Milan Kundera

The Unbearable Lightness of Being is a story of irreconcilable love and infidelities in which Milan Kundera addresses himself to the nature of twentieth-century 'Being', offering a wide range of brilliant and amusing philosophical speculations. First published in 1984, Kundera's masterly novel encompasses the extremes of comedy and tragedy and was at once hailed by critics as a contemporary classic. This special hardback edition commemorates the twentieth anniversary of its first publication in English. 'There are novels that are tragic, or entertaining, and this one is both. There are very few that give a fresh perspective on existence, and force the reader to reassess his own life and attitudes.' Sunday Times 'The Unbearable Lightness of Being is a work of the boldest mastery, originality and richness.' Vanity Fair

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Daria claymore

לעולם אינו יכול לדעת במה עליו לרצות, משום שהוא חי רק פעם אחת ולא ניתן לו להשוות את חייו להווה לחייו הקודמים ולא לתקן אותם בחייו הבאים

Interweaves story and dream, past and present, and philosophy and poetry in a sardonic and erotic tale of two couples--Tomas and Teresa, and Sabina and her Swiss lover, Gerhart.

The unbearable lightness of being

Elina Berzina

Not a single book I read in the past year made me contemplate as much as this one. Chapters describing Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 describe extremely well the amount of suffering, depression and twisting of social relations this country brings to other nations; fifty-four years later the history repeats itself with the same methods Russian regime use just another country has a bigger will to fight back. 

Although some author's views come into conflict with mine, I have to agree that this book is a real masterpiece of 20th century literature and I'd like to see my children study it at school.

Obada Mu

“And therein lies the whole of man's plight. Human time does not turn in a circle; it runs ahead in a straight line. That is why man cannot be happy: happiness is the longing for repetition.”

Jesse Morley

Oh yes, life is so poetic, Milan. Tereza was indeed wrong to hold Tomas' infedility against him—it is her fault that he was too scared to leave someone who loved him unconditionally and asked so little in return. Yuck.

Anabel

eliz

2.5

I liked and still intrigued about the questions raised from the beginning of the book, but as I summarize(?) the entirety of the plot, I'm left hanging with the problems unsolved. to conclude, I think I learned less than I expected.

the amount of patience I had to put through continuous pages of erotic nonsense deserves a praise btw

excerpts:
p. 8 "...that not knowing what he wanted was actually quite natural. We can never know what to want, because, living only one life, we can neither compare it with our previous lives nor perfect it in our lives to come. There is no means of testing which decision is better, because there is no basis for comparison." ... "And life can be worth if the first rehearsal for life is life itself? That is why life is always like a sketch."
p. 92 "For Franz music was the art that comes closest to Dionysian beauty in the sense of intoxication. No one can get really drunk in a novel, or a painting, but who can help getting drunk on Beethoven's Ninth, [etc.] Franz made no distinction between "classical" music and "pop"."

sometimes this hit like a truck. especially the parts w tereza and her mother; (If a mother was Sacrifice personified, then a daughter was Guilt, with no possibility of redress) and (I sometimes have the feeling that her entire life was merely a continuation of her mother’s), etc etc. good read for some introspection! difficult read in general, though.

toch

linda

I loved and hated this book. 

There were just some parts I didn’t understand, some parts that I felt too pretentious. The whole part about Beethoven and “es muss sein” didn’t resonate with me. I didn’t understand the part about Petrin Hill. The discussion of the Grand March I liked, the critique of communism was okay, but overall, I felt that Kundera was trying to tackle too much at once.

I like the way Kundera sketches his characters, the symbolism he etched into the odd details. I still remember Sabina’s bowler hat. The necklace that Marie Claude belittles her over to demonstrate her power. The suitcase Tereza leaves at the station. Those images stick well. 

I loved the parts about 1) Tereza and her mother, Tereza as a young girl 2) Karenin. I cried when I read the scene where Tomas was digging a grave for him, just the way Tereza wanted. He’s loyal. 

