Kterak došlo k mému sňatku
Vocab notes
k něčemu dojde/došlo: dojít - pf. (impf. docházet); něco nastane/nastalo; take place/took place
sňatek: m.; uzavření manželství; marriage, getting married

This story is from the collection Ze života lepší společnosti (Life in a Better Society)(1965). It uses the technique of an intimate journal. The teen-age narrator borrows the language of high literature and administrative style. Such a stylistic background allows Škvorecký to contrast an ambitious language and a limited perspective of an immature narrator, thereby distancing from the events.

The plot of the story might remind the reader of Milan Kundera’s fiction from the 1960s: the protagonist plans to master the event and to become the agent of action, but becomes trapped by his own scheme and turns into an object of History or Fate that plays a joke on the joker.

From the point of every day life, one might be interested in the prices mentioned in the text. True enough, a toothbrush cost 3 Crowns in the 1940’s. One should, however, keep in mind that the average month salary was less than 1,000 Crowns at that time. Consider also the occupation of the narrator’s father and his household. Where in history can we place the story?

Notice the language that is based on the style of the old days: infinitives ending with –ti, vocabulary items like tratit,sděliti, phrases like nejeví se mi věc…,dosud jsem ženy nepoznal,vzhledem k dovršení osmnácti let all sound like vocabulary from the 19th century literature or from a legal file.