When Eve Was Naked: A Journey Through Life

Pauline Carey is an actor, playwright, and fiction writer. She is the
author of Magic and What’s in a Name?

In this collection of stories written between 1948 and 1998, Josef
Skvorecky presents a grab bag of fictions whose settings include
Czechoslovakia in the 1930s, the Nazi invasion, the Communist coup, and
academic life in Canada, and whose themes take us from the simple and
heartbreaking adventures of a child’s life in Prague to the
frustrations and moral conundrums of a teacher’s life in Canada. Now
in his 70s, Skvorecky gives us these stories in lieu of a memoir.

In the mid-century stories, when the Nazis then the Russians marched
into Prague, most of the characters are young males (often the familiar
and hapless Danny Smiricky) who endure the usual problems of youth at
the hands of girls, parents, and teachers, but also face difficulties
that arise from their time and place in history: a young man is
desperate for a warm room, an excellent Jewish teacher must be shunned
even by those who admire him, and a former jazz musician is persecuted
for jitterbugging in a club. In the strongest story of the collection,
loneliness and cruelty have taken over the world as we read of a people
adrift.

Because these central stories about Prague are so strong, the final
Canadian stories seem lightweight. This is how history played out in the
last century, and perhaps how a life plays out as well. Could it also be
Skvorecky’s way of pulling our leg?

Skvorecky always comes at stories slightly askew. Humor and satire are
never far away, as in the story of the Communist coup where the focus is
on Danny’s boyish excitement at finding himself close to the action.
In the end, an arc of compassion sweeps over the book which has taken us
from the instinctive act of a child to protect another to the devious
decision of a teacher to protect a student. After a life such as the one
Danny has lived, moral choices become more complicated.