I still don’t know what the unbearable lightness of being is, but I like that Kundera didn’t put a values judgement on it. He didn’t say that being light and carefree is irresponsible, that all of our actions must have consequence. Kundera doesn’t condemn Tomas or Sabina; he even paints them in a sympathetic light. For Tereza and Tomas, fidelity required sacrifice. It’s funny to think that Mao wrote about the same stuff in 为人民服务 in 1944 (“人固有一死, 或重于泰山， 或轻于鸿毛”), and even then, he was quoting 司马迁, who lived during the Western Han. So it’s definitely a question we’ve been entertaining for a long time.

Hana Sadoun

Nada Ghazi

Four main characters, whom their aspects of fitting in varies, whether in lightness of heaviness, and how they're related to love, sex, emotions, decisions and almost everything in life.
That leaves you wondering;
Are happiness and lightness compatible? Is that we can't be happy and light at the same time? Do we find serenity in melancholy? 

-
People would think that being heavy is an indicator of melancholy, otherwise, being so light is the ultimate happiness. But what if you fell into an unbearable lightness of being? Would you think the same? Would you bear the unbearable?

Simply, there's no answer, unless you could experience eternal return, in which you can experience boyh cases and eventually decide.
-
Kundera, people, as always. Invade your thought with romantic philosophy. Yes, I mean it. In which you find yourself walking in each character's shoes and keep wondering and wodering and wondering..

-
PS: Last chapter "Karenin's smile" is pure agony.

Kareem ElBatrawy

هل السعادة هى أن تمتلئ روحك و نفسك ام بالتنزه عن كل شئ فتتحرر و تعيش طليقه؟
هل من الممكن أن نحب بقلوبنا و نخون بأجسادنا؟
هل المتعة تكمن فى أن نساير الركب و نضمن الاستقرار ام فى الشعور الدائم بخيانة المألوف؟
هل التخلى عن الإنسانية هو الرجوع للجنة ام أن الإنسانية هى الطريق للجنة؟
هل السيطرة هى مصدر القوة ام أن الضعف يضعنا فى موقف السيطرة؟

هذه تحفة فلسفية نفسية بكل المقاييس..قد تحتاج للقرأة أكثر من مرة..فى كل مرة..ستتكتشف الجديد.

Shrouk Shafie

رواية فريدة وغريبة جدا من نوعها، 4 اشخاص حياتهم متصلة ببعضها البعض بشكل او بآخر وكمان توضيح اثر احوال البلاد عليهم بعد الحرب العالمية الثانية، بالنسبالي كانت معلومات كتير تاريخية جديدة عليا. 

لم اتعاطف مع توماس ويمكن اكون متعاطفة الى حد صغير مع تيريزا بسبب طفولتها. يمكن لو كان فيه توضيح لماضي شخصية توماس كان هيبقى افضل كتير.. 

اسئلة الرواية الوجودية دقت في بالي واكيد في بال الكثير من قبل كده.. يمكن يوم من الايام نلاقي اجابة؟ 
Muß es sein? Es muß sein.

Saima A

I've said it before. This book was the perfect mix between fiction and philosophy. 

It's not full of paragraphs of soul hitting philosophical depth but full of little glimpses of insightful observations in almost everything in life. When all these nuggets are added together...it makes this a real treat to read.

Kundera observes the ongoings of his character's lives, intellectualises it and tells the reader about it in such a conversational (of a sort) manner.

Kundera explores how the little things, metaphors, images, and the big things, our pasts, country, family affect our psyche and major life decisions at well structured points throughout his depiction of his character's lives, supplementing the decisions they make. It explores politics, sex, love, religion, what it means to be human in a time where things are spiralling and out of control. Kind of like being in a coming of age film.

This novel explores the significance of decisions, the lack of significance on decisions, the unavoidable significance of decisions, and the unavoidable lack of significance of the decisions we make.

one of the best written books i have ever read

🍊

** spoiler alert **
           this is the first philosophy and romance book that i have read. i enjoyed it a lot (even more than expected). i also learned a thing or two from it but the first few chapters of the last part ruined it for me. is it really necessary to talk about shit (literally) in detail? because i think not. 

if it wasn't for karenin, i wouldn't give this book four stars. the unbearable lightness of being is my second most annotated book :)

Mary Rose Luksha

I would have given this book 4 stars, but...I just...didn't like the end I suppose. It's my own fault because it calls it "a novel of ideas" on the back, so I knew what I was in for. And I found the ideas very fresh, and I was impressed that the ideas seemed to come from the characters and not the author. (Which is probably how I made it through the whole book.) And maybe it's just me, and I didn't understand the end of the book, but I just felt that the first few sections all tied together very well...but the last two seemed like parts of another work. 

