The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984)
by
Milan Kundera
Book Read: 02-05 December 2015
Note Written: 21 December 2015
'The Unbearable Lightness of Being' is a story of existence, love, sex, happiness, woes, and many other emotions of a few people: the novel shows how important we all are even though we can be seen as unimportant in the grand scale of the universe. Through its characters and their individual perspectives we are introduced a lot of insights and questions about our existence, its meaning, and the probable futility of it. Perspectives play an important role here, not only though the characters but also making us think hoe it plays out in our own lives.
Our perspective are what we infer from some instance or event based on out past experiences and knowledge. So, two people could have similar yet totally different perspectives of the same event. Through Tomas, Terez, Sabina, and Franz, we think about perspectives and understand the need to understand others a little bit more.
Halfway through the book, I was thinking, with all the detailed descriptions and intricacies of closeness, love, living together, sex etc., why wasn't things like shit, piss, etc not mentioned by Kundera (if he was the great mind that people say he is), they being an important aspect of being an living together as well. As it turns out, Kundera dedicated chapters about it. Bravo! 'The Unbearable Lightness of Being' is a great work indeed. Would read again sometime else. Also, reading this masterpiece hasn't made me think that 'The Festival of Insignificance', Kundera's new work, is in any way inferior to this one (some people say it isn't so good in comparison to his other works). Looking forward to more Kundera.
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