“The Unbearable Lightness Of Being” By Milan Kundera

It again has been quite a few weeks since I had a chance to recap any of the books that I was reading but it does not mean that I was not reading. “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” by Milan Kundera is a class of Czech literature and it has been on my list to read for a while. I thought that this book was well written and thought provocative with the backdrop of a historical background.

“The Unbearable Lightness of Being” does not have one protagonist but rather revolves around several characters. We have Thomas, a successful doctor and womanizer who still loves his wife despite cheating on her with multiple other women. We have Tereza, Thomas’ wife, someone who comes from a small village and accidentally ends up together with Thomas and whose only desire is the fidelity of her husband. We have Franz, a university professor who is in a marriage with someone he never really loved and is seeking a new adventure. We have Sabina, an artist and painter, who finds anything ordinary revolting. All the characters intertwine during the times of occupation of Czechoslovakia by the Communist regime. As I watched their lives disintegrate and take new shapes and twists, I could not stop wondering where is the line between the truth and morality, reality and a made-up life.

I like this book a lot – it is unlike anything that is written these days (not that there no good books these days). It is something that you need to digest and think about, it does not fit in the fast fashion, swipe-and-scroll world. And I kind of like it.

***

“And suddenly he realized that all his life he had done nothing but talk, write, lecture, concoct sentences, search for formulations and amend them, so in the end no words were precise, their meanings were obliterated, their content lost, they turned into trash, chaff, dust, sand; prowling through his brain, tearing at his head, they were his insomnia, his illness. And what he yearned for at that moment, vaguely but with all his might, was unbounded music, absolute sound, a pleasant and happy, all-encompassing, over-powering, window-rattling din to engulf once and for all, the pain, the futility, the vanity of words.”

***

“What is unique about the “I” hides itself exactly in what is unimaginable about a person. All we are able to imagine is what makes everyone like everyone else, what people have in common. The individual “I” is what differs from the common stock, that is, what cannot be guessed at or calculated, what must be unveiled, uncovered, conquered.”

***

“Love is the longing for the half of ourselves we have lost.”

***

“Does he love me? Does he love anyone more than me? Does he love me more than I love him? Perhaps all the questions we ask of love, to measure, test, probe, 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) from our partner instead of delivering ourselves to him demand-free and asking for nothing but his company.”

***

If you are a curious mind who would like to have some food for thought, I recommend giving this book a read. You will have fun!