But the colorful language in this book was unreal. I could feel the texture of the book as I was reading it, and I was incredibly impressed that this is a translation. I mean, I am a bargain hunter so I usually end up getting Barnes and Noble editions of books, and those translations are a punishment, so maybe I'm not used to good translations; but this one just blew my mind. And based mostly on the color of language, I gave this book 3 stars.

Pamela Ramirez Olivares 

Me encantó pero es duro de leer (en el sentido emocional). El constante contraste entre la levedad y la pesadez y la complejidad de les personajes me hizo sufrir pero a le vez disfrutar mucho el libro. 
Hermosas metáforas y con muchos pasajes bastante existenciales y poéticos, no es una lectura liviana para nada. 
Lloré con el final pero lo encontré muy resuelto, me hubiese gustado algo con más incertidumbre o caos.

i may return to review this properly, but for now…hm. the prose has its moments, a lot of which i liked more than i’d probably admit, and the nonlinear format made it feel dreamlike, perhaps a little surreal. but i can’t stand how the women are written—which concerns both the characters themselves and how the men regard them. 

seesawing between 3 and 3.5, but 3 for now because i am not in the mood to be kind at a book that doesn’t seem to see women as anything beyond their sexuality

The perfect book I never want to read again. I just don’t like the whole vibe. Always felt a little pseudo-intellectual. Maybe this book about 

Which is a shame because I wanted to like this most known Czech book in the world. Giving 5 stars for the benefit of the doubt. 

Vojtech

The perfect book I never want to read again. I just don’t like the whole vibe. Always felt a little pseudo-intellectual. Maybe this book about kitsch is actually a kitsch.

Which is a shame because I wanted to like this most known Czech book in the world. Giving 5 stars for the benefit of the doubt. 

wylan

i was quite hesitant to pick up this novel, as i've heard both praise and critique of the author and his work. and i need to say, in a way i agree with both sides.
i was expecting misogyny and i did get it, unsurprisingly, but a bit different than i expected - what i saw was a weird balance of good writing and having complex main characters overall, while still resorting to stereotypes or inappropriate writing choices for the female characters, sabina and tereza. i mean, my favorite character was tomáš by far, but the way he views women was... well, very objectifying. but the characters are supposed to be criticized and picked apart, so i actually enjoyed reading about assholes. but if you're more sensitive to just... male misogynistic writing, be aware of that, and a lot of discussions of sexuality and its role in relationships.
however, the book over all was outstanding and especially the philosophy in it - i should have annotated the book. it gives one a lot to think about, i really enjoyed how all the ideas in the novel are connected, showcased and put into words. i read the book in the original language and his use of the tongue is incredibly charming, i need to say it's one of my favorite czech texts as of late.
despite disagreeing with kundera on lots of things, i was still able to enjoy reading the novel and i'll be reading more from him in the future. i believe it's not everyone's cup of tea, but definitely worth a try:)

