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juushikaTitle: The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Author: Milan Kundera (translated by Michael Henry Heim)
Published: New York: Harper Collons, 1994 (1989).
Page Count:314
Total Page Count: 14,942
Text Number: 41
Read For: My own enjoyment
Short review: The Unbearable Lightness of Being follows a very loose plot, but it is at least about a man, his wife, his mistress, and his mistress's lover. Tracing interpersonal relationships of sex and love in a country overshadowed by war and communism, Kundera sketches out the human experience: our choices, our desires, and the effect upon other individuals and society as a whole. Yet despite the large scale of these ideas, Kundera confines them to smaller situations and personal relationships, giving them context and keeping them real. Perhaps the only fault of the text is the simplistic, Steinbeck-ish character formation; in every other way it is a thoughtful, human, surreal text, and I enjoyed reading it.
I have always had a problem with characters that are too easy to explain: when the way in which a man thinks can be summed up in a paragraph, it appears that he thinks that way not because he does but because the author says he must. Characters do things because people like them are supposed to, and everything, always, comes back to that one paragraph character summary. Steinbeck does it and Kundera does it, but where Steinbeck never leaves the realm of the novel, Kundera is more than willing to leave the novel and talk about how it is a novel. He openly constructs and limits characters in order to play with ideas, express inspirations, and he is very forthright about that point. As a result, this is an unusual novel, but in this case, that's a good thing. Because he moves away from overly-realistic character representation, he has time for ideas, theories, and commentaries on life.
The Unbearable Lightness of Being is, throughout, a contradiction. It is a short text about large ideas, a narrow view of human nature, and a light text about the weight and impact, or the lack thereof, of everything we do. It is confusing, it is over too quickly, and it's a good read. I enjoyed and I recommend it, in part because it is unusual, in part because the unusual approach is so effective. It's a good book.
Author: Milan Kundera (translated by Michael Henry Heim)
Published: New York: Harper Collons, 1994 (1989).
Page Count:314
Total Page Count: 14,942
Text Number: 41
Read For: My own enjoyment
Short review: The Unbearable Lightness of Being follows a very loose plot, but it is at least about a man, his wife, his mistress, and his mistress's lover. Tracing interpersonal relationships of sex and love in a country overshadowed by war and communism, Kundera sketches out the human experience: our choices, our desires, and the effect upon other individuals and society as a whole. Yet despite the large scale of these ideas, Kundera confines them to smaller situations and personal relationships, giving them context and keeping them real. Perhaps the only fault of the text is the simplistic, Steinbeck-ish character formation; in every other way it is a thoughtful, human, surreal text, and I enjoyed reading it.
I have always had a problem with characters that are too easy to explain: when the way in which a man thinks can be summed up in a paragraph, it appears that he thinks that way not because he does but because the author says he must. Characters do things because people like them are supposed to, and everything, always, comes back to that one paragraph character summary. Steinbeck does it and Kundera does it, but where Steinbeck never leaves the realm of the novel, Kundera is more than willing to leave the novel and talk about how it is a novel. He openly constructs and limits characters in order to play with ideas, express inspirations, and he is very forthright about that point. As a result, this is an unusual novel, but in this case, that's a good thing. Because he moves away from overly-realistic character representation, he has time for ideas, theories, and commentaries on life.
The Unbearable Lightness of Being is, throughout, a contradiction. It is a short text about large ideas, a narrow view of human nature, and a light text about the weight and impact, or the lack thereof, of everything we do. It is confusing, it is over too quickly, and it's a good read. I enjoyed and I recommend it, in part because it is unusual, in part because the unusual approach is so effective. It's a good book.
