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The Book of Laughter and Forgetting

4.0 of 5 stars 4.00 · rating details · 17,244 ratings · 705 reviews

Rich in its stories, characters, and imaginative range, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting is the novel that brought Milan Kundera his first big international success in the late 1970s. Like all his work, it is valuable for far more than its historical implications. In seven wonderfully integrated parts, different aspects of human existence are magnified and reduced, reor...more

Paperback, 312 pages

Published 1996 by Faber and Faber (first published January 1st 1978)

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If on a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino

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Mar 13, 2013 Jenn(ifer) rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: own, mmxiii, read-in-2013, you-should-read-this

“He was well aware that of the two or three thousand times he had made love (how many times had he made love in his life?) only two or three were really essential and unforgettable. The rest were mere echoes, imitations, repetitions, or reminiscences.”

Ah, the endlessly quotable Kundera. I had to hold myself back from updating my status every other page; there were just so many perfectly composed sentences I wanted to share with you, goodreaders. Sometimes that’s all it takes to win me over, a st...more

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Aug 11, 2007 Martha rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

Ask any Kundera fan which book of his is their favorite, and the answer will inevitably be the first book of his that they read. His unique writing style comes as a revelation at first, but unfortunately can grow irritating the more books of his one reads. "The Book of Laughter and Forgetting" is the first one I read, and it holds a special place in my reading history as the one book that I instantly began re-reading as soon as I finished it. If you haven't read Kundera, I would recommend this o...more

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Apr 04, 2012 Whitaker rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: contemporary-fiction, 2012-read, multiple-countries

What is a novel? Or perhaps that question should be, what is a novel for you? Is it a story? Does it have to have a dramatic arc? That’s pretty much what most of us think of when we think of novels. The story could be wholly plot-driven like The Da Vinci Code. It could be character-driven (e.g., Sense and Sensibility). Or it could simply an account of someone’s day (Mrs Dalloway). It could be written as straight-forward narrative (e.g., Madam Bovary) or play with form and structure (e.g., Ulysse...more What is a novel? Or perhaps that question should be, what is a novel for you? Is it a story? Does it have to have a dramatic arc? That’s pretty much what most of us think of when we think of novels. The story could be wholly plot-driven like The Da Vinci Code. It could be character-driven (e.g., Sense and Sensibility). Or it could simply an account of someone’s day (Mrs Dalloway). It could be written as straight-forward narrative (e.g., Madam Bovary) or play with form and structure (e.g., Ulysses); be realistic (e.g., Middlemarch) or be fantastical (e.g., The Famished Road). At its base, however, there is a story.

On the other hand, we could, however, say that what these works do is to try to explore the human condition or aspects of the human condition through the medium of made-up characters. So, how do you explore the life of a person who believes quite literally in magic and monsters? You write The Famished Road where what the Cartesian-trained mind thinks of as reality is shunted aside. How do you explore the interior life of a person and not just what she does and what happens to her? You write Mrs Dalloway.

How do you explore what it’s like to live through the erasure of your country’s culture, to live in a void where what gives meaning and ballast to your soul is being forgotten, where the young eagerly embrace the weighty and weightless oblivion of meaningless slogans and drivel? You write The Unbearable Lightness of Being. You write The Book of Laughter and Forgetting.

There are ostensibly seven short stories here: a man looks for his first lover to get her to return the love letters he wrote to her; a ménage-à-trois with mother in the house; a widow trying to recall her late husband and her life with him; the same widow living with a group of children; a man trying to sleep with another man’s wife; two school girls reading Ionesco’s Rhinoceroses; a man during the last few weeks before he leaves his homeland. And this omits the digressions into history, music, language, philosophy, and other such forays that intersperse and interrupt these stories.

But to describe the novel thus is to belittle and betray it. These are not seven separate stories but a single description of a singular situation. Kundera speaks of his works as novelistic counterpoint. You could, theoretically, listen to each part of Pachabel’s Canon alone, treat them as separate musical works. It would not, however, be Pachabel’s Canon. Likewise with the separate and distinct stories of The Book of Laughter and Forgetting: individually they are not this novel. Collectively, they are something other than themselves.
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Nov 06, 2012 Farhan Khalid rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorite

"This book is a novel in the form of variations. The various parts follow each other like the various stages of a voyage leading into the interior of a thought, interior of a single, unique situation".

