I Related to the Endless Quest to Find a Restaurant

a scathing review of The Joke by Milan Kundera

There was a stretch when I was 12 where my favorite book was The Picture of Dorian Gray, and I would tell my parents’ friends, beaming, like the smarmy only child I’m destined to be. I liked TPDG, but I loved TTYL by Lauren Myracle, a book written in IM messages with no discernable plot and mostly white space on the page.

I didn’t read this book to be snobby, I read it because I want to be the kind of person who enjoys Czech literature. That person has a direction in life, doesn’t ruin dinner with boredom popcorn, and knows excel and SEO optimization. But alas. I am glut with soft skills and did not like this book. My eyes glazed over like blueberry munchkins as I crawled towards the 267th page. And now, the central question of this piece: Was this book poorly translated into English or just bad…?

Kundera says it’s a love story, which it is not. I’ve read enough Sarah fucking Dessen to tell you that. However, I don’t know enough about Czech communist rule to parse the satire, so to me it’s a book about a sad boy who if alive today, would listen to Phoebe Bridgers and Radiohead and have a lot of opinions on Big Tech. Mostly, this book is proof that male writers should never write about sex again because it is either creepy, clinical, or both. The best part of this book is when he was looking for somewhere to eat breakfast. “From early morning I’d had my heart set on a good solid breakfast of eggs, bacon, and a shot of alcohol to restore my lost vitality,” is a concept familiar—and vibey—as hell. I related to the endless quest to find a restaurant that fits the moment (ugh, only small plates! Not enough vegetarian options! Too loud! Waitstaff wears checked shirts!).

Ludvik is our very eastern European protagonist, though the narration is tossed around as the story culminates in an event that seems like Czech Lolla. It ends… badly for Ludvik who tries to use sex for revenge as if that hasn’t ended badly for everyone, 100% of the time. But fair reader, waste not your tears on Ludvik, he is a deeply unsympathetic character and our girl Lucie dodged a B staying away from him. 0/5 Cimbaloms and I’m never going to Prague again.