A young woman is in love with a successful surgeon; a man torn between his love for her and his womanising. His mistress, a free-spirited artist, lives her life as a series of betrayals; while her other lover stands to lose everything because of his noble qualities. In a world where lives are shaped by choices and events, and everything occurs but once, existence seems to lose its substance and weight - and we feel 'the unbearable lightness of being'.
The Unbearable Lightness of Being.
It is a sensual love story about a divorced Chech surgeon, Tomas, and a charming and attractive waitress, Tereza. The story is set during the crisis when the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia in August 1968, and the Russians started spying and terrorising the elites and educated masses. Mr Kundera has beautifully illustrated the fundamental distinction between true love or Romance and physical desire or sex.
Another interesting part of this book is the other characters: Sabina, an ex-mistress of Tomas and Franz, a lover of Sabina, tomas son Simon and a female dog, Kerenin, which the author weaves perfectly and skillfully.
The end of the story was very touchy and thoughtful.
I don't understand why the author has to explain the philosophy of the characters' thoughts and deeds. He should have left it open for the readers to scrutinise.
I felt Mr Kundera was already mentally prepared to impose his ideology on his readers.
It was like an overenthusiastic newly recruited professor coming to the postgraduate class and starting to explain the complexities without even questioning the students.
Overall, it is a fantastic read.
The Unbearable Lightness of Being encompasses passion and philosophy, infidelity and ideas, the Prague Spring and modern America, political acts and private desires, comedy and tragedy - in fact, all of human existence.
‐---------
Since man only has the opportunity to try one path, to make one decision, he cannot return to take a different path, and then compare the two lives. Without the ability to compare lives, Kundera argues, we cannot find meaning; where meaning should exist we find only an unbearable weightlessness. The uncertain existence of meaning, and the opposition of lightness and heaviness, the key dichotomy of The Unbearable Lightness of Being, sets the stage for the entire novel.
Another thought provoking mention:
Best of his books is Testament Betrayed, a collection of his essays that discuss novels and music. That book alters the one read literature.
No comments:
Post a Comment