Milan Kundera: The Unbearable Lightness of Being

The most popular of Kundera’s novels is set during the Russian invasion on Czechoslovakia in 1968 and the beginnings of the communist regime in the country. In this light Kundera sets his characters – Thomas, a surgeon who chose not to work with the communists and ended up washing windows in Prague instead of treating his patients. Theresa, Tomas’ beloved wife and artistic photographer. Painter Sabina, Thomas’ lover. Franz, Sabina’s lover after her and Thomas’ ways went in different directions. All totally different but equally interesting.

Kundera plays with opposites here – soul and body, which for some people should be kept separate. Thomas treats sex and love as two separate things and for Theresa, brought up in a family where nudity was not a taboo up to the point where it become embarrassing and disgusting, even though she thinks love and sex should go together and suffers Thomas’ infidelities, she despises her body and rejects its existence.

The most important of the opposites Kundera debates here are the lightness and heaviness of being. Kundera says that we only live once and what happens in that life will never happen again. He enjoys the theory that we could live all the options of the choices we make in our lives to find out which of them turns out best. And then when we could relive our life we would know which choice to go for, which will be the best. But as that isn’t the case and our life happens only once it means it’s not meaningful at all (“einmal is keinmal”). And that’s the lightness and insignificance of it. And so to combat this insignificance we do things to add some “weight” to our lives – Thomas does it through sleeping with a number of women to leave something behind him, Sabina does it through her paintings but will it change anything?

"How can life ever be a good teacher if there is only one of them to be lived? How can one perform life when the dress rehearsal for life is life?"

Even though the novel has one main plot – the story of Thomas’ and Theresa’s life together, Kundera adds in many digressive stories on a side which only add to the enjoyment of the book. He talks a lot about communism and what it made of many intellectuals’ lives in Czechoslovakia at the time. Talks about love and its purity. He compares the love to pets to the human love and sees the first as something that is really pure as it is unconditional and with no expectations.

He also makes an elaborate discussion about kitsch and its importance especially in the world of politics but not only. He says that “brotherhood of all the people in the world can only be built on kitsch”. And whether you agree with it or not, he makes pretty strong arguments to support it.

There is also an interesting and funny debate over poo… But I won’t steal all the pleasure of reading this book for yourself.

Even though some of these subjects sound really heavy there is some lightness in the reading of this book that makes it really pleasant experience. And thus I truly recommend it.

My rating: YYYYY