The Unbearable Lightness of Being: 'A dark and brilliant achievement' (Ian McEwan)

The Unbearable Lightness of Being. It is a sensual love story about a divorced Chech surgeon, Tomas, and a charming and attractive waitress, Tereza. The story is set during the crisis when the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia in August 1968, and the Russians started spying and terrorising the elites and educated masses. Mr Kundera has beautifully illustrated the fundamental distinction between true love or Romance and physical desire or sex. Another interesting part of this book is the other characters: Sabina, an ex-mistress of Tomas and Franz, a lover of Sabina, and a female dog, Kerenin, which the author weaves perfectly and skillfully. The end of the story was very touchy and romantic. I don't understand why the author has to explain the philosophy of the characters' thoughts and deeds. He should have left it open for the readers to scrutinise. I felt Mr Kundera was already mentally prepared to impose his ideology on his readers. It was like an overenthusiastic newly recruited professor coming to the postgraduate class and starting to explain the complexities without even questioning the students. Overall, it is a fantastic read. Five stars. Dr Brij Mohan. Author-Second Innings.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being is one of those books that make you think of thoughts you otherwise rendered unimportant. The book covers a multitude of themes but most important is the reason for one’s existence, one’s purpose in life. The story revolves around four characters mainly, each with a different past, a difficult present, especially in midst of a Russian invasion, and an unsure future. Tomas loves women. Well, he loves Teresa but he would suffocate to death if he had to sleep with only one woman for the rest of his life. His idea of love and sex are different from the usual and he is unapologetically himself. He is also a highly opinionated person, mainly politically. Teresa is running from her past. She doesn’t want to be like her mother- cruel, shameless and full of mistakes, but sometimes she finds herself in the exact same position. She is not a fan of Tomas’s infidelity, but she puts up with it, every day of her life. Sabina is attracted to the idea of betrayal. She hates stability and loves spontaneous situations. Franz is more like your average professor who has his principles of infidelity and need to do justice to one’s memory. The Unbearable Lightness of Being questions multiple things. First, it talks about one’s purpose in life, what it means to exist. It then goes on to the different things people love and how certain like to stick to a routine while others go with the flow. It talks about the complexities of a relationship and how the meaning of attachment is strictly personal. The author also takes his time to tell us his opinion about the Russian Invasion as the story is mostly set in the late 1960s. The opinion has been conveyed through his characters and sometimes very directly. The author is the narrator and he has fun creating his characters, giving them meaning and sharing a part of his life through them. The Unbearable Lightness of Being is a book that will give out a different meaning each time you read it, and even if you are the type who doesn’t let books dampen your thoughts and ideologies, you will end up enjoying this book because it is a fine piece of literature- intriguing, powerful and complete.

One of my favourite kinds of media is media rooted in ideological/philosophical conflict, and Being plunges into conflict at the very outset. Kundera rejects Nietzsche's idea of eternal recurrence, and insists that everything a person experiences in his life occurs only once, thus giving being a nature of "lightness". In Kundera's view, commitment is heaviness and freedom is lightness. The main themes are love and sex, and Kundera argues that love is fragile and fleeting, and yet it holds significance for humans in a way that love and sex are believed to be synonymous. The plot walks with Kundera's commentary on the thoughts of the characters, and Kundera gives such an excellent philosophical insight into these thoughts, that halfway through the book I considered skimming through the story to get to the commentary faster. The plot, in fact, is secondary or perhaps even (dare I say) irrelevant. He discloses the climax in the middle like an indifferent shrug, but that in no way affects the beauty of this book. I won't go as far as saying that it is an earth-shattering, profound piece of literature that made me rethink life, and I am certain that it isn't meant to be. At its core, this is a book about Kundera's philosophical musings coupled with a LOT of shagging. But it ends up giving so much more than that.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being is a 1984 postmodern novel by Milan Kundera, about two women, two men, a dog (a bitch, actually), and their lives in the Prague Spring period of Czechoslovak history in the late 1960s and 1970s. It explores the artistic and intellectual life of Czech society during the Communist period, from the Prague Spring to the Soviet Union’s August 1968 invasion and its aftermath. Challenging Nietzsche’s concept of 'eternal recurrence' [the idea that the universe and its events have already occurred and will recur ad infinitum], the story’s thematic meditations posit the alternative: that each person has only one life to live and that which occurs in life occurs only once and never again — thus the “lightness” of being. In contrast, the concept of 'eternal recurrence' imposes a 'heaviness' on our lives and on the decisions we make (to borrow from Nietzsche's metaphor, it gives them 'weight'). Nietzsche believed this heaviness could be either a tremendous burden or a great benefit depending on the individual's perspective. The "unbearable lightness" in the title also refers to the 'lightness' of love and sex, which are themes of the novel. Kundera portrays love as fleeting, haphazard, and perhaps based on endless strings of coincidences, despite holding much significance for humans. “Making love with a woman and sleeping with a woman are two separate passions, not merely different but opposite. Love does not make itself felt in the desire for copulation (a desire that extends to an infinite number of women) but in the desire for shared sleep (a desire limited to one woman).” The novel resolves this question decisively that such a commitment is in fact possible and desirable. A film adaptation of the novel was released in 1988, though Kundera remarked that the movie had very little to do with the spirit either of the novel or the characters in it, and went on to say that after this experience he would no longer allow any adaptations of his work.

