Milan Kundera Books

I picked up Unbearable Lightness at the library and thought I ought to read it because it seemed like I should. And I did. And I was right. So I thought, hm, I'm going to read everything Milan Kundera ever wrote.

So I picked up Immortality at the library and ofcourse, I love it. People ask me what it's about and I'm like, I dunno, everything I think.

But you know what I do? When I got to Barnes and Noble in the mall you know how there is a table set-up and a sign on it called SUMMER READING? Well, I go over to the K section and pick up all of Milan's books and go back to the table and put them on top. Now, as you see, I'm not a book buyer, I'm a borrower, so I go into B&N strictly for this task. And when I go back to do it again, they are gone. So, do you think people are buying them? Or are they put back by some pesky salesperson who has strict guidelines about what people should be reading in the summer? I really don't know. Next time I do it I'm going to mark page 22 of Immortality with a little pen mark to see.

Anyhow, here is the gist of Kundera, in his own writing, "A novel shouldn't be like a bicycle race, but a feast of many courses."

Enjoy this feed-fest, it's a true wonder. I'm so happy I found Milan Kundera on this go round and that I am reading him while he is still alive (clap, clap, clap). It's such a bummer to read everything ever written by an author, to fall deeply in love and then find out he or she is dead :(.

Back to my summer reading...

"He discovered with happy surprise that Laura merged with the music; the only woman in his life whom he found to resemble the sea; who was the sea.."

I picked up "Immortality", which had been resting on my shelf for quite some time, with good expectations. Having read "Farewell Waltz" and "The Unbearable Lightness of Being," I knew what to expect from Milan Kundera in terms of style, and "Immortality" brought plenty of what was expected. With that said, I found "Immortality" a mediocre read; despite the elegance of the author's unique voice (one of my favorite aspects of Kundera's writing), I felt that, at times, he was too indulgent; his lengthy meditations on "life" after death, which comprised the middle sections of the book were potent at their introduction, but soon became stale. He simply blew the same note too often.

That being said, Kundera was not without his beautiful phrases; I was not enthused about Goethe's plot, so it was these singular images that kept me reading.

It is true, I may be biased by my age (22), but I felt the author's unweaving of Ruben's plot tedious. Sex and aging are universal themes; many have added their take, and Kundera's was not significantly different from the norm.

Having finished "Immortality" several hours ago, the maelstrom of themes and plots are still bubbling around in my head. Maybe it will be different when they settle down. Still, I do not think my rating will reach above 3.5, or below 2.5 (more likely the latter), nor will the opinions given in this review change much. Perhaps my expectations for this novel were too high, after all, an author cannot deliver hits every time around. And though "Immortality" is not an out-an-out flop, its lyrical gems and philosophical ingenuity cannot balance its self-indulgence and uneven plots. Sadly, I must call it a miss. Recommended only to die-hard Kundera fans.

Kundera is surprisingly easy to read, provided that you don't try to understand the whole novel at once. Indeed, this work is like a landscape, divided into simple yet profound statements and passages which combine to form a heterogenous and complex plot.

Kundera was trained as a musician and this work is best perceived as variations on a theme: in each variation the theme emerges in a somewhat different form. Kundera clearly explains his thoughts, as is traditionally his style, and uses the inter-weaved plots to illustrate them.

In the classic tradition of Proust ("In search of lost time") and other important writers, this novel captures the essential question: the meaning of death, memory, time and immortality. This book provides questions but does not give any immediate answers.

It is worth looking for an analysis of this work (I am aware of one, written by Francois Ricard).

This novel neither walks like a novel nor talks like one but its author obviously intends for us to consider it as such. Immortality is partly non-fiction or perhaps historical fiction with allusions to Rubens, Goethe and Hemingway. A great deal of musing is going on here as the author paints in sweeping, elegant, philosophical brush strokes. But turn-about is fair play and this style of literary paella somehow still largely works for me. That is, I respect authors who push the genre and try to take it to a new place. Otherwise, how would the novel evolve as a genre? While one may be transported in the parts of the novel which are clearly intended to be traditional fiction, the artifice of the historical flashbacks and the philosophy do intrude into the transporting flow of the fictional stream of the storyline. However, the philosophy is so wise and the allusions are so skillfully woven with relevant implications for the storyline that, once again, Kundera manages to pull of this effect, much to his credit. This novel is engaging, easy to read and thought-provoking. So no matter how one may characterize this quasi-novel, it simply works for me and I plan to read another, which is always a fairly reliable test as to whether you really believe a book is a good read. This middle-brow, literary novel has legs.

Milan Kundera is one of the most important writers in post war Europe. Each of his novels is playful, philosophical, digressive in a style reminiscent of Sterne and tries to make sense of the difficulties of human life in a playful and erotic manner. Immortality ranks as one of his best novels and perfectly fulfils Kundera's definition of a novel as a feast of many courses - a banquet for the brain to be savoured in many sittings, not a race to the denoument at the end.

Only some minor flaws. Kundera is an exemplary novelist of ideas. Themes considered in Immortality include the notion of 'Imagology' - the musings on the role of the image - in advertising, politics, the image of Lenin proliferating and dominating the ideology of Communism is perfectly attuned to our modern times, bombarded as we are by the sinews of consumerism. However some of the ideas here come across as a little strained. The notion that Bettina - with her attachment to Goethe to pursue immortal love with the great man - subsumed his literary reputation makes for playful, intelligent writing, but it is true? Nah. Goethe's reputation remains, I had to look up Bettina on wikipedia. The whole thesis is like a beautiful flower of many beautifully shaped petals that crushes instantly in the hand as it is so insubstantial.

Also, am I alone in tinging a strain of fretful, excited sexual deviance in Kundera's work, not just this novel, but in his books as a whole? Through out Kundera's work images of female humiliation occur such as the opera singers in 'The Book of Laughter and Forgetting' being trained with pencils up their rectums, girls having their skirts hoisted up in public, girls standing bare breasted and shamed in public, musings on 'Miss Elsa' - the heroine of an obscure Arthur Scknitzler novella who is forced to show herself nude to repeal her father's debts. Images like this clearly swirl throughout Kundera's mind on hot writing afternoons so that he comes on like Philip Larkin in his sweating, fervid 'Willow Gables' pornographic mode, getting a fretful thrill from imagining women degraded. Perhaps Kundera's sexual excesses might have been tempered by a few cold showers? Or maybe that would ruin something vital in the essence of the work? Worth a ponder.

"To laugh is to live profoundly" (p. 79).