"The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting."

"Historical events mostly imitate one another without any talent."

"They wanted to compel him to cast his life away and become a shadow, a man without a past, an actor without a role..."

"When he looks back nowadays, he...more

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Jun 25, 2007 Daniel rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The first time an angel heard the devil’s laughter, he was dumbfounded. That happened at a feast in a crowded room, where the devil’s laughter, which is terribly contagious, spread from one person to another. The angel clearly understood that such laughter was directed against God and against the dignity of His works. He knew that he must react swiftly somehow, but felt weak and defenseless. Unable to come up with anything of his own, he aped adversary. Opening his mouth, he emitted broken, spas...more

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May 30, 2012 Mahmoud Taher rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

كتاب مجنون لكاتب مجنون يدخلك إلى عوالم غريبة مرة تراه مهتما بالتفاصيل إلى درجة الغوص فى الأعماق البشرية ومرة ترى حديثه عاما إلى درجة تشعرك بنوع من الحكمة والبصيرة تتجلى فى وصف كونديرا الرائع لبعض الأحداث التاريخية والسياسية والتى جاءت فى سياق روايته.
عندما تقرأ هذا الكتاب تشعر بأنك لا تريد أن تتوقف عن قراءته و أحيانا تتركه ولا تستطيع أن تنظر حتى إلى غلافه،مرهق جدا و ربما تكون تلك ميزته ففى كثير من الأوقات كنت تفقد الترابط الذى يميز الرواية كقالب أدبى فربما تقرأ فصلا فى اخر الرواية ثم ترجع لأولها...more كتاب مجنون لكاتب مجنون يدخلك إلى عوالم غريبة مرة تراه مهتما بالتفاصيل إلى درجة الغوص فى الأعماق البشرية ومرة ترى حديثه عاما إلى درجة تشعرك بنوع من الحكمة والبصيرة تتجلى فى وصف كونديرا الرائع لبعض الأحداث التاريخية والسياسية والتى جاءت فى سياق روايته.
عندما تقرأ هذا الكتاب تشعر بأنك لا تريد أن تتوقف عن قراءته و أحيانا تتركه ولا تستطيع أن تنظر حتى إلى غلافه،مرهق جدا و ربما تكون تلك ميزته ففى كثير من الأوقات كنت تفقد الترابط الذى يميز الرواية كقالب أدبى فربما تقرأ فصلا فى اخر الرواية ثم ترجع لأولها بدون أن تشعر باختلال ما.

بعض أقوال كونديرا التى أحببتها من داخل روايته
"أساس النسك هو الغلو.فإذا شاء الناسك بلوغ المنتهى ،منتهى الإهانة ومنتهى اللذة تعين عليه ألا يخشى السخافة"
"تقوم كل علاقة غرامية على اتفاق غير مدون يبرمه العاشقان فى الأسابيع الأولى من علاقتهما . يعيشان فى هذه الفترة فى ما يشبه الحلم،لكنهما فى الان نفسه-وبدون وعى منهما-يكونان بصدد كتابة الشروط التفصيلية للعقد الذى سيجمعهما .يا معشر العشاق خذوا حذركم فى هذه الفترة الخطرة فإذا قدمتم للطرف الاخر وجبة الفطور فى الفراش ، كان عليكم أن تفعلوا ذلك مدى الحياة وإلا أتهمتم بعدم الحب والخيانة "

"أن تضحك معناه أن تعيش بعمق
"

كما تفعل كل الأحزاب السياسية وكما تفعل كل الشعوب و إجمالا كما يفعل الأنسان جميعهم يعلنون الرغبة فى صنع غد أفضل ،لكن الأمر غير صحيح،لأن المستقبل ليس سوى فراغ مهمل لا يهم أحدا مقابل الماضى المفعم بالحياة"

"حياة الأنسان بين بنى جنسه ليست سوى معركة للاستحواذ على اذان الاخرين"
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Sep 04, 2011 محمود أغيورلي rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

مقتطفات من رواية الضحك والنسيان للكