Book Review: The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Wow! It took me a long time to get into The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, but almost no pages at all for this one, once I had passed the esoteric thesis in his polemic in his first few pages alone: "…The profound moral perversity of a world… rests essentially on the nonexistence of return, for in this world everything is pardoned in advance and therefore everything is cynically permitted." (4)

Huh, right? Got me thinking about karma and fatalism and our apathy, and the fact that its funny that what he says rings true, though violence itself is constantly recurring in every place, culture and time.

He basically weaves the truths he wishes to convey into the story, and distances himself as the author who is somewhat acquainted with his characters, which give the reader a sense of intimacy with regard to him, and a sense of wonder with regard to his characters. As seems to be the theme of his novels (at least form the 2 Ive read), in this one, published, ironically in 1984, he recalls the human dilemma that confronts his fellow Czechs in the midst of revolution, the depleted idealism of Communism, the cruelty of Russia, the insidious political intrigues that permeated the mindset of the average Czech, and the state of its migrants. Sometimes emmigration is just an excuse: “A person who longs to leave the place where he lives is an unhappy person.” (27) Not to mention communism becoming a metaphor or theme that is writ in the lives, dreams, bodies, and rather odd fantasies, sexual and otherwise, of his protagonists.

The story revolves around Tomas and Tereza, an unlikely, but yet classic old-school couple. Their assorted lovers, their consciousness, their life, - from a professional couple to country-dwellers on a Communist Farm – and the encounters that lead them there. The aesthetic of Communism. The kitsch (to put it very simplistically – in my understanding – paradigm) that mankind needs in order to establish some sort of society, (civilized or not is subjective). Sabina and Franz, lost idealists. Some evil wives, ignored children, disheartened mistresses, and the constant search for meaning. It is really an excellent book – you may not remember the particulars as the novel twists and turns and switches between characters, but you will feel very annoyed to have to put it down in between, because even if you don’t like characters, Kundera will suddenly arrest you with some rhetoric on religion, the construction of God, a thesis on shit, politics, or life. And I did cry towards the end. That, for me, constitutes a good book. And no, it wasn’t about lovers.

I could do a close reading on the following bits, which I have handpicked for you because they were of some significance and relevance to me, but I won’t bore you with the details. Here are some of his uncanny observations on his characters’ experience of life and my penny’s worth.

".. is not an event in fact more significant and noteworthy the greater the number of fortuities necessary to bring it about? Chance and chance alone has a message for us." (48)
(Yes, Ive definitely counted ‘signs’ that told me to go for someone I liked, but ignored them when I didn’t!)

"… love was not an extension of public life but its antithesis… he who gives himself up like a prisoner of war must give up his weapons as well." (83)
Something we attempt as teenagers. As adults though, it’s a different story.

"…beauty is a world betrayed. The only way we can encounter it is if its persecutors have overlooked it somewhere… if we want to find it, we must demolish the scenery." (110)
Pessimistic, but true. How many of us are afraid to be vulnerable to the world, how many of us have had our purity defiled, been torn to shreds by the barbs of words? You may say that’s a part of growing up, but not in the Utopia we should be looking at as our ideal. Perhaps a truth only those who have witnessed or experienced ravage can tell.

"What is flirtation? One might say that it is behaviour leading another to believe that sexual intimacy is possible, while preventing that possibility from becoming a certainty. In other words, flirting is a promise of sexual intercourse without a guarantee… by making it important and serious, she deprived it of its lightness, and it became forced, labored, overdone. She disturbed the balance between promise and lack of guarantee… and their only explanation for it was that she was deceitful and malicious." (143)
Touche.

"…metaphors are dangerous. Love begins with a metaphor. Which is to say, love begins at the point when a woman enters her first word into our poetic memory." (209)
When you actually remember her outside of the context of the bed!

"…attaching love to sex is one of the most bizarre ideas the Creator ever had". (237).
I couldn’t agree more. Though one does enhance the other I think.

"there's no particular merit in being nice to one's fellow man… we can never establish with certainty what part of our relations with others is the result of our emotions – love, antipathy, charity or malice – and what part is predetermined by the constant power play among individuals.
True human goodness, in all its purity and freedom, can come to the fore only when its recipient has no power." (289)

"Now we are longtime outcasts, flying theough the emptiness of time in a straight line. Yet somewhere deep down within a thin thread still ties us to that far-off misty paradise… the longing for paradise is man's longing not to be man." (296)

"Perhaps all the questions we ask of love to measure, test, probem and save it, have the additional effect of cutting it short. Perhaps the reason we are unable to love is that we yearn to be loved, that is, we demand something (love) of our partner instead of delivering ourselves up to him demand-free and asking for nothing but his company." (297)
Particularly a problem in our generation and those to come – with greater, more unrealistic expectations, and the hypermetropic inability to hold ourselves to the same standard we hold others. With the boredom threshold decreasing faster and faster.

The characters do offer great fodder for study, particularly from a Freudian point of view, hehe, in terms of their relations with their parents, their spouses, and their children, if any. However, modt symbolism and attribution is explained by the author, which only serves to increase your wonder at his observational and dreamscape narrative skill.

Along the way, the realizations his characters have, the questions they ask, got me thinking, and hence a little bit depressed too. What does love mean? What does the expression of love mean? Does it convey what it seeks to? Is jewe;ry the key to a woman’s happiness with a man? Does bigger stop being better? When does longing and aspiration stop and contentment begin? Is it easier to live being removed from society? Is it easier to be happy on a communist farm? Or maybe a Kibbutz? Are we happy in our apartments with our big gadgets and conveniences and cars and external entertainment? Has happiness truly changed in character since the beginning of time or do we simply pretend it has?

Something tells me Gandhi was perhaps the most visionary, and RIGHT of them all.

Conclusion: READ IT. And tell me if it gets you thinking.

Oh, and the title... I think it's about consciously casting away one's roots, one's past, such that one has nothing to hold on to but a misty present, and how that's a blessing and a burden. Detachment, if you will. But find your own take.

It's been made into a motion picture too. Not sure I'd like it.