The Engineer of Human Souls

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.

Better than Milan Kundera, this is a great novel. It may seem a little dated, as we are all tired of the alienated college professor rap(they write what they know). However the journey back to the war really are moving, and I do reccomend this book.

Quite an amazing book. I picked it up after seeing it on a book list of top influential books in Prague. I guess it is popular in its original Czech language. The main character being a Canadian from the then communist, totalitarian regime - was quite an experience for myself, and gave me some insight on how the other half lived ... the fact was like a fairy tale, and the fiction was such truth.

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.

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.