Ordinary Live , masterfully translated by Skvorecky's long-time collaborator Paul Wilson, takes as its subject two class reunions--the first in 1963, twenty years after the class graduated, and the second, thirty years on, in 1993. The pulse of the novel, however, is the "torrent of ungovernable thoughts" that plague Danny. Over the course of these two reunions, as loyalties are tested and secrets are revealed, the reader is taken on a journey back through Skvorecky's well-loved oeuvre. As the puzzle pieces of Danny's history, and the history of his classmates, fall into place, so too does a subtle history of the major ideologies of the 20th century--from Nazism to Communism to capitalism.