Laughable Loves

Laughable Loves

3.83 of 5 stars 3.83  ·  rating details  ·  8,029 ratings  ·  275 reviews
Milan Kundera is a master of graceful illusion and illuminating surprise. In one of these stories a young man and his girlfriend pretend that she is a stranger he picked up on the road--only to become strangers to each other in reality as their game proceeds. In another a teacher fakes piety in order to seduce a devout girl, then jilts her and yearns for God. In yet anothe...more
Paperback, 287 pages
Published August 21st 2000 by Faber and Faber (first published 1968)
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The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan KunderaThe Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan KunderaImmortality by Milan KunderaThe Joke by Milan KunderaIgnorance by Milan Kundera
Best Fiction of Milan Kundera
7th out of 12 books — 61 voters
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. ThompsonThe Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar WildeTravels with Charley by John SteinbeckThe Prince by Niccolò MachiavelliLeaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
Jeff Buckley's Bookshelf
24th out of 158 books — 24 voters


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ميّ  أحمد


تذكرت عنوانا لفيلم نحن لا نكذب ولكننا نتجمل !
وهكذا فيم يبدو
كلنا نكذب بشكل أو بآخر
ولكل منا أسبابه وأسراره هناك من يفعلها لتحسين صورته وهناك من يفعلها
لمجرد العادة ليصبح الواقع مزيجا ساخرا ما بين الحقيقة والمظاهر الزائفة
عن هذا وعن الوحدة الشيخوخة ، الرفض والخضوع كتب كونديرا سبعة قصص تدور في مجملها ما بين حب الذات وحب الآخر ، الإنجذاب وبلا شك الجنس

وفي الوقت الذي يدعوك هذا الكتاب أن تبتسم بسبب أسلوبه المدهش والساخر إلى شخصياته المستفزة إلا إنه يدفعك للتأمل لأنه خاض عميقا في تغير المواقف الإنسانية...more
علی
I like Kundra because he doesn’t imprison me in a fastened frame of a classic narration. Reading Kundra seems as if you meet an old friend after ages in a cafe shop, and while she/he relates her / his life story, you zip your coffee, listen to the cafe music, hear some chats and laughs at nabouring tables, look at the peddlers at side walk, or a passing tramvay, … as life is flowing around, ….

کوندرا را به این دلیل بسیار دوست دارم که مرا در چهارچوب بسته ی یک روایت زندانی نمی کند. خواندن کونرا مث...more
Ben
Short stories from Milan Kundera, author of The Unbearable Lightness of Being. These stories are fiction, of course, with the subject matter typically dealing with romance, sex, and relationships. It's an easy, enjoyable read, but there's a genius to it, in that the stories contain so many lessons, that if they weren't fictionalized, the book could appropriately be labeled self-help, philosophy, or psychology. (Most of the stories contain some combination of the three.) In this sense, Kundera re...more
Keith
Jul 04, 2007 Keith rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Anyone
I think the short story is the perfect vehicle for Milan Kundera. Writing a tight, focused narrative is definitely not one of his strengths as a writer, and these stories aren't long enough to get the reader perturbed by that. Also, he can't get overly preachy within the confines of a 40-page short story.

Kundera's main strength, of course, lies in his investigation of psychology through male/female relationships, and then drawing sobering life philosophies fron said relationships. The short stor...more
Másoome
"اغلب آرزو می کرد مثل بیشتر زنهای دور و برش درباره ی تن خود احساس رهایی و آزادی بکند.حتا روش
مخصوصی برای متقاعد کردن خود درست کرده بود:پی در پی به خودش می گفت که هر موجود انسانی ،موقع تولد یکی از میلیونها بدن موجود نصیبش می شود،مثل آنکه از میلیونها اتاق هتلی عظیم،اتاقی بخصوص را بگیرد.در نتیجه در این بدن چیزی اتفاقی و غیر شخصی،چیزی حاضر و آماده و عاریه ای است.این نتیجه گیری را به صورتهای مختلف برای خودش تکرار می کرد،اما هرگز نتوانست واقعن احساس آزادی و راحتی بکند.دوگانگی ذهن-جسم برایش مفهوم آشنا
...more
mehri
Feb 25, 2007 mehri added it
Shelves: ivereaden
how can somebody be so clever to create stories from things we don't think would deserve to be a story!
Nawel
Risibles amours???

