review

The unbearable lightness of being is a truly brilliant book, written by Milan Kundera, illustrating many different themes and story lines all at once, following stories of love, political intrigue, betrayal and philosophical thoughts. Based around the time of the Prague spring and its aftermath, the unbearable lightness of being focuses on the lives of four people, Tomas, Tereza, Franz and Sabina, their lives linked by both people, ideas, and their take on the world. The book itself, although confusing in places, manages to create an eerie sense of disembodiment from the story and the characters, you find it easier to remember disjoined images and ideas, rather than the names of the characters and the order of events.

The events of the novel take place during and after the Russian occupation of Czechoslovakia, and follows the lives of the four main characters, and their experiences through this. However, the actual reason for the novels existence doesn’t seem to be to tell a story, but rather to demonstrate the philosophical ideas that Kundera wishes to put across. Because of this, many times you feel yourself dragged away from the lives of Tomas, Tereza and the rest, into the ramblings of Kundera, and his take on philosophers such as Paremenides and Nietzsche. Kunderas interaction with the reader is quite interesting, bringing in a personal touch to the book, and making it seem more like a conversation at points than a normal story. Kundera even acknowledges that the characters in his stories aren’t real, but more devices to help him show the reader how lightness and weight affect peoples lives, and how hard it is to truly decide which is better. As well as this perplexing issue, Kundera also raises questions on love, lust, sex and religion, along with other themes that are relevant to many readers, wherever they are.

The novel opens with a puzzling page or so, starting with “The idea of eternal return is a mysterious one, and Nietzsche has often perplexed other philosophers with it: to think that everything recurs as we once experienced it, and that the recurrence itself recurs ad infinitum! What does this mad myth signify? Putting it negatively, the myth of eternal return states that a life which disappears once and for all, which does not return, is like a shadow, without weight, dead in advance, and whether it was horrible, beautiful, or sublime, its horror, sublimity, and beauty mean nothing” This is a good warning for what is yet to come in the book, jumping in and out of reality and fantasy or ramblings, although which is which you can never be certain. Another good example, that brings out the flavour of the book, is where Tereza decides to go visit Sabina, Tomas’ mistress, at the place she works. “ The camera served Tereza as both a mechanical eye through which to observe Tomas’ mistress and a veil by which to conceal her face from her. It took Sabina some time before she could bring herself to slip out of the robe entirely. The situations she found herself in was proving a bit more difficult that she had expected. After several minutes of posing, she went up to Tereza and said “now its my turn to take your picture. Strip!” Sabina had heard the command ”Strip!” so many times from Tomas that it was engraved in her memory. Thus Tomas’ mistress had just given Tomas’ command to Tomas’ wife. The two women were joined by some magic word. That was Tomas’ way of unexpectedly turning and innocent conversation with a woman into an erotic situation.”

Not a light book itself, the unbearable lightness of being is more of a book that needs a serious commitment to be read, as it is hard to follow at some points, but, overall, is a brilliant book, that really makes you think about how you live your life, and whether or not you are light, heavy, or a combination of the two. A tale of opposites, extremes, and a great read once you get into it.

tULoB part six - the grand march...

The first few chapters of part six are mainly philosophical, and are from the writers point of view, talking and arguing about God, his intestines, and shit. From here Kundera moves on to Kitsch, and Sabinas views of it. It follows Sabina’s life after Franz, and how her life is still surrounded by kitsch, and also how she’s still affected by here past in Prague, and the events that took places there. Now in America, she lives with an elderly couple, who consider her like a daughter to them, but she contemplates if she is with them due to the kitsch-ness of it, and whether or not she has been craving for this all the time she has been running and scorning kitsch. Franz’ interpretation of Kitsch is slightly different, as he is more familiar to totalitarian kitsch, such as the kitsch he experiences whilst on the grand march. The grand march takes place in Cambodia, where the doctors and intellectuals march on the borders, wanting to be let in to help the wounded. However, the Americans and the European countries seem to clash over this, as the American celebrities try to use the march as a publicity stunt, and try to turn the march into a battle against communism rather than an attempt to tend to the people affected by it. However, the march is not successful, and is halted at the border by a wall of silence, a group of doctors, intellectuals, celebrities and paparazzi all stood waiting to be let in, yet no reply to their challenge was ever given. On the way back, the bus stops in Bangkok, and Franz, in an attempt to prove himself brave to the Sabina, whom he still believes is watching over him, takes on a group of men, who end up mugging him and beating him unconscious. Once he awakes, he finds himself in a hospital bed, with Marie-Claude at his side. When he tells her to go away, however, he finds himself paralysed, unable to move except his eyelids. Now he was completely in Marie-Claude’s control. Franz dies, and Marie-Claude completely arranges his funeral, and seems to forgive him for leaving her, and twists all his actions into things that make him sound like a good person, if not slightly depressed. The part ends with the reader being told that “before we are forgotten, we become kitsch”. Death is kitsch.
Themes

• kitsch
• God and religion
• shame
• creation
• shit
• parades
• happiness
• reality vs dreaming
• politians and the public eye
• death
• freedom
• lightness and weight
• a need to be seen
• dreamers
• misinterpretations of words and actions

