up on charges at his Party cell and slyly excoriated by a friend and comrade, Pavel. Is the opium of the people! A healthy atmosphere stinks of stupidity! Long live Trotsky!''Ī boyish prank? An innocent joke? Not on Ludvik's life. Irritated with his politically orthodox girlfriend - the kind called ''goodthinkful'' in Orwell's Newspeak - Ludvik sends her a teasing postcard: ''Optimism In his ideological armor: He has a sense of humor. THE ever vigilant Party has already noted Ludvik Jahn's individualist deviations: ''You smile as though you were thinking to yourself.'' A student in Prague during the 1950's, Ludvik is a staunch Communist with but one chink Section 7, Column 1 Book Review Deskīy Irving Howe Irving Howe's ''A Margin of Hope: An Intellectual Autobiography'' is being published this month. October 24, 1982, Sunday, Late City Final Edition The New York Times: Book Review Search Article ![]()
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