Milan Kundera's Book of Laughter and Forgetting (Kniha smíchu a zapomnìní) was his first publication after he relocated to France in 1975. Published before Kundera's most famous novel, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, the non-traditional "novel" consists of several separate narratives united by common philosophical themes of life, sex, music, literature, and political opposition to the communism. The first section of the book ("Lost Letters") tells the story of Mirek, a former communist supporter, now determined to destroy the love letters he once sent to an ugly woman named Zdena. In the second section ("Mother"), Karel invites his mother to spend a week with him and his wife, Marketa. Karel and Marketa introduce her to their friend Eva as Marketa's cousin, when in fact she is their lover. The third section ("The Angels") tells the story of Kundera's attempt to write a horoscope for his employer (using a pseudonym) in Russian-occupied Czechoslovakia. His coworker (code named R.) is then questioned by the police about the writing, quickly turning office laughter into paranoia. Part four of the book ("Lost Letters") tells the story of a cafe waitress, Tamina, who wants a customer, Bibi, to retrieve her love letters and diaries from her mother-in-law in Prague to help her remember her deceased husband. Another customer, Hugo, is secretly in love with Tamina, and in an attempt to win her heart, offers to help her if Bibi cannot travel to Prague. Tamina eventually has sex with Hugo, but all the while her thoughts are on her deceased husband. The last section of the book ("Litost") tells the story of Kristyna's love for a philosophy and poetry student, who suffers from "litost," "a state of torment upon by the realization of one's inadequacy or misery." Kristyna fears having sex with him will make her pregnant and then put her life at risk. The student misinterprets this to mean Kristyna believes she will die from her immense love for him. The Book of Laughter and Forgetting reveals the work of a brilliant mind through Kundera's gifted style.

G. Merritt

Really a fantastic read, full of originality and some sense of realism. It's essentially a novel comprised of what could be called seven short stories, but interspersed within each story are the author's musings on life, politics, relationships and even autobiographical sketches. The perspectives Kundera provided about living and functioning within the former Czechoslovakia while under communist and Soviet control was, I thought, fascinating. Such perspectives were presented not just through autobiographical presentations, but through each character in each of the stories.

Kundera's examination of relationships, be it the individual's internal relationship with him/herself, or the relations between the individual and other persons, the individual and "the state", or the individual and the whole of humanity were engaging. Kundera's writing and presentation were clear and concise, yet his concepts had great depth. His thoughts/opinions/perspectives gave me many opportunities to ponder life's various aspects. I appreciated that because it too often seems I get too bogged down with life's minutiae to remember to stop and reflect on important things...like how we (humanity) relate to each other.

There are, however, a few sections, seemingly more towards the end, that just flat out border on the bizarre. That being said, it wasn't a major detractor from the overall quality of Kundera's writing.

The only regret I have in reading this book is that I wasn't able to do it simultaneously with a friend who would also value the perspectives, philosophical musings and discussion of human relations that are contained in it. To do so would have led to great conversations while sitting with the friend in the corner of a quiet cafe on a cold, rainy afternoon.

This is an important book. Exquisite writing, wit, humour, tragedy - Kundera is quite simply a genius. If you haven't read this, please do. You will be so much better for it. Looooooooooooved it. Infinite number of stars and counting.

THE BOOK OF LAUGHTER AND FORGETTING is a sophisticated work of art. An amalgam of experimental fiction, straightforward storytelling, magical realism and metafiction, it successfully grapples with bigger than big themes, portraying the crucible that was Czechoslovakia after the Russian invasion in 1968 and before the dissolution of the Soviet empire. Kundera makes this tall order work in prose that rings sharp and clear. It is difficult to believe that this was not originally written in English, and the credit for the translation goes to Michael Henry Heim, at least for the used edition I purchased (part of Penguin's "Voices From the Other Europe" series edited by Philip Roth, circa 1980). The book was first published in Europe in the late 1970's.

At one point in the novel, Kundera, a trained musician, describes why Beethoven was drawn to the variations form, in which an original 16-measure theme gradually changes in each variation. This is a key to how Kundera the writer has constructed this book in a series of stories to explicate the significance of memory in art and life, the devastation by the political and the metaphorical effects of laughter in its many forms. If this sounds like too much abstraction, please know that Kundera has created very real characters in visual language, and the action moves swiftly. He periodically deploys sexual scenes with late 20th century European sensibility that provides yet another lens on his central themes.

After the 1968 invasion, Kundera lost his professorship at the Prague Institute and saw his books removed from public shelves. Eventually, he and his wife went into exile. When he published this book, his citizenship was revoked and it was banned in his native country. We know that things are different now, but this cry from the heart of political, artistic and personal oppression is a message that should never be forgotten.

This is one of Kundera's best works and a good place to start for an introduction to his fiction. I don't use the term "novel" because Kundera hesitates to use it. As he says in the text, this book is made up of little vignettes (with no common characters) which are different "variations" on the themes of laughter and forgetting. Like much of Kundera's work, it deals with the subjugation of the Czech people. When the Russians took over their country, they instituted a program of official "forgetting" - erasing the country's culture and history. The book is a good example of Kundera's philosophical style - with an emphasis on telling, not showing.

Very well-written novel about the moral deformity of a man, those who act against him, and of the communist system as a whole. Yes, the "joke" if you can call it that, is certainly on Ludvik and on everyone who puts their willing suspension of disbelief into communism.

That said, what's up with Kundera's introduction? As an editorial review pointed out, we're not translating the Dead Sea Scrolls here. It's just one Indo-European language into another, and a fairly close one at that. *Five* different translations? Come on. Kundera, you're good, but you're not the Lord's apostle of truth. Stop being such a prima dona.

"Optimism is the opium of the people A healthy atmosphere stinks of stupidity. Long live Trotsky!" This is the joke, sent on a postcard for all the nosy official world to see, made by Ludvik Jahn when he was a promising student and a leader of the University's Communist youth group. Its flippancy is a product of his desire to amuse himself by discomfiting Marketa, a serious and gullible young woman on whom he has set his romantic and erotic sights; the postcard is part of his strategy as a would-be lover. The powers that be do not see the humor in his joke, but rather a fatal character flaw with treacherous implications. (Perhaps they were more insightful than they knew - their response recalls Nietzsche's observation that a "joke is an epitaph on the death of a feeling", in this case an emotional commitment to an ideal that can never be a joking matter to its adherents.) This results in a judgment which brings him so low that it takes him years to recover from its aftermath: expulsion from the university and the Party, forced service in an army "work battalion" in the mines, followed by three additional years as a civilian miner - which adds up to half a dozen years of self-doubt and psychological isolation, its pain made more acute by a consciousness of his lost privileges and debased social status. He comes to see his sentencing by a gathering of fellow students as emblematic of humanity's failings as a whole -- people in groups act as a compliant and sometimes violent herd out of envy, fear, or an unfounded moral superiority based on misunderstandings of their own personal myths or the myths of a society that is deceiving itself; and, needless to say, many of the upholders of public morality are merely careerists and opportunists. In any event humans are untrustworthy in situations that demand honest thought and fair judgment, implying to Ludvik that he would have raised his own hand to condemn another man had the tables been turned. While Ludvik eventually recovers a decent position in society and a kind of toughened mental equilibrium, he struggles with his misanthropy and a desire for retribution (but he retains his ironical sense of humor, which takes a dark, absurdist twist that matches the events in his life).

