The Unbearable Lightness of Being   by Milan Kundera

August 2005     A Birthday gift from my loving Pamela.

This was quite a book: A novel, plus quite a bit of philosophizing. It wasn't immediately astounding. I'm still not sure if it was Astounding. But it was interesting. Greatly interesting. For me, the challenge of the first half of it was to understand what was going on. No, that's not true. It was a challenge to ... understand things. The writing style, for one. The descriptions, for another. And, the whole time, trying to see what is meant by the images, and scenes from the character's lives. They are so... deeply described? It's not with great attention to detail, but every detail that's in it, is precise. Each detail comes right from the depths of one of the character's souls. So... it was sort of a case of having all these characters revealed to me, in the most vibrant ways.

Because of that, I couldn't get a good grip on what the plot was. I also couldn't enjoy, or analyze the writing style. I was so taken up with paying attention to the details. Oh! And another thing: the philosophy. I've never studied philosophy, (at all,) so when some ideas of Neitzsche, or Parmenides were thrown in, to be part of the author's argument over human behavior, (and the philosophical rules which apply to it,) I was so absorbed it getting my mind around that idea, and it's implications, that I would loose track of everything else going on in the book. Yes, the philosophy took my attention as well in the beginning.

However, once I got into it, sometime around the middle, I got used to the philosophical passages, and I knew the characters, so I could pay attention to what was happening to the people, how they were reacting, (and why they were, the way they were,) and enjoy all the elements of this book at the same time. So, I discovered that I Did like the way it was written, and I DID like the philosophy, and the way it was incorporated, and I DID like the characters, their ways of dealing with problems, their growth, and their realizations. So, I found that I really DID like the book.

And now, I'm trying to decide If I'm going to go back, and read it right away, (now that I could have an understanding of everything that's being said at the beginning,) or to wait for a week or two. Ah... I can say now though, before re-reading it, that the ending was a bit strange: three-quarters of the way through, an old friend of the main character, is informed by that character's son, about the main character's death. Then, it jumps back to the story of the main character, when he was still alive, and with his wife. Then it goes on... and gets to a point where it speaks of the son, and how he got along in life, and describes how it affected him when his father died. Then we go back, to the main character Again, when he was still alive with his wife. Then the wife has a terrible dream, where they are going to die, and then they're in exactly the situation you know they'll be in, when they die...

But they don't die yet. When the book ENDS... they're still alive. So, we just know that at Some time later, they'll die in such-and-such a way. Has this made sense? If so, then you see how odd the ending was. If NOT... then you understand me too: it's a weird, confusing ending, isn't it?

And This leads to a quote in the book about love... which I wrote here, saw it was too long, and personal, and put into my Journal.

September 2005

Ah, Now I've reread it. And from the beginning, I was struck by how many things were missed the first time through. Many of them HAD to be missed the first time through though; There is one in particular, that is only understood when the whole book has been read.

The thrid most main character meets the main woman at one point, and they're doing a photoshoot. the main woman asks her to put on a bowler hat that's sitting there, and it's written that the third character "laughed quite a while about it." A page or so later, she explains that the hat belonged to her grandfather. And we think nothing more about the hat, or the mad laughter it caused her. Really. It was only half a sentence. But, when you've read the whole book, you know that this hat plays a role in her life, and that it's a recurrent theme, as seen in relationship with various people in her life. Only when you've read the whole book, can you read that sentence, and Understand why she laughs so hard. Only then, is it equally clear to the ready what an peculiar, ludicrous situation it would have been.

Right in the middle of chapter two, was a paragraph that caught my attention. It was dealing with the ideas of "Lightness" and "Heaviness" as ways of life. Lightness meaning nothing matters much, and all is easy going, heaviness means weighty decisions. It states that the absolute absence of burden causes a person to float up into the air, thereby becoming only half real, with movements as free as they are insignificant.

And this completely reminded me of one of the stories in Ursula LeGuin's Changing Planes. There, were some people in a society, which would grow wings and be able to fly. But when this happened, they would leave society... In other words, no longer be a person. It was quite exactly the same concept. (And I now greatly regret having given the LeGuin book to a friend as a wedding gift.)

Anyhow, I wanted to say that the second time through, this book filled my head with many more ideas, and left me thinking about it's meaning during the quiet moments of the day. (That is, during the quiet moments when I wasn't sitting in a corner reading the book.)

It was an interesting contrast between the so called light and heavy lives: One of the women's lives is followed up to an extent, and we see her becoming less and less... rooted. At the same time, the main couple ends up loosing every possible option, and become stuck, entirely, in their situation. And both lives have their difficulties, but it's shown that only the main couple feel that there is, after all, happiness in their lives.

That ties in with another thought I've had: that happiness comes more often to "poor" children. The same can be said for many "poor" people. No, though, I mean to say "Rural." Or Simple. The ones that don't have designer clothes, more than one pair of shoes, new bicycles, computer or video games, and so on. The people who live their lives with only the basics. It is exactly the lack of options which lets them enjoy what they have. A life with too many options would then leave one feeling that they probably didn't choose the best one. It fills life with worry over which option one should take. The shoe-maker in a small village, who got the position from his father, would be happier with it than a shoe-maker in the city, who thinks he could have done, (should have done,) so many other, better things with his life.

Hmm... all my other ideas and reflections about this book... are not developed enough to put into words. (I've tried starting twice now, but had to delete the paragraphs because they either went no where, or nearly contradicted them selves.) There are thoughts about repetition meaning importance. And repetition meaning happiness...

There is also the confusing bit where the main character, (whose life I thought was a slow but constant tendency towards "weight," seems to become lighter and lighter: He is forced to loose most of his importance in his job, and then he is forced out of his profession altogether. He looks at it as "a permanent vacation." Lightness and more lightness. Isn't it?

Well, I may at some point read it yet again, but not for a good long while. (Simply because I have too many other things to read still.) But YOU (who are reading this review,) should read it. Oh yes indeed. Do as I say, not as I do.