The Swell Season [Paperback]

Josef Skvorecky (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 226 pages
• Publisher: Totem Press (1982)
• ISBN-10: 000222853X
• ISBN-13: 978-0002228534
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,849,224 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars If you like Milan Kundera..., February 20, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: The swell season: A text on the most important things in life (International fiction list) (Paperback)

If you like Milan Kundera check out this author. He speaks of human folly with humor honesty and tenderness. He addresses major human issues with incredible specificity and with a little more sensitivity than Kundera. Enjoy.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The book of loving, January 22, 2010

By 

Merry Jester (Weston, FL) (Weston, FL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Swell Season: A Text on the Most Important Things in Life (Paperback)

The Swell Season is one of the loveliest books I have ever read. It is the story of a young man searching for intimacy with the lovely young female friends of his small hometown during the Nazi occupation of Chekovslovakia. The young girls listen to his lovely musical overtures, but they never give in. Danny loves them, is fascinated by them, and he never fails to tell them this. But he never seems to be able to convince them to yield to him. But they all want to be loved by him. They revel in his love letters. They are jealous when he seems to favor others. He is there perfect lover...pure...and never to be had.

5.0 out of 5 stars Superbly funny, haunting writing, February 26, 2012

By 

Peter S. Oliphant, Ph.D. (Rising Sun, Maryland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Swell Season (Hardcover)

Danny Smíri'ek chases every school girl in town, but loses his quarries at the last moment. He trips over his desperation, mostly, but the girls, knowing his reputation as a chintz-chaser, sometimes hoax him.

Jazz swing music backgrounds the story. Since Danny is a swing jazz musician, we hear the lyrics of familiar songs of the era in some of the episodes. These point to recording artists that few recognize now, like the (amazing) Boswell Sisters and Václav Irmanov. (It's May in January," [...]; "Card Cheat," [...]; and Tears on my pillow; [...] )

Beyond the background music are lyrical descriptions of the weather, gardens, and forests, worthy of Colette. These environ the episodes, each tied to the most poignant moments.

Danny and his schoolmates are humorously tolerant of sex (as Czechs tend to be), even if the fathers of the girls are outwardly severe. Danny is mostly after the girls in the choir, so he worries about the sinfulness of his yearnings.

Deeper in the background is the frame of the era of Nazi occupation. The presence of a German soldier in the street hints at the occupation. Danny and a friend conspire to falsify church marriage records to conceal a marriage of Christian and Jew. The Nazis ban music and dancing, but the teenagers find venues for their band and their dancing.

As the war closes in on the town, Danny finally gets somewhere, even as radical students foreshadow the post-war Soviet takeover.