In its structure "The Joke" is a polyphonic song of lament, recited by people about events from their shared pasts -- the national, collective past of the undiscriminating enthusiasm of youthful ideologues for the new Communist state of 1948; and the particular pasts of Ludvik, two of his old friends (Jaroslav and Kostka), the wife (Helena) of his youthful persecutor (Zemanek), and a strange, damaged woman from his period of societal punishment (Lucie). In the "musicological chapter" we hear Jaroslav's observations about the nature of Moravian folk music, accompanied by bars of musical notation. These illustrate an ancient mode of singing, in which each voice "personalizes" a song by singing in odd keys and awkward, shifting rhythms, as do the voices of lament in "The Joke" (the reader who knows little or nothing of the technical side of music and its notation still gets an interesting historical survey of a millennium's worth of folk-music and its relationship to both older and newer styles of music). Each voice tells part of the story of interlocking lives. The forlorn Lucie is the one person who is not a subject and remains an object throughout, so two versions of her story are told by Ludvik and by Kostka as part of their own stories. Each voice has a different purchase on reality and is driven by a different myth of the self and of things larger than the self, constructs by which individuals justify their actions. In Ludvik's and Helena's cases this exterior justification is their early allegiance to the ideals of socialism, in Jaroslav's his idolization of folk-art as a panacea for all of the woes of modern life, and in Kostka's a commitment to a highly personal Christian God. In each case there are moments when the individual despairs and believes that his "cause" may be nothing but a delusion or a means of avoiding personal responsibility for his own life.

Based on a chance encounter, Ludvik targets Helena in order to revenge himself against her husband, considering her sexual conquest and the cynical manipulation of her emotions to be an exquisite (and, in its details, sadistic) "joke" which will finally satisfy his cravings for revenge. But he sadly discovers that he wounds the wrong person and that even his real target, Zemanek, is no longer the man he once was; now the joke is on Ludvik, and it leaves a bitter taste in his mouth. The "polyphonic" fragments of three voices accelerate their tempo in the last chapter, and there is a harmonic resolution of sorts - Ludvik "returns home", as it were, and reconciles with the friend of his youth, Jaroslav, whom he has hitherto identified with the stupidity and smugness of small home-town virtues which he fled long ago. (One of the many ironies in the book is that it was Ludvik who convinced the resistant Jaroslav to become an ardent Communist, and Jaroslav does so because the new State is a sponsor of all the folk arts. A parallel irony is that Kostka, the pious Christian, approves of the Party's expulsion of Ludvik, because he understands the Party as a faith, and no faith can tolerate corrosive skepticism.) In the end it is not clear how or if any of the damaged characters will move forward in their lives; much of the damage has been self-inflicted and based on illusions, which only makes it worse.

There are elements of an authorial self-portrait here, as one might expect from a first novel. To begin with the obvious, Ludvik is Kundera's age and has passed through the same national history and a similar personal history (as a student Kundera was expelled from the Party in 1950 for six years; readmitted, he was expelled again in 1970). Furthermore, Ludvik's and Jaroslav's characters contain something of Kundera's own early musical training. More autobiographically telling are the oblique references to Kundera's long poem celebrating Julius Fucik, a work which fit well with the regime's peculiar and intense cult of Fucik as an exemplary national hero of the resistance against the Germans during the Protectorate and a model for Communist youth, who are to be elevated and instructed by Fucik's "Reportage: Notes from the Gallows". On this note (poetry and Kundera's evaluation of it), the highlighted term "the lyrical age", a recurring idea in his work, makes its appearance. This phrase, which Kundera uses critically and almost with contempt or perhaps contempt mixed with regret, is meant to stand for each man's period of immaturity, in which he assumes postures and attitudes to impress the world, while all the time he is in a state of inner confusion and uncertainty about how to behave as an adult. The lyrical age is the age of imposture and narcissism. And the term has a double meaning, referring not only to individual psychology, but to the psychology of an era, specifically the years following the Communist take-over of the state in 1948. This was the lyrical age of Czechoslovakian Communism, which happened to coincide with the last vicious burst of Stalinism; it should be remembered that the participants in the Stalinist drama were motivated as much by a "collective joy" associated with the "construction of socialism and the new man and the new woman" as they were by fear of political trials and the penal system. In Kundera's case this was a period when he wrote lyrical poetry imbued with these political attitudes, especially his poem idealizing Fucik. Kundera obviously rues this phase of his own youth and, now a master of prose, gives us an unflattering alternative reading of Fucik's life. In this sense "The Joke" is an attempt to redress the excesses and impostures of Kundera's own youth.

(If the reader wishes to explore what Kundera means by "the lyrical age" -- and he means a great deal by it; it is something like a ramifying leitmotif in his work -- he can find more details in the author's own words in Kundera's "The Art of the Novel" and in an interview published in Antonin J. Liehm's "The Politics of Culture". The idea is also examined by Peter Steiner in his book "The Deserts of Bohemia". In his essay on the Slansky show-trial Steiner also supplies information that, for non-Czech readers, illuminates the pathetic character Alexej in "The Joke", who could well be based on Ludvik Frejka's son. Frejka was a former high-ranking economics official who was condemned to death for espionage and sabotage in this parody of a trial in 1952. And Frejka's son Tomas vilified him in the pages of the Party paper, "Rude Pravo" -- like Alexej, who bears a burden of socialist shame over his deposed father and writes a public letter denouncing him.)