'The unbearable lightness of being ' is a kind of book that feels 'unbearably heavy' on your 'being' beacuse there are some wonderful things it does to your soul, and solemn questions it makes you think over and philosophies it makes you ponder upon. This book is an intricately woven journey of human tendencies , Czech struggle , Soviet 'kitsch', centered around the lives of remarkably sketched characters of Tereza, Tomas, Sabina, Franz - each one struggling in the quagmire of his/her own beliefs , both wounded and saved by love. What I really liked about this book was Kundera's unique style of including his own judgements and reflections, unlike a passive narration through a ghost narrator. His honest views on his characters and the fact of revealing the source of the character make the reader step into the mind of the writer, while allowing total liberty to the reader in assuming his own interpretations or judgements. The book is divided into 7 parts each taking up a different philosophical question, which makes it deeply reflective and stirring . The story is beautiful and Kundera writes about love as if in a trance so the beauty of it is enchanting and dreamy. The dream sequences are equally enchanting and leave the reader thinking, re reading certain passages to absorb the subtleties that make every dream unique and enigmatic. The characters in their pursuit to self discovery and self realization are relentless which makes them realistic, credible and even relatable. I can go on, and on picking the various piece de resistance of the work. But I leave it here for you to yourself pick the book and add your own personal favorites to the list. I can assure it is one book that will stay with you forever. It was my first read by Kundera and without doubt I'm intrigued to read more by him.

Good packaging, decent paper quality and on time delivery. Also a fantastic book to read :)

Philosophical

The binding and paper quality can be better.

reading a classic in palm size, very nice!

Famous story, and good to order it's kindle edition. Hopefully we will have more kindle books for us.