Characters

• Sabina, now having moved on from Franz, is still living in fear and resentment of kitsch, despite the fact that her life at the moment is still very kitsch, as she herself admits. She finds that although she ran away from her home and the history there, she still cannot escape it, for example, the smile of a polititian reminds her of the smiles on a communist statemans face, when he surveyed all the faces standing below him. Sabina finds that Simon, Tomas' son, is still trying to keep in contact with her, and although she leaves most of the letters unread, he keeps writing till the end of her life. Sabinas wish for when she dies is that shes cremated, and her ashes scattered, so she can remain free and unburdened even in death
• Franz still seems to conect all his thoughts and actions to what Sabina would think of them, depsite the fact that she left him a long time ago, and that hes now living with a new mistress, a shy girl with big glasses. At first, when asked if he wants to participate in the march, he wishes to, but doesnt because he knows it will hurt his mistress. However, once he remembers Sabina, he believes that she would think him cowardly for not going, and so he decides to, showing that he still places her above all others. Franz seems to become heavier and heavier throughout this part, and once at the gates of the border to Cambodia, he even considers dieing as Stalins son did, laying down his live to make a statement. But he decides not to, and instead ends up dieing due to his mugging in Bangkok, again because by taking on the three men, he thought he was doing what Sabina would want him to do.

Other thoughts

What does Kundera have against the Americans? they dont seem to be show in a very good light throughout this part. Also, it seems at this point that Kundera is still undecided about which is better, lightness of weight, as everyone seems to be unhappy with life at the moment

tULoB part five - lightness and weight

The focus is mainly on Tomas in this part of the novel

Tomas is asked to sign a statement retracting his published work about Oedipus, and, when he refuses on the basis that he doesn’t want to lose his colleagues respect, he is sacked, and eventually ends up as a window washer. Even as a window washer though, he is treated differently, people request him specially because they know that really he should be a doctor, and he gets called out often to places when the people there don’t want their windows washed, they just want to show their support for the headstrong doctor. He starts to use his window washing job as another way to meet new women and mistresses. One day Tomas is called out to a house, and finds his son and the editor with the big chin inside. They ask for Tomas’ signature on a petition asking for the better treatment of political prisoners. He eventually refuses, to the disappointment of the others, but it turns out to be a good thing, as the names of the people who did sign are published in the paper, along with slanderous attacks on them. Tomas starts to realise that he is tired, mentally and physically, and that he cant “be on holiday” forever, as this is what the window washing was to him. Only now, eighteen chapters into the part, does Tereza come in again, which I guess shows how far apart they’ve grown. She is having another of her nightmares, this time where she is buried and dead, and Tomas comes to visit her occasionally, but she knows her is cheating on her, and loses sleep over it, thus making her dead body even more unattractive to him. This is the first time Tomas expresses his feelings for Tereza in a clear way, at least to me, when it says “Yes, that is death: Tereza asleep, having terrible nightmares, and he unable to wake her.”, which shows that he does care, a lot. Time passes, and soon Tomas finds that his novelty as a window cleaning doctor has worn off, people no longer wish to be reminded of what happened to him. He starts to get stressed, and his stomach starts acting up on him, one night he finds he’s run out of medication, and he has to go without. When Tereza comes home and finds out that this has happened, she starts talking to him to keep his mind off the pain, and suggests that they move to the country. Tomas then asks Tereza what’s wrong with her, and why she’s acting so distantly from him, and she finally tells him how she’s had to put up with the smell of other women in his hair every night for a long time now. After this, Tomas starts to wonder why sex and love are linked, as it seems to him to cause so many problems. They decide to move to the country, which is sort of showing how much Tomas does love Tereza, as he’s willing to give up his affairs and mistresses for the sake of Tereza’s happiness, and possible sanity.

Themes

• Repression/suppression
  
• Status
  
• Oedipus
  
• Words and their meaning and power
  
• Philosophy
  
• Dreams, both Tereza’s and Tomas’
  
• Love and sex
  
• Politics
  
• Contrasts and opposites
  
• Self image, and how people perceive others
  
• Death
  
• Senses
  

Characters

• Tomas is the main focus of this part, and the reader follows his new life as a window cleaner. He sees his current occupation as a window washer as just a holiday, as it’s not his real calling, he still thinks of himself as a surgeon. Tomas is both heavy and light in this section of the book, he still acts quite carefree, flitting from one woman to another, and not seeming to care too much about his job lose. But, on the other hand, towards the end of the part he seems to start getting stressed and down, and his worry for Tereza shows a heavy side to his personality that hasn’t been seen by the reader before. I was also unsure if Tomas’ decisions not to sign the petition or retract his statement count as heavy or light, as both have features that show both lightness and heaviness.
  
  
• Tereza does not feature much in this section of the book showing how far apart she and Tomas have grown. Part four sums up how she feels about the things happening at this time of the novel, but there are some things mentioned here that weren’t before, perhaps showing that she either doesn’t want to remember of them, or she doesn’t find them important. An example of this is the dream she, where she is dead and buried, and although Tomas still comes and visits her, and tries to make her see, she still knows that he is with another woman, and therefore she doesn’t feel good enough. Does this dream mean that Tereza feels dead, to herself or Tomas, or perhaps both, I’m not entirely certain. Is she scared of death, or would she welcome it?
  

Extra things

Reading this raised a question, the book never states whether or not Tereza had dreams like she does before she met Tomas, and whether or not she has creepy dreams about other things as well? Is Tereza slightly mad (I didn’t want to use this word, as it gives the word impression, but I couldn’t think of a better way to explain it)? Or perhaps just unstable? And was this caused by her childhood, the situation in Prague, or just Tomas alone? Tomas also seems to be almost a father to Tereza at some points, and she perhaps a mother to him as well, they both rely on each other, in different ways, this kind of links in to the Oedipus theme