Certes vous allez rire, mais ce n'est pas de la farce, c'est plutôt un rire grinçant que promet Kundera!


Conçu dans un contexte de guerre froide, ce recueil de 7 nouvelles (Personne ne va rire, La Pomme d’or de l’éternel désir, Le Jeu de l’auto-stop, Le Colloque, Que les vieux morts cèdent la place aux jeunes morts, Le Docteur Havel vingt ans plus tard, et Edouard et Dieu) est considéré comme le point de départ de l’écriture romanesque de Milan Kundera.


Dans cette « œuvre de jeu...more
maitr+margarita
«Αν ήμασταν υπεύθυνοι μόνο για όσα συνειδητοποιούμε, οι ηλίθιοι θα απαλλάσσονταν προκαταβολικά από κάθε ευθύνη. Ο άνθρωπος είναι υπεύθυνος για την άγνοιά του. Η άγνοια αποτελεί παράπτωμα…»
«ΚΩΜΙΚΟΙ ΕΡΩΤΕΣ – Το συμπόσιο» http://maitrandmargarita.wordpress.co...

«Έχω πάει με πιο άσχημες, πιο μεγάλες και πιο προκλητικές γυναίκες. Άρα θα έλεγε κανείς πως τελικά θα πάω αναγκαστικά και μ’ αυτήν. Έτσι θα έλεγαν όλοι οι στατιστικολόγοι. Το ίδιο συμπέρασμα θα έβγαζαν και όλοι οι ηλεκτρονικοί υπολογιστές. Κ...more
Leon

Milan Kundera is a master of graceful illusion and illuminating surprise. In one of these stories a young man and his girlfriend pretend that she is a stranger he picked up on the road--only to become strangers to each other in reality as their game proceeds. In another a teacher fakes piety in order to seduce a devout girl, then jilts her and yearns for God. In yet another girls wait in bars, on beaches, and on station platforms for the same lover, a middle-aged Don Juan who has gone home to h

...more
Lana Drown
Es un libro divertidillo y entretenido que consta de siete historias independientes relacionadas con el amor y el sexo. Lo que realmente me ha llamado la atención de este libro no son los relatos en sí, sino la manera de contarlos: El autor se centra mucho en explicar, de forma amena y sencilla, los pensamientos del personaje, y cómo una sucesión de ideas le lleva a comportarse de una determinada forma o a cambiar de actitud repentinamente. Algunas veces esos comportamientos son más realistas, y...more
Rlk Kapitan
Kundera writes with an elastic quality that moves the work like a snapping waistband. I appreciate quite heartily the oddity of structure in “Symposium” and how it becomes successful at capturing a reader in spite of/because of this. Plus, with sentences as sublime as “Through the air floated only important words, and Flajsman said to himself that love has but one measure, and that is death. At the end of true love is death, and only the love that ends in death is love.” Or this: “However much h...more
Lisbeth Erika
This book is amusing--in the very dark and twisted sense of the word. A black comedy when it comes to the relationship of lovers, the unhappily married, or those singles who are on that endless search. It is the irony, the insecurity, and the yearning of in love. Or of not in love. Laughable Loves pens the delusions that we hold dear in love and takes you on a bipolar ride through the heads of protagonists who don't know up from down.