Although it contains satirical elements (its portraits of Zemanek and Helena, its depiction of authority figures in the army), it would be a mistake to call "The Joke" a work of satire. Kundera considers his novels to be primarily what might be called "existential meditations". Much of the meditation is on people in a situation which is characterized by the inevitability of extreme politics as a background condition which permeates everything, including all human relations. This particular situation appears almost inescapable to Czechs (and Slovaks), especially to Czech writers during the period from 1938 to 1990. The dates of the book's composition and publication (1967) are very important in assessing Kundera's relationship with other writers and intellectuals who participated in the Prague Spring (1968) and were hammered down in various ways after the failure of the movement to establish "socialism with a human face." Kundera, like Ludvik, was still arguing for the maintenance of a reformed Communist state which would rationally carry out social and economic programs while allowing individuals civil liberties - this proved to be a pipe-dream. His recognition of the unviability of this idea is indicated by his self-exile to France in 1975. Another disturbing meditation, central to Kundera's way of thinking, is on the fluidity and "lightness" of the self, represented here by the masked alterations of identity that take place in the Moravian ritual "Ride of the Kings". The dissolving self is a subject fit for its own essay; and a subject notably treated by Karel Capek in his trilogy "Three Novels".

Now to the most important matter, the literary qualities of the work. Kundera is a thoroughly professional writer with literary goals and standards that he has set for himself (again, these are explicitly stated in "The Art of the Novel"). Since he has chosen to tell his story - or construct his existential meditation -- through the minds and words of four different characters, how well has he established the individuality of their voices? It can be said that three of the voices - Helen's, Jaroslav's and Kostka's - have something in common. Each of these characters is arguing with himself or herself within a system of ideas that is almost axiomatic, and they take their arguments to a logical extreme. At the same time they are questioning their relationship with their most cherished idea in order to evaluate the worthiness of their own lives (i.e., "Have I chosen to live a certain way correctly, or even wisely?"). Helen's choice is for the Party and its notion of society, even to the extent that her first love and marriage were based on their acceptability within this framework. Jaroslav's is for folk-art, based on a belief that it will save him (and others) by reconnecting them with a long and diffuse group identity (the village; the nation; the culture). Kostka's commitment is to God, apprehended through a highly personalized form of Christianity. Each believes he or she will be saved by his adherence to the chosen ideal. Ludvik, however, has fallen from grace, and, with that, from certainty; he no longer believes in belief, in the notion that such broader commitments are necessary or desirable, because they are a reservoir of self-deceit and self-justification rather than ideas which can withstand rigorous criticism. And so his voice stands out from each of the others, although it can be pointed out that he too becomes obsessive in the pursuit of revenge - his "myth" is purely personal, and it has been thoroughly formed and deformed by politics.

On a final note, the present reviewer's reading is based on the Faber and Faber edition of 2000, which is the only English edition that is "fully authorized and approved" by Kundera. In this edition's "Afterword" Kundera explains both the sources of the work's translation (Michael Henry Heim, other translators, and one key editor are involved) and the reasons why he felt the earlier four translations were unworthy or absolutely misleading. Don't skip the Afterword, since it is a miniature essay on the art of translation itself (and, in an oddly ironical way, a commentary on the "bad joke" which Kundera feels the English-language publishing industry has played on him, especially with this work). While in comparison to numerous other good novels this book merits five stars, I give it four because there are other novels by Kundera which I esteem more highly.

This is perhaps the best book by Milan Kundera. Rarely has been the absurdity of socialism described so well and the sketch describing "socialist baptism" is truly hilarious. The book was published in 1968 in Czechoslovakia just before the Soviet troops came to liberate the Czechs and Slovaks from "the counterrevolution" and did not appear again for some 25 years. I also served in the Labour Regiments of the Czechoslovak army and can confirm the authenticity of the narration. The book is well written and is highly recommended.

I loved this book from beginning to end. It's easy to forget that it takes place in Czechoslovakia in the 1960's, but why would you want to? That's what drives the story. I love the way Kundera weaves this story, giving the book no single narrator instead he lets the events unfold through several different characters. I got inside this book and it took some much emotionally for me to read it, but loved the ride. This is a GREAT book that I would recommend to anyone!!

At the end of the French edition I have there is a short comment of the author about the history of The Joke, including its interdiction in Czechoslovakia and the bad translations it had to go through afterwards. And finally, Kundera seems to feel relieved that now, when everyone forgot about the invasion of his home country, his readers don't see The Joke as a political novel, but simply as a novel.

Indeed, some of the reviewers on this site needed to mention that "one does not have to have a particular political interest to enjoy this book", "The Joke is, frankly, not very political" and I simply wonder why such a fear of the political. No doubt, Kundera is way beyond a simple journalist describing life behind the Iron curtain. But why would a romance or science fiction novel or even a "just novel" be better than a political one?

Take the political out of The Joke and we're left with an absurd novel. An unexplainable and ridiculous trouble over a post card, the hard life of a worker in the coal mines, where he has to stay for unclear reasons, a "stupid" young lady who doesn't seem to understand a man's idea of love and an equally stupid hateful sex affair which pushes another na?ve woman to suicide. Young, modern Miss Brozova, to whom Zemanek's and Ludvik's past were equally blameable, aberrant and indifferent, was thinking the same way.

I have asked someone about the movie made after The Unbearable lightness of being and all I heard was some vague memory of a few hot sex scenes. I have the feeling that both books are reduced to that in the view of many readers and it's a pity. If this is what we are looking for, I would recommend Pascal Bruckner - Bitter Moon: it's brilliant and no trace of politics mixed with sex.

The Joke is a masterpiece which combines them. And the postcard is only a minor but well chosen example of the many possible "jokes" of a regime. Kostka, the religious, didn't have to be caught with any postcards to get in trouble and his life is not any less a bitter joke. He tried, humble, the impossible reconciliation of his belief in God with the communist fatalities and still lost. Jaroslav, the folklore lover, tried a similar adaptation and ended up in an ambulance. Their lives, the romance, the sex, are all influenced by political circumstances, more or less directly. Which is why it's simplistic to judge them or Ludvik for his hate, need for revenge and incapability to forget, or the whole situation as a result of a badly misunderstood joke on a postcard. Isn't it why we love Kundera? Because he explains it so well and encourages us not to be simplistic?

Some said they found in the book many problems any of us can have at some point in life. Since the "some" come mainly from a democratic USA, I have serious doubts. And serious hopes that no one will ever have such problems. Unless, of course, we are talking about girls refusing to sleep with guys, the masks and stupidities of young age, rape, hate, revenge - all of them thought taken out of context, and which may indeed (and unfortunately) happen anywhere and to anyone. Actually, let's get rid of this low infatuation with ourselves which tells us to like a book only because "we find ourselves in it"; we do that enough in relationships all the time.