Over the holidays I finished reading this book, which is one of the finest existentialist novels of all time, originally published in French and then in the author's native Czech. This is another book I am ashamed to admit I didn't get around to reading until now. In this case, seeing the movie doesn't count. The story, taking place in the Prague Spring of the Russian occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1968, tackles a lot of heavy subject matter, and the major theme, at least how I saw it, was oppression: the oppression of love, marriage, sex, family, war, religion, and the communist regime. Each of the main characters is oppressed in their own way by their own ideals, philosophies, and their own idiosyncratic view of the world. The way Kundera blends all these elements effortlessly into the lives of just a few interconnected people is sublime. Our story beings with Tomas, a Czech surgeon and intellectual. Tomas is an unrepentant womanizer. His philosophical view is that sex and love are two distinct affairs with little contradiction between them. His conquests are many, but each situation -- each woman -- has something unique to her womanhood, and that uniqueness is like a secret, one that can only be revealed during the act of sex. So by this perspective -- the devout appreciator of a woman's unique sexual identity -- his adulterous escapades have become justified explorations of humanity. He feels no love for these women; his only aim is to metaphorically dissect the essence of their being. Love he reserves for his wife, Tereza. Tereza comes to Tomas a wounded bird, a symbolic image we see later in the story. She is a gentle soul, though neurotic to the enth degree from a childhood of oppression at the hands of her mother. She perceives herself as weak. She is ashamed of her body and feels disconnected and unworthy of her own soul, so she never condemns Tomas for his infidelities, instead preferring to suffer as a martyr in silence. Tereza is a special character in this story as she is the only character where we have full access to her subconscious mind. Kundera here allows us to psychoanalyze Tereza through her dreams, which are very disturbing. Equally disturbing is the dissident photojournalism Tereza becomes preoccupied with early in her marriage: Prostitutes and Russian tanks. Again here, the oppression of her marriage juxtaposed against the oppression of the occupying regime is portrayed very skilfully by Kundera. Tereza's oppression in life manifests itself in these photos and in dreams of death, actually dreams of execution, for she is no more than a burden, a weak pitiful soul and one who Tomas feels obligated to take care of. Tereza really doesn't understand that Tomas truly loves her, and this is one of many misunderstandings Kundera opens up for discussion in the novel. The most monumental of them all being when Tomas likens the Czech Communists to Oedipus. It was an unintentional comparison, but Tomas would still suffer greatly for it at the hands of the Communist propaganda machine. During the ensuing interrogations, we get a true taste of Tomas' convictions, and in that, we the reader, can find it within our boundaries to put our faith in Tomas' love for Tereza, no matter his actions to the contrary. Then we have Sabina -- Tomas' favourite mistress -- the artistic anarchist who finds satisfaction in the act of betrayal. She has declared war on everything in her life that she considers "kitsch" including her privileged puritan ancestry and Socialists. To Tomas, Sabina is the singing, soaring bird of freedom, and Tereza, the injured crow on the verge of death. For Tomas, Sabina is the manifest expression of one's subconscious desires, which is in stark contrast to his own nature. Tomas seeks to expose in others that which he cannot express in himself, so in Sabina, he finds the self he will never truly know. This self-discovery by proxy plays out again in the interactions Tomas has later with his estranged son. Our fourth character is Franz: Sabina's lover after Tomas. Franz is a learned man, a professor and an idealist to self-destructive proportions. Sadly, Franz falls in love with Sabina, not for who she really is but for what he idealizes her to be: a romantically tragic Czech dissident. Sabina is not a liberal nor is she even one iota romantically inclined, but this doesn't stop Franz from placing her on a pedestal. How could he not? Franz's wife and daughter are social sycophants, and his life outside of Sabina disgusts him, so Sabina makes logical sense to him. He is a kind and compassionate man, but a life of books and academia, sans all visceral experience, have left him devoid of the great kindness and the great compassion he aspires to, not to mention: the great love. Shame really, and the reader can feel for Franz when the ideal comes crashing down around him. During a sexual epiphany, he feels confident that Sabina has fallen in love with him as well. He promptly confesses his indiscretions to his wife and leaves her only to find that Sabina had already made up her mind to leave him, and leave she did -- disappeared from his life in a breath. Franz takes another lover -- a homely student of his -- although he continues to pine for Sabina, and he proceeds to live as an outcast, fallen from grace until he decides on a whim for the first time in his life to actually participate in a political march from Thailand to Cambodia. Here he finds that the courage of his convictions is nothing more than fallacy. Here, the man of long wanderings will return to where he never felt he belonged. A man of delusion returns to reality. Lastly, and my personal favourite character in the entire novel: Karenin, the faithful canine companion to Tomas and Tereza. This part of the story was really heart wrenching, and I fell to tears many times over the course of the Karenin chapters. Kundera talks a lot about religion in these final pages, specifically man's dominion over beast, and he makes it clear that our translation of that proclamation is a bit misguided. The beasts were not thrown out of Eden. So, Karenin, to me, represented true freedom, purity of spirit, and the opposite of oppression. Much like Winnie the Poo, Karenin was happiness in life simplified: routine, devotion, and unconditional love without selfish motivation or personal prejudice. Tomas and Tereza both, in the end and in their own ways, come to realize Karenin's significance, as will the reader, no doubt. "Here lies Karenin." His tombstone says. "He gave birth to two rolls and a bee." One can appreciate this novel on so many levels, technically for the non-linear plotline, the various points of view represented -- political, theological, and philosophical -- and the third person omniscient narrative that is biased to the core so we can appreciate the direct interjection by the narrator who never once attempts to hide that he is the author. At the heart of it, it is an essay about the human condition, but its scope is much broader in that it dissects, much as Tomas would have, the unique effects various forms of oppression have on that condition. Kundera's passion for his characters is duly noted in one of many interjections by the author directly into the narrative. In addition to the very human story of relationships gone astray, we are allowed the privilege of experiencing that moment in Czech history where the country had lost its will and its identity. We are allowed to experience it not through the eyes of a journalist or a tourist, but through the eyes of a true witness. And that is why I love foreign translations. It's not just about different scenery. It's about a connection, and in The Unbearable Lightness of Being, readers should have no trouble making a connection, cultural or otherwise.

I enjoyed reading this book so much and truly think it’s a literary masterpiece. It took me through a full spectrum of emotions — sadness, happiness, and a mix of complex feelings that stayed with me long after I finished. The writing is rich and layered, with deep philosophical and political undertones that make it a powerful and thought-provoking read. Highly recommend to anyone who loves immersive, meaningful literature.

Uno de los mejores libros que he leído en mi vida. El libro además estaba en perfecto estado. Nuevo de trinca y una editorial muy chula. Valió la pena