When The Unbearable Lightness of Being was first published in English, it was hailed as "a work of the boldest mastery, originality, and richness" by critic Elizabeth Hardwick and named one of the best books of 1984 by the New York Times Book Review. It went on to win the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction and quickly became an international bestseller. Twenty years later, the novel has established itself as a modern classic. To commemorate the anniversary of its first English-language publication, HarperCollins is proud to offer a special hardcover edition. A young woman in love with a man torn between his love for her and his incorrigible womanizing; one of his mistresses and her humbly faithful lover -- these are the two couples whose story is told in this masterful novel. Controlled by day, Tereza's jealousy awakens by night, transformed into ineffably sad death-dreams, while Tomas, a successful surgeon, alternates loving devotion to the dependent Tereza with the ardent pursuit of other women. Sabina, an independent, free-spirited artist, lives her life as a series of betrayals -- of parents, husband, country, love itself -- whereas her lover, the intellectual Franz, loses all because of his earnest goodness and fidelity. In a world in which lives are shaped by irrevocable choices and by fortuitous events, a world in which everything occurs but once, existence seems to lose its substance, its weight. Hence we feel, says the novelist, "the unbearable lightness of being" -- not only as the consequence of our private acts but also in the public sphere, and the two inevitably intertwine. This magnificent novel encompasses the extremes of comedy and tragedy, and embraces, it seems, all aspects of human existence. It juxtaposes geographically distant places (Prague, Geneva, Paris, Thailand, the United States, a forlorn Bohemian village); brilliant and playful reflections (on "eternal return," on kitsch, on man and animals -- Tomas and Tereza have a beloved doe named Karenin); and a variety of styles (from the farcical to the elegiac) to take its place as perhaps the major achievement of one of the world's truly great writers.

Twentieth Anniversary Edition

Fraser Simons

DNF’d 30% in. This book, at least the _audio_book, is insufferable. I don’t care about the characters. I hate the self aware authorial voice, and the coupling of this with these people who can’t figure out their lives revolving around sex is so boring and feels incredibly infantile. I don’t know why people love this so much. I don’t find it particularly intellectual and it’s annoying qualities only seem to be continually augmented as it progresses.

I just had to describe what reading this was like to a friend and I described it as the same energy as a white lib at a party saying he’s a feminist and polyamorous, while not understanding either concept, actually, but knows it will get him laid. 

Also, ima leave this right here: 
https://link.medium.com/fuua6ejAS7

Beatriz Baptista

Este livro para mim foi uma montanha russa de emoções. Adoro o ambiente mas a história é caótica. O autor parece ser muito fixe, faz comentários sobre a situação política e o mundo em geral muito interessantes, gostava de marcar um ou dois cafés (call me Milan) mas o plot em si para mim foi uma seca. I’m sorry dear.

Tania Santos Ferro

Me gustó la historia, es variada e intensa. Kundera tiene este estilo peculiar que es difícil de superar. Debo decir, también, que personalmente me causó grandes conflictos internos la relación de Teresa y Tomás.

Safiya 

Un véritable kitsch, je me souviens l'avoir vu entre les mains d'une amie. Je ne l'ai pas particulièrement aimé, si ce n'est qu'un témoignage nihiliste tout de même esquivé pour sortir le plus du moins !

Arden Kowalski

Many people have criticized this book for being 'too philosophical and pretentious,' a common theme in the reviews and comments I found with a few quick searches. Apparently, my main hobby now is to seek out what other people call unbearable and enjoy it for being ostentatious. (The pun is intentional, your groan probably wasn't.) On the whole, I'm very grateful to my friend Joyce for recommending this and to Milan Kundera for writing it. It's a well-written, wonderful book with some great things to say on the human condition. 

The best thing about this book by far is its prose. Kundera is such a talented author, and I find myself with dozens of lines highlighted upon completion. There's a lot of philosophy and reflection in this book, but the way it's communicated to the readers never fails to be engaging. I particularly loved 'happiness is the longing for repetition' and the lengthy descriptions of Prague. This book felt very rooted in its locations, making the setting essential to the story, which is always such a nice aspect for a book to have. 

I'm also enthusiastic about unlikeable characters—so I did enjoy Tomas' perspective, and Tereza's. But by far my favourite character was Sabina, because I felt that she was the most compelling and relatable for me personally. If I had one major wish for this book, it would be that Kundera had spent more time on her story. However, I found every character in this book well-developed (even the dog!) and that made it a read of immense caliber.

Given my effusive praise, you may be wondering why I've chosen to give this four stars instead of five. There are two reasons, the first being that there are a couple of sexual scenes in this book that made me uncomfortable. Now, they're not exactly gratuitous because they do tell us something about the characters involved, but it's just not for me. The second reason is that the pacing of this book was a bit bothersome without having any real justification, it takes a while to get going with no apparent purpose. These are my small concerns which dock the rating a bit.

On the whole, I really did enjoy Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being, and I'm tempted to check out more of the author's work in the future. A worthy use of time and energy, all things considered.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

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