I really don't mean to give definitions and put The Joke in a literary category/genre etc, I even understand why Kundera had enough of his novel being considered political. I just don't think the other extreme is better; it would mean not only deleting pages and pages of the book, but also neglecting a big idea which makes the novel a believable, explainable and logical whole.

In conclusion, it's a rather simple (as in classic, not simplistic) novel (comparing to say, Immortality), yes it is not ONLY political, but lets not cheapen it by recommending it to Harry Potter fans.

I just came across this collection of short stories, and as a devoted Kundera fan, I quickly devoured it amidst Christmas preparations, letter writings and other more dreary readings. And what a delight! This is early Bohemian Kundera, written while he still lived in then Czechoslovakia, and it is quite evident that he has not yet matured into the thoroughly seasoned writer that produced masterpieces such as "Life is Elsewhere", "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" and "Immortality". However, this is unmistakenly literary genius in the making, and the mood throughout is simply captivating.

The themes all deal with aspects of human sexuality - mostly from a Man's view. The stories have a raw sense of humanity to them - sometimes it can be uncomfortable reading; however, it has an undeniably tender undercurrent. Even when a character behaves despicably, I remained sympathtic with the human behind the actions. It just feels irresistably honest, and it is quite easy to get seduced by such well-portrayed human complexities.

Among my favorite stories were "The Old Dead Must Make Room for the New Dead", which portrays the dilemma of whether to preserve a diffuse, but beautiful sensual memory or replace it with a graphic, but uglier version that will ultimately erase the former. "Edward and God" is another gem that deals with sexual longing and the fickleness of Religion (Atheism is cleverly presented just as irrational in its dogmatisms as Christianity).
Finally "The Hitchhiking Game" is a classic portrayal of how easily perceptions can be irreversibly altered.

I highly recommend this short-story collection; however, if you are reading Milan Kundera for the first time, I am tempted to recommened one of his more famous works...

Another gem from the pen of the master of irony. Funny, insightful, deep on so many levels but just a little too...no, really, kind of brilliant. Infinite number of stars

Milan Kundera is in fact a literary genius. He manages to develop stories in a unique way, they are light and easy to read, yet they manage to be thought provoking at the same time. Kundera makes you laugh and think about the complexity and simplicity of human nature. I believe the seven stories found within this volume are linked together in theme, and there is also some reappearance of characters. The theme seems to regard the immortality of eroticism, of our libido - our sexual being doesn't age but only serves to remind us of our youth. I particularly liked the "Hitchhiking Game," which makes one wonder - how well do we know each other, or better yet, how much of us do we really reveal to each other? "Symposium" was an interesting discussion about Eros, echoing and modernizing Plato's "Symposium." "Eduard and God" is another gem to be treasured, it explores religion in the context of socialist movement and its interplay with sexuality, as well as the serious and unserious side of things. The stories are about "laughable loves" as they demonstrate how silly at times men (women included) act on the part of our ancient instinct and desire.

On a side note, this translation is extremely poor. I found quite a few typos and grammatical mistakes. It would be great to read this in its original form in Czech. I feel like alot of Kundera's wit is lost in translation.

"Laughable Loves" is definitely worth reading!

Milan Kundera is, perhaps, what Woody Allen probably wishes he were: a non-neurotic European gentleman; a cool customer who knows a few things about love, and doesn't mind sharing them. And he has lived a professional life of art under a repressive Soviet bloc regime, to boot.

Laughable Loves is my first stab at Kundera, and what a find! Here is a thoroughly modern (though several decades old) collection of sketches of romance young and old, foibles and conceits timeless and ubiquitous, and comedy blatant and tongue-in-cheek. The book starts out modestly with young couple whose blithe role-playing takes them to darker places in their hearts and minds than they'd ever imagined. Kundera then gives us a pompous professor/art critic who goes to great lengths to avoid a man who solicits his critique while halfheartedly protecting his young mistress; a bitter man who seeks to recapture a love he once let get away; a doctor, ex-Don Juan, who is full of himself and, ultimately, full of IT; and, among others, an atheist teacher who flirts with religion to get close to a girl, and flirts with the principal to save his career, with unexpected results.

The stories are metaphysical puzzles (especially Dr. Havel) and teasing meditations on love, lust, and life from a lover-philosopher. Kundera makes no apologies and explores amoral terrain with authority--and wit. What a taut, satisfying collection of short stories. The question is not whom to read next, but what to read...

"When it comes to commerce, the erotic is a touchy issue, because while everyone may covet the erotic life, everyone also hates it as the source of their troubles, their frustrations, their yearnings, their complexes, their sufferings" Milan Kundera, Identity (p. 51).

With his European sensibility, Milan Kundera appreciates the humorous nature of the libido. Best known for The Unbearable Lightness of Being: A Novel, Kundera's 1969 collection of seven short stories, Laughable Loves (Smìsné lásky), reveals the humor in the erotic impulse that drives romantic relationships. In one story, a young professor who plays mind-games with people he considers inferior loses his lover only after realizing he loves her. In another, "The Hitchhiking Game," a couple plays a game intended to excite them, but which causes them to lose interest in one another. In "Let the Old Dead make way for The Young Dead," a widow visits her husband's grave, only to discover that it has been removed and replaced with another grave of a man who had died "more recently." This act of vulgarity prompts her to visit a former lover. Two stories follow the sexual exploits of a Don Juan, Dr. Havel. In one he rejects a nurse, and in the other set ten years later, while middle-aged and losing confidence in himself, his young, beautiful wife reminds him that he is still attractive. Another story examines the flirtations of two middle-age men. One is happily married, and the other is more interested in books than women. In "Eduard and God," the title character places his teaching job in jeopardy by accompanying his religious girlfriend to church. After jilting her, Eduard yearns for God. These intelligent love stories are quintessential Kundera.

G. Merritt

This book is amazing. Like all other books of Kundera (some I've read myself, of some read summaries and reviews), this book too conveys the simplest philosophies in the best of words. For example, when he explains 'vertigo', you'll know his unique interpretation of things happening around. A must read for all literature lovers and will certainly make an interesting reading for those looking for a different definition or dimension of oft-repeated terms in English.

