The Engineer of Human Souls [Import] [Paperback]

Josef Skvorecky (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 571 pages
• Publisher: Picador; New Ed edition (March 1986)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0330291521
• ISBN-13: 978-0330291521
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,099,729 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Recommended! Complex and entertaining coming of age story, January 12, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Engineer of Human Souls (Paperback)

Skvorecky has written a multi-layered and highly readable story centering around the coming of age of his fictional alter ego, Danny Smiricky. The plot interweaves the youthful Danny chasing girls and dealing with Nazi occupation with the adult Danny's encounters in the Canadian Czech expatriate community, teaching literature in university to students the age he was during the war. The authors and novels the adult Danny teaches provide a framework for the book as a whole, and this structure gives the story a depth and resonance a simpler narrative might lack. As always, Skvorecky is a hilarious and moving story teller as well.

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You will miss these characters, January 5, 2005

By 

George Alderson (Catonsville, MD United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Engineer of Human Souls (Czech Literature Series) (Paperback)

I first read "Engineer of Human Souls" in 1984. Every few years I start to miss Danny and Nadia, and then I know it's time to re-read it. Sometimes I jump into the story again partway through. Every time the characters seem a little different, as my own life experiences change my understanding of them.

One of Skvorecky's universal themes in this novel is how one can live as an exile, a theme Shakespeare also used (The Tempest, The Winter's Tale). Aren't we all exiles in some sense, from our parents' home, from our childhood playmates, from a hometown somewhere? Another theme is how a person should resist against the wrongs of a government (Nazis, Communists). There is plenty in this book to make the reader laugh, cry, and think.

13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Exceptionally well written novel, June 10, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Engineer of Human Souls (Czech Literature Series) (Paperback)

If you want to understand the complexities of Eastern-Mittle European reality post-WWII and if you want to understand the life of Comunist era refugees in Western countries, read this book! Better than the anti-comunist livor of Solgenitsyin, funny, compassionate and true.