SOCIETY AND CULTURE

The Woke Hate a Joke

There is, perhaps, no novel more appropriate to our time than Milan Kundera’s first novel, The Joke. Published in 1967 in Communist Czechoslovakia, The Joke is the story of a young man, Ludvik, who sends his girlfriend a joke through the mail. The Communist authorities learn of it and destroy his life; though he is a loyal member of the Communist Party, he is ejected from the party and from…