Kundera's "Art of the Novel" rings with the same provocative and bold insight that marks all his writing. He begins by exploring the unique capacities of the novel, springing from what he describes as `Cervantes' depreciated legacy'. The novel, for Kundera, is the place where the whole non-Manichaeistic ambiguity of human experience - both banal and dramatic - can be explored. From this eagle-eyed view he moves to discussing the compositional techniques in his own novels, examines key writers from Central Europe and explores Kafka's work as the epitome of the `anti-lyric' poetry which, for Kundera, is the distinguishing feature of all the great novels. He goes on to develop a polemical list of key terms that underpin this "Kunderesque" critique and finishes with the text of his 1985 acceptance speech on receiving the Jerusalem Prize for the Freedom of the Individual in Society. "It pleases me," he observes in this address, "to think that the art of the novel came into the world as the echo of God's laughter."

Kundera takes up the themes of these essays again in "Testaments Betrayed" (1996) and revisits and hones them in "The Curtain" published in 2005. While all three collections circle around similar insights and obsessions, it is interesting to watch Kundera elaborate and distil the central preoccupations of his own novelistic impulse. Devotees of the work of René Girard will find familiar themes here and Kundera acknowledges this debt to Girard explicitly in "Testaments Betrayed."

Don't expect a through-worked philosophical examination in any of these essays but do expect an impassioned and always engaging examination of the novel that cuts through a lot of the tedious claustrophobically self-referential tendencies of much postmodern criticism.

This is a good and insightful book. Because each chapter was written under different circumstances some may find it disjointed, but their is an underlying understanding of the novel that is coherent and profound. Kundera goes all the way back to Cervantes and show us how novelists have perceived and influenced the world down to our time. We pick up some central European novelists, like Hermann Bosch's trilogy, The Sleepwalkers, scandalously unknown in this country. Kundera shows us how novels occupy a role in culture were nothing else can go. A book well worth reading.

A highly interesting and introspective piece into the art of novel writing from one of Europe's finest contemporary authors, Mulan Kundera. His philosophical background is particularly impressive has he attempts to relate back the meaning of his work to existential and phenomenological origins in Husserl, Heidegger, and Nietzsche. I also particularly enjoyed Kundera's comparisons of literature to music in which he describes the forms of multiple Beethoven compositions as well as the basic structures of his own novels. This is an enormously stimulating read, though not necessarily helpful for the blossoming writer.

I am starting a novel this summer, and this book was recommended to me by my Creative Writing professor. Being a fan of Kundera already, I bought the book without question.

For the reviewer who said that Kundera writes pretentiously: I am actually amazed, since Kundera's lack of pretention and clarity surprised me. So much literary criticism is bloated and difficult to read, but Kundera is very simple, very concise, and yet also explanatory. Often he will make a statement, such as "All novels are concerned with the enigma of the self," which he not only explains but gives immediate examples, never letting the flash of his writing try to convey the point.

So much ground is covered in this tiny book: the difference between modernism and "establishment modernism," the craft of his own work, the history and purpose of the novel, insights into several of his great works, insights into European history, parallels between music and literature, etc, etc. Make sure to take notes, since your memory won't be able to hold everything in.

I praise Kundera also for his deep respect for the novel, not only arguing against those "established modernists" who claim the novel is dead or antiquated, but stressing the infinite possibilities of the novel and how the weaknesses of the great works show the paths future novels can take. Rather than being pretentious or snobbish, Kundera reaffirms the life of the novel as central to the question of the self, which is as infinite as the novel is.

This book is also essential for writers especially. For plotting out the structure for my work, Kundera's insights have been invaluable. Of course, Kundera doesn't suggest you write as he does, and you won't want to, but his radiant insight surely helped me find out what I myself wanted to do. Kundera's essays prompt exploration and possibility. A great read.

Found it hard to get into, and still felt that way more than halfway through. Didn't care a lot about the characters; disliked the author's way of jumping back and forth through time (though I don't mind the ways some authors do so). Was more touched by the dog's death than anything else!

Si este gran libro no hubiera llegado a mis manos, yo no hubiera conocido a Mefisto, y sin Mefisto mi vida no sería la misma, lean este muy buen tabique y chequen el dato Mefisto, (me acuerdo de mi hermano)

no entendi bien esta novela ni los conceptos filosoficos que tanto decian los comentarios. parece hecha de artificios de tiempo roto y enredado, habla de tomas, de tereza y de su vida amorosa, pero aun he quedado preguntandome que me habra querido decir el autor en todo esto. parece a simple vista una historia comun.... LUIS MENDEZ

Creo que Milan Kundera es el más grande escritor contemporaneo. Este libro es simplemente genial y te recomiendo que lo leas.

I agree with the latter review. This book requires a unique perception, a deeper understanding of the of human folly--of love. I'm sure Kundera has a cult following--people who are very spiritual & intellectual. The book's about all the abstract things that make life so mysterious. You cannot read this book and simply understand the characters. You must have lived the characters. You must have an affinity with the characters. This book is about an advanced perception of life. It's cannot be put into words; either you understand ... or you don't. There is no in between.

The fact that friends or opera bosses didn't respect the scores or the testaments of artists or had the power to impose their own vision on other's work, is for Milan Kundera an occasion to reflect on the history and rules of art and the novel, the freedom of the artist and ultimately, on freedom of speech.
His main examples are Franz Kafka (Max Brod didn't respect his testament which ordered to destroy all non published work) and Leos Janácek (whose opera score was `adapted' by an opera director).

Art has an autonomous status, its own laws. Art is not an imitation of reality. It is a unique expression of an individual. It is therefore logical that this individual possesses all rights over a work that emanates exclusively from him.
Moreover, one doesn't need biographical furor (Sainte-Beuve), to know the writer, painter or composer in order to understand his work. As Marcel Proust states: 'a book is the product of a self, other than the self we manifest in our habits.'
Milan Kundera detests also those critics who interpret a work of art with their own political, philosophical, religious convictions (see Adorno's scandalous critic of Stravinsky's music).

Essential for the novel are the facts that it is a realm where moral judgment is suspended, that there are no dogmas of psychological realism and that it breaks through the plausibility barrier with fantasy and humor (Rabelais, Cervantes) in order to apprehend better the real world.
It is evident that in these conditions art can be a dangerous weapon in the hands of political, religious, social, cultural, sexual, -in one word -, critical opponents of established powers. In the Rushdie case, `the guardians of the temple were powerless against a novel.'

I have a few remarks about this text.
Firstly, art is indeed an individual expression (of the artist's emotions), but true art is the craftsmanship to arouse emotions in the spectator, the listener, the reader.

Secondly, writers have normally a (few) friend(s) whom they ask to evaluate their work before submitting it to a publisher (in the case of Kafka, one of these persons was certainly Max Brod).

