THE MIRACLE GAME [Hardcover]

Josef Skvorecky (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Faber & Faber; 1st Edition UK edition (1990)
• ASIN: B001IKGY56
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Humourous tale of Czech horrors, September 3, 2000

By 

Elizabeth Hendry (New Jersey USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Miracle Game (Paperback)

Skvorecky has done an interesting thing here, he has intertwined a serious story of the horrors of living in Czecheslovakia with a bawdy romp about a young oversexed man who teaches in a all girls high school. We follow Danny as he grows into an oversexed middle aged man. The story is funny and well-written for the most part. My only complaints are he jumps around in time a little too much and the translation got a little borderline obscene. All in all I enjoyed reading it and think anyone with an interest is Czech history will as well

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The essential modern Czech novel., April 20, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Miracle Game (Paperback)

This is the one. This novel better than any other explains the imprint left on the Czech consciousness by the Soviet invasion of August 1968, described so vividly by Skvorecky.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A brilliant account of the end of the Prague Spring, October 12, 1996

By A Customer

This review is from: The Miracle Game (Paperback)

The Soviet invasion of August 1968 that ended the reformist Prague Spring is the key historical moment of post-1948 Czechoslovakia.
Skvorecky, through his oft-used alter ego Danny Smiricky, eloquently describes the collapse of the idealism that fuelled the reforms.
He interweaves an apparent miracle (a statue in a church moves on it own) to question the wisdom of having faith in anything beyond yourself.
Of all of Skvorecky's writings, and I have read several, this novel serves as the best introduction to modern Czech literature.
Skvorecky is lighter than Klima and Kundera, but this is not to say he shies away from the horror of communism.
His description of the invasion of Prague -- tart and sarcastic -- jolts the reader into an understanding of the deep scars on the Czech psyche.
Of course, it was the Soviet invasion that sent Skvorecky to the west, and he has written that he now feels more Canadian than Czech.
But in The Miracle Game, he reveals the depths of his affection for his country and its tortured soul.