The Review of Contemporary Fiction
The Tenor Saxophonist's Story by Josef SkvoreckySteve Horowitz
Josef Skvorecky. The Tenor Saxophonist’s Story. Trans. Caleb Crain, Ká c&Mac255;a Polác&Mac255;ková Henley, and Peter Kussi. Ecco, 1996. 161 pp. $23.00.
Josef Skvorecky wrote the ten stories of love and disappointment that comprise this novel while living in Prague during the hardening of the Cold War in the mid-1950s. These tales reflect how politics affected romance, friendship, and even one’s passion for music in both gross and subtle ways. The simplest of comments, such as a pick-up line at a bar, can cause unintended complications. Skvorecky’s characters belong to the generation that came-of-age during the Second World War, only to see the promise of the end of Nazi fascism transform into Eastern European communism. The specter of Joseph Stalin is everywhere. Even the new thermometer at the local vocational school is dedicated with love to the Soviet leader. Skvorecky’s young adults find solace in erotic affairs and jazz. They are sweetly cynical more than jaded, but mostly they are mystified by their political situation. All engage in some form of criminal behavior because so much is forbidden. At the extreme, some become spies for the government while others defect. Mostly they humorously pursue carnal pleasures in an increasingly confused world where even securing a private apartment after marriage becomes a major hassle. The title character wryly narrates his and his friends’ stories. The saxophonist Danny Smiricky, the protagonist of many of Skvorecky’s other novels and tales, does not state the obvious to reveal its painful absurdity. Communism is the elephant that sits on the living room sofa that no one in the house deigns to notice for fear of upsetting the creature. Yet everyone feels crowded and unhappy. Individually, each of the ten-to-twenty page narratives are funny and insightful vignettes of the period. However, together they seem more like a collection of related stories than a novel. Smiricky recites his yarns chronologically, but the connections between the chapters needs to be both broader and deeper. Perhaps this is due to the author’s situation. He was well aware that his prose would be considered too subversive to see the light of day in his native country. He was writing for the desk drawer and those few individuals he could trust. These friends would have been familiar enough with the circumstances to fill in the contexts. [Steve Horowitz]