Thirdly, in `The Critic as Artist' Oscar Wilde expressed perfectly why art is so dangerous: `For when a work is finished it has as it were, an independent life of it own, and may deliver a message far other than that which was put into its lips.'
Therefore, it is absurd that an artist should fanatically impose his own `vision' on his work.

And lastly, Orwell's 1984 has not only a political dimension, but also a social, des(human)izing, Kafkaesque one (important facts happening or that happened in the world are only known by an all-powerful `secret team'). Its main theme is freedom to live, to know (`who controls the present, controls the past') and to speak. It is perhaps a bad novel, but an immortal good bad one.

This is a thought-provoking book and a must read for all lovers of art, and of literature in particular.

Readers will no doubt be reminded of Art of the Novel, a more careful reading will reveal that the major theme of the book, the posthumous betrayal of artists and their work, was also dealt with to a large extent in Immortality. In Immortality, Kundera allowed for the posthumous encounter of Hemingway and Goethe. Where Goethe speaks candidly to Hemingway and mentions that "Haven't you realized, Ernest that the figures they talk about have nothing to do with us." Dealing mostly with Max Brod's betrayal of Kafka, Kundera is simply standing up for the rights of artists wishing that artists wishes and rights be honored. Kundera brings in his vast knowledge of music to the discourse of the novel stating in effect that each section carries a tempo which indicates a change in atmosphere. Effectively, Testaments Betrayed is a 9 part piece that covers a range of subjects from the history, the life, and the death of the novel, Hemingway, Kafka, Janacek, Stravinsky and Don Quixote. Not to reduce Testaments Betrayed to a single theme, the focus does seem to be the betrayal of Kafka by Brod. Kundera describes how Kafka suspends believability not to escape the world but to capture it. When Max Brod refuses to burn Kafka's papers, he effectively creates Kafkology. Kundera notices the parallel fate of Kafka and yet another of his heroes, Leos Janacek causing his provincialism and isolating him from mainstream music. Effectively, "a dead person is treated either as trash or as a symbol. Either way, it's the same disrespect to his vanished individuality." I line with what Foucualt and Barthe are talking about when talking about the `Author Function'. I guess it is really ironic that betrayal comes from the best intentioned. Kundera no doubt is controversial where this is concerned as I can imagine the career Kafkologist will disagree with him and see Brod as a hero - the one who saved Kafka from obscurity. No matter what your opinion, Kundera is just as responsible for all the authorial function violations by brining it all up - more power to him.

Miguel Llora

This is one of the most important books I've ever read. It is of interest, of course, to people involved with literature, music, translation, or who are interested in Kafka, Picasso, Hemmingway, Stravinsky, or others Kundera talks about. But I think the real importance of this book applies to any reader. It has to do with Milan Kundera's beautiful illustrations as to how we as humans try to make our own heroes everyone else's heroes, too, and in the process destroy many of the things we value and love about them. This is a vital idea in the modern world, where celebrity, biography, and voyeurism are always so present. Also, the statements Kundera makes on the nature of friendship inspire deep reflection on the qualities of our relationships with those we hold dear.

Expanding upon the delightful discourse of "Art of the Novel", "Testaments Betrayed" serves up a feast of appreciation for some of the greatest WORKS of the modern age. It explicitly makes connections between writers like Tolstoy and Kafka, and implicity links them with Milan Kundera's own work. A deeply felt and deeply moving homage.

Mostly excellent, great stuff about Hemingway's "Hills like white elephants" and Kafka. But he makes some real DUMB remarks about sumthin he seems to know nuthin about (worse than the stuff he pans by others), jazz and rock music: "...At jazz concerts people applaud. To applaud means:..." [try Kerouac for the relationship of jazz to audience instead]. "An important FACT [my caps]: at rock concerts people do not applaud [what?]. It would be almost sacrilege to applaud and thus bring to notice the critical distance between the person playing and the person listening..." [what about Jim Morrison yelling "shut up" to squealing teeny-boppers- or Captain Beefheart stopping to command "cut it out, man, it's not even in 4/4" to a clapping dodo]. "...there are no dynamic contrasts, everything is fortissismo [yeah, right]... and resembles screaming... we're no longer in those little nightspots [i am] ...we're in huge halls, in stadiums, pressed one against the next..." [sometimes, and i don't care for that myself, but that's not the totality of "rock"]. His comments are as silly and philistinic as some 'hipster' putting down all 'longhair' (classical) music after hearing Montovani.

Amazingly insightful book. Love Kundera's writings to the max. Very easy flow. Fantastically well developed characters.

Love Kundera...although ususally very cerebral and philosophical, however, The Farewell Party reads very quickly and is very character-based. For anyone who wonders why women and men act the way they do, Kundera is a great source.

I need help with this book. My question is what is the significance of this location spa for this story? why this takes in spa? please if some con can email me back?

Love Kundera...although ususally very cerebral and philosophical, however, The Farewell Party reads very quickly and is very character-based. For anyone who wonders why women and men act the way they do, Kundera is a great source.

Milan Kundera is one of the writers and intellectuals closely affiliated with Alexander Dubcek's, Prague Spring, that failed attempt to create a safe haven for "socialism with a human face." Soviet tanks ended The Prague Spring before it could really begin in 1968.

Kundera, who was unrepentant, suffered exclusion from the writer's union, loss of his teaching post at the Prague Film School, denial of a passport and the banning of his plays--and that was just the beginning.

Labeled a pariah, Kundera refused to practice Issac Babel's "aesthetics of silence." He simply went right on writing, earning a worldwide reputation that eventually rewarded him with the 1973 Prix Medicis Etranger for his hilariously funny novel, Life is Elsewhere. Kundera, still better known in Europe than in the United States, is a highly accomplished, polished and sophisticated writer.

In The Farewell Party, we have a contemporary Czech novel washed in the atmosphere of a French or Viennese turn-of-the-century farce. At a health spa and fertility clinic, only a short, four-hour drive from an unnamed European capital, barren but hopeless ladies splash in the mineral waters, hoping against hope for the miracle that will infuse them with new life. Infusion does arrive, in the form of the Mad Scientist, Dr. Skreta, and the book takes on the character of mindless erotic frolic on a gaudily bedecked stage.

The characters are better described as caricatures. There is saucy Nurse Ruzena, newly pregnant, the result of "two fateful hours," there is Kamila, the betrayed wife and Klima, her philandering husband, who just might be the father of Nurse Ruzena's baby-to-be. The absurd accelerates to near-pandemonium as these character-cliches spin and twirl, dazzling us with their antics. The atmosphere alters, however, when a new character enters the scene. This is Jakub, a rehabilitated victim of a Stalinish purge, newly-returned from the dead.

