A book about a mensch who says the worst thing at the worst time and his life unravels as a result. A satirical commentary on the state of affairs (similar, in rhetorical tone, to Bolaño's mockery of his own camp).

Describing our hero, the most mid everyman:

for the Lord commanded: Be born, learned doctors, and beget future learned doctors, for that is why the universe was created, ie, that we, wearers of top hats, might multiply.

who dares question the moral integrity of his host, who is bragging about cold-blooded murder during a robbery:

Yet, having uttered the concluding sentence of my intimate soliloquy without any ulterior motive, without the least malicious or aggressive intention in mind as that conclusion had emerged logically and, by pure coincidence, fluttered above the heads of the dullards on the veranda, and feeling fascinated by the naiveté of my little truth, I realized that I could not do this by any means: putting my tail between my legs at that moment would have amounted to disappearing under the table like a dog at the time when, after fifty years, I had first said openly what seemed, according to human logic, natural to me.

The self-aware comedy is the earnestness with which the unnamed narrator falls back on the logical airtightness of his perspective throughout the novel. He is right and he remains the rube for he refuses to deviate from his ideal and engage with the reality of society.

To whom should I apologize? For what? I stated that the gentleman had been boasting of having shot four men like four dogs, I stuck to my story: it was all criminal and morally insane. I did not at all intend to apologize, especially not to a bandit threatening to kill me too. And only the fact that I was a guest in his house prevented me from treating his new criminal outbreak as would have been only logical.

All his ire stems from violations of facts and logic, surely no emotion to be found here, no no no!

That fatal loud slap came about according to all the rules of wisdom and logic

Recapitulating a discussion with a fair-weather friend who is trying to dissuade him from defending himself at his trial in the kangaroo court, he reproduces a conversation that sounds too authentic for the novel

"'that your outlook on the given situation was not a hundred-per-cent Marxist.'"

"'All right, what do you mean? Do I swear by Marx? Marx wrote his analysis eighty years ago and I have been troubling you with my own promissory notes today. I have never been a Marxist monist, Doctor. On principle, I don't believe in any dogma'"

"'As for myself, I've never been a Marxist, Minister. Good-by'"

"This was how we parted seven years ago and from that time until now, as far as I can remember, we've never had an opportu-nity, apart from the most banal and conventional phrases, to exchange any real, human ideas, and now, suddenly, you insist that I should completely trust you as a man. I don't trust you, I can't trust you; I would be lying if I told you that I trusted you, and, in my view, to admit that is the most logical thing to do..."

and I can't help but chuckle alongside Krleža who articulates the meme of the strawman leftist's inability to define terms and playbook of othering people when called out about it.

The court room defense scene is one of the best chapters of all of literature. Clear influences from Dostoevsky and similarly glib execution:

Domaćinski wanted to shoot me like a dog. He declared that he would shoot me like a dog, and that he regretted not having shot me like a dog.

He really reached for his revolver to shoot me like a dog. This can be proved by witnesses....

Which witnesses?

Our highly learned, important figures, aristocrats, our dear, be-loved, and truthful neighbors... as witnesses? There was no need to tell the truth at that moment.... It was not opportune.... It was far more intelligent to shut up, like a dog. ...

Love how pedantic the tragic hero is:

"The only thing," I interjected, "is that you did not quote me word for word. What I said was: 'Dr. Attila von Rugvay, who was seated here in the name of Justice, a blind goddess?'"

Also sprinkled with lots of great Croatian idioms that I was unawares of such as "think as mud on all-saints day" (what did he mean by this)

and

those who can’t jump over the fence should not go to a dog’s wedding

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