SOURCE: "The Only Game in Town," in The New Republic, Vol. 173, No. 10, Issue 3165, September 6, 1975, pp. 29-30.

An award-winning journalist, Rosenblatt has been a columnist and editor for the New Republic and the Washington Post and has served as a senior writer for two major national news magazines, Time and U.S. News and World Report. In the following review, he maintains that the attempts of characters in Laughable Loves to assert themselves results paradoxically in confusion and unhappiness.

The downfall of the university lecturer in Milan Kundera's "Nobody Will Laugh" occurs because our young hero is feeling good enough to tell white lies and crack small jokes. Celebrating the acceptance of an article in a learned journal, he deludes an admiring scholar into believing that the admirer's own (crackpot) work is worthy of publication. The admirer beseeches and pursues our hero who lies and kids some more in...