Sexual antics, burlesque, and elegant, high comedy comprise the tone of The Farewell Party and the narrative, as always, weaves its way into graceful and inevitable patterns. But as anyone who has read Kundera knows, darker elements always manage to work their way into what appears, at first glance, to be nothing more than high comedy and farce.

Political overtones begin to gather like darkening shadows, first enclosing Ruzena and Jakub who engage in a seemingly ridiculous argument over a rambling bulldog and end up wanting to kill each other.

Kundera, himself, seems amused at all of this, and he takes it in stride, as if nothing untoward has happened. Things do, however, happen...

Kundera, who wrote The Farewell Party while still living in post-Dubcek Czechoslovakia, obviously decided not to submit to any possible penalties and, instead, remained faithful to himself and his art. The result is a political novel from one of this century's most gifted writers in a time and place in which political novels were most vehemently forbidden.

Francis Bacon jolted the art world in a way that is only now, some nine years after his death, being fully appreciated. During the final years of his bizarre life he achieved fame and museum acceptance and the accompanying high figure prices for his canvases. And of course soon after his death there was the usual debate about whether he was a painter or a one note song. This beautifully presented volume seems to dispell the latter, as here is documentation of all the head-only portraits Bacon painted of his friends and of himself. His usual "brutal vision" seems less forced when the paintings are accompanied by photogrphs of the models: some of Bacon's friends were fairly distorted before his brush hit the canvas! This book allows the reader to examine a narrow part of Bacon's output and in doing so focuses keenly on his view of the world, his pallete and his technique. Very fine essays by Milan Kundera and France Borel enhance this sensitive tribute to one of the more important 20th Century figurative painters.

For those of you who have spent considerable time reading about the Templars, Illuminatus, Masons, et. al. then this book would be of no shock to you. Francis Bacon in the disquise of an artist, in the disquise of the painted. The art itself lends itself to the greater mystery, and as such is a must have for any enthusiast.

This is one of the first novelas Kundera has written in French, and is certainly among the best in his long series of observations of human nature. Although all the novelas exist in the shadow of Kundera's great full length novels, The Unbearable Lightness of Being and Immortality, they are all literary gems well worth reading.

This is a good book. I reads very quickly and remains witty and interesting the whole way through.

Who talks like the characters in this book? Are there really people in the world who do? And where are they so I can smack all the self-pity right out of them?!
All I could think while I read this book was, "These people need to get a hobby or something because they have way too much time on their hands."

Years ago, I had read the first few chapters of The Unbearable Lightness of Being in a bookstore. The words stayed with me always, until years later when I actually had the opportunity to complete the reading. Identity had a different effect. I chose it for a train ride because the book I was really searching for was not in stock. Unfortunately, I'm quite disappointed.

Kundera's characters are not believable. Then again, I understand why. This is Kundera we're talking about. I believe his emphasis usually to be on what he writes about the world and psychology. Less importance is given to how it is actually told (in my mere judgment). Honestly, not only have I yet to meet anyone who converses like either Chantal or Jean-Marc, the two protagonists are also boring and not relatable. By about the 24th (or so) chapter I found myself gauging the thickness of progress I've made in the pages versus how thick the book is, and was happy to realize that Identity is a short novel.

Chantal is average. I understand the importance of using everyday subjects in writing about life's generalities and quirks, which is how I generally view Kundera as a writer. I think it can be agreed upon that he writes his personal takes on psychology through characters and in fiction form. However, Chantal isn't even pleasantly average. We know nothing about her all the way until about chapter 42 when she begins fantasizing awkward sexual situations while riding a train into England from Paris for initial reasons obscure.

The plot is boring. Basically, a woman receives admiration letters in her mailbox each morning--which, by the way, we knew were from her existing boyfriend the second we read the first instance, yet it takes half the novel to reveal this information. Whether or not Kundera wanted his readers to know more than Chantal is ambiguous to me. Perhaps her ignorance and continual fantasies about whom the author of her letters could be is more of a testament to her weakness and susceptibility as an older woman than I had previously realized. Either way, the subject is irritating, and upon hearing the fuss about her first letter, I had no idea that this was the entire plot of the novel. Then it never went away.

When the woman (Chantal) realizes that her boyfriend has been making a checkpoint of her hiding spot for these letters (and consequently realizes that he has been writing them himself), she is offended, and he confused, for the woman he believes to be his loved one would never hide silly letters from him. Thus, he questions her identity, all in a short chapter-long internal struggle leading well, nowhere. Immediately following: an awkward and unnecessary run-in with Chantal's previous family. It is Chantal, however, who instigates the couple's separation.

I get it, I get it. Chantal in the beginning is not Chantal at the end. Somewhere along the line fantasy intrudes the (mediocre) story we had been reading. Parts are clever, but 80 percent of the book is a bore, frankly. There are some good quotes, but the story is not memorable enough for my taste. I particularly liked, "That is why she dislikes dreams: they impose an unacceptable equivalence among the various periods of the same life, a leveling contemporaneity of everything a person has ever experienced; they discredit the present by denying it its privileged status" (5). Also, "That `and that's how time goes by for them' is a fundamental line. Their problem is time--how to make time go by, go by on its own, by itself, with no effort from them, without their being required to get through it themselves" (79). I'm sort of glad to be through with Identity but I'll keep reading Kundera--my impression for this one is just weak.

Milan Kundera published Identity (L'Identité) after moving to France from Czechoslovakia in 1975. Kundera is perhaps best known for his 1984 novel, The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Two things make Identity unique. It is arguably the most traditional novel Kundera has written to date, and at 176 pages in length, it is also among his shortest works. It tells the simple story of a recently divorced ad executive, Chantal, who meets her younger lover, Jean-Marc at a seaside hotel. While Chantal is out walking, Jean-Marc searches for her. She wonders why "men don't turn to look at [her] anymore," contemplating the possibility that she is now too old to be considered attractive by other men. She defines herself through the perceptions of others, until she begins receiving love notes from an anonymous admirer. Chantal hides the letters from Jean-Marc and fantasizes about each new man she encounters, wondering if he is her secret admirer. The two protagonists reveal Kundera's brilliant mind at work in contemplating whether it is ever possible to know the intimate object of one's love, further complicated by the impermanent nature of identity. While Identity may not be Kundera at his best (for that, read The Unbearable Lightness of Being), it is nevertheless worth the investment of an afternoon or late night reading a short novel by a truly unique writer. Trust me. Even when Kundera is not at his best, he is still better by far than other writers at their best.

G. Merritt