Milan Kundera has always pleased me with his random inserts o...more
Kebrit !!!
آموزگار خندید«اما در این موضوع تناقض وجود دارد.»ادواردگفت «قضیه را همان طور که هست برایتان تعریف کردم.خیلی خوب می دانم که اعتقاد به خداوند مارا از واقعیت دور می کند. اگر همه مردم معتقد بشوند که دنیا در دست های خداوند است سوسیالیسم به کجا خواهد رسید؟هیچکس هیچ کاری نخواهد کرد و همه به خدا توکل خواهند کرد.»خانم مدیر موافقت کرد«درست همینطور است.»آموزگار عینکی گفت«تا حالا هیچکس ثابت نکرده که خدا وجود دارد.» ادوارد ادامه داد«تاریخ بشر از ماقبل تاریخ با ایت حقیقت برجستگی پیدا می کند که مردم سرنوشت خود...more
El
My cover has a naked blue chick on the front.




So, I actually finished this book about two days ago. I never came to write a review. There's no good reason for my delay. I had time to sit and reflect; I had time to sit and write, but I sort of just shut down about the whole thing.

Kundera managed to leave me a little cold here. Maybe it's the weather, all the snow and wind and stuff, all of which I normally love. Our dog likes to roll around on her back in the snow. I like that too. This stuff is l...more
Emily
When I read "The Unbeareable Lightness of the Being" when I was, like, sixteen, I knew that was one of the books I'd never forget in live. I haven't. And with this "Laughable Loves" I found at a thrift book market in the street, I'm even more convinced now that Kundera is a master of storytelling and one of my favourite authors ever.

These stories are all fun (so much fun, for some great disasters are looked at with black humor whichs makes you want to enjoy life even though it's tragic, or maybe...more
michellé .c
Given to me as a gift from a friend of mine, I really found myself lost in the short stories in this book; lost only to wander and marvel at my findings of love and eroticism's role in shaping a person in between the lines of Kundera's work.

It is infinitely interesting to observe how some of the characters found their true selves through a web of lies spurred by the idea of fulfilling their initial sexual needs; how through fornication are realisations of oneself made; how erred a couple's judg...more
Fernanda
Este libro es una recopilación de historias amorosas de lo más ridículas, como lo dice su título. Cada una de las historias está embellecida por la ironía y el sarcasmo tan esencial en cada novela de Kundera que he leído .
En un par de los cuentos he podido denotar ideas que han sido ejecutadas con una mayor soltura y extensión en novelas como "La broma" y sin duda he disfrutado cada una de ellas, algunas más que otras, pero aún así todas reciben una parte del crédito.

Posiblemente la que más me h...more
Sophia
This book was suggested to me by a coworker and honestly I was a little weary because the first be he suggested turned out to be unsuccessful. I took him at his word and it held up.

Laughable Loves is a book of short stories. Laughable? yes, but with a heavy overlay of darkness. The characters lack within themselves a moral compass; not due to any apparent fault of their own, but simply as an outcome of their environment or more so their government. Communism, although not directly mentioned, sh...more
Eunike Gloria
"The sadness was form, the happiness content. Happiness filled the space of sadness"
Salah satu frase menarik dari Kundera di buku ini. Menurut saya konsep "sad" dan "happiness" menjadi topik penting.
Beberapa halaman berikutnya Kundera juga mengatakan
"In this unity there was happiness but it is not far from happiness to suspicion,"

Kumpulan ceritanya menjabarkan keindahan hidup dan cinta yang terkadang diremehkan (laughable) tapi terkadang juga dipandang terlalu serius.
Plot cerita yang twisted...more
Chelsea Ursaner
I read Unbearable Lightness a few years ago and absolutely loved it, might even call it my favorite book. So my first instinct when I finished was to read another Milan Kundera but when I was looking through reviews online the general consensus seemed to be that his writing style gets too repetitive and the second book you read will not seem nearly as good as the first book, regardless of which.

So I took a loong break and now here I am, in between college and my first job and at a reflective ti...more
Elemillia Ucselub
This book is definitely a quick read yet very thought-provoking. It sort of makes you confront things you might otherwise think about, as well. He very much takes something, a topic, and expands on it very eloquently. What he does with the topics in the book really makes it a real emotional experience. If you have read The Unbearable Lightness of Being, like me, or any other book by Milan Kundera you really have to read this one.

