Among its many other virtues,
The Engineer of Human Souls is perhaps the funniest academic novel since Malcolm Bradbury's
The History Man. (
Newsweek )
Josef Skvorecky is unquestionably an important writer, blending a great humorous talent with a restless, sustained, probing moral inquisitiveness . . .
The Engineer of Human Souls will certainly introduce the reader to the distinctive Skvorecky world. (
Times Literary Supplement )
[Skvorecky is] one of the major literary figures of our time . . . a novelist of the first rank . . . one of the masters of current Czech literature . . . His novels are sad, funny—and utterly gripping. (
The New Yorker )
Skvorecky is so much of a writer that the moment he puts pen to paper, he can't help being an artist. (
Washington Post Book World )
Starred Review. This powerful, moving, yet often hilarious novel is an example of cultural meditation at its best. (
Library Journal )
A deep pleasure to read. (
The New York Times Book Review )
By turns comic or sad and bitter, Skvorecky's book is a marvelous exploration of the human condition. (
Booklist )
A complex, challenging analysis of contemporary politics and society,
The Engineer of Human Souls will become a milestone in the evolution of world literature. (
Quill Quire )
A funny, despairing, satirical, compassionate, sprawling, gloomy, provocative, prophetic, angry, and entertaining book. One of the most important novels ever written in Canada. (Canadian Forum )
Skvorecky would probably chide us for dismissing any of the injustices and griefs that abound in [the novel]. They are real and they are gruesome. And yet we put the novel down with a sense of joy at the plenitude of life. (Michael Henry Heim -
The Nation )
What better check on general doctrine than the poet's and the novelist's 'small stories,' the kind that Josef Skvorecky recounts with such verve and generosity. (
New York Review of Books )
It is magnificent! . . . It marks an exceptional moment in history . . . It is a magnum opus. (Milan Kundera )
It is a relief to read him, to know that there are still writers like him who have things to say that are vitally important for all of us . . . What he writes about rivets the soul. (Alan Sillitoe )