Milan Kundera is fairly good at writing about emotional entanglemen...more
Amir
به نوعی میشه گفت وجه مشترک چهار داستان این کتاب روی این مساله میچرخه که چطور یه شوخی میتونه تبدیل به یه موضوع جدی بشه. چیزی که هیچ کدوم از طرفین انتظار تبعات اون رو ندارن
.
Michiyo 'jia' Fujiwara
Apa jadinya kalau Milan Kundera, Alice Munro, Gabriel Garcia Marquez dan Naoya Shigo.. kumpul jadi satu? yaa jadinya kisah-kisah cinta ganjil..

kisah pembuka diawali dengan kisah seorang pemuda yang pada awalnya naksir dan bertujuan tunggal mendapatkan gadis cantik tapi alim.. Alice. Kisah ini menjadi rumit, serumit sebuah pertanyaan yang diucapkan oleh Alice: Percayakah kau kepada Tuhan? Edward nama pemuda itu, dengan latar belakangnya adalah untuk mendapatkan gadis itu bagaimanapun akibatnya n...more
ZeYnAb
به نظر من عنوان کتاب مناسب نبود عنوانی مانند در هزارتوی عشق یا لایه های پنهان یا یک چیز دیگر خیلی مناسب تر بود
Eszter
well, though i'm currently not quite winning at the game of love, it's some consolation to know that the rest of the human race is losing right along with me. and isn't that just hilarious??

Elena Salazar
Extraordinaria forma de contar historias absurdas en las relaciones humanas, casi hilarante, pero que de una u otra manera ocurren y pueden estar marcadas por el entorno y la ideología entre otras cosas. Es una visión bastante interesante sobre el comportamiento del ser humano y la forma de reaccionar ante los acontecimientos del día a día, la cadena de sucesos y consecuencias que generan a su paso estas reacciones. Quien en algún momento no ha estado en una situación complicada y que al tratar...more
muhammad lafi
أشك ان أحدا فينا - هذا الجنس المتنطع بالنبالة- لم يجد ذكورته تفضح امام عينيه بهذه الفجاجة حتى ليحمدن حمدا كثيرا أنه يقرأ بصوت منخفض ثم لينقلب بعد ذلك مطلقا ضحكة مكتومة على ألاعيبه التي ظنها محكمة.. هل كنت بمثل هذه السذاجة يا إلهي!
لا فرق بين عربي وعجمي في الجنس وحفر الخنادق إليه بإزميل الكذب، بل وأبعد ما في الكذب لأجل تلك الرغبة المشبوبة إلى الجسد، حتى لو استدعى الأمر تغيير الدين وتزييف المعتقد والمغامرة بالمستقبل
لكن، ألسن تلك الساحرات الخبيثات هن من يردن ذلك! إذلالنا معشر الحيوانات الشهوانية الم...more
Sheena
Little white lies turn into existential crises, and hefty debates arise between knowledge and truth: It's Kundera. As one of his earlier works, Laughable Loves is more simple and honest than others that I've read, and therefore extremely subtle its nuances. It's not as beautiful as his later writing, but there's beauty in that.

Kundera is a master at pointing out the flaws in intimate relationships that nobody ever cares to mention: the love of impossible imperfections, the desire to cheat (and t...more
Dave
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
Alextheurer
All about relationships. The pain, the absurdity, the funniness of the pain.
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Laughable Loves (Paperback)
عشق های خنده دار  (Paperback)
Amori ridicoli (Paperback)
عشق های خنده دار
Risibles Amours (Mass Market Paperback)

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Milan Kundera is a Czech and French writer of Czech origin who has lived in exile in France since 1975, where he became a naturalized citizen in 1981. He is best known as the author of The Unbearable Lightness of Being, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, and The Joke.

Kundera has written in both Czech and French. He revises the French translations of all his books; these therefore are not conside...more
More about Milan Kundera...
The Unbearable Lightness of Being The Book of Laughter and Forgetting Immortality The Joke Identity

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“Yes, it's a well-known fact about you: you're like death, you take everything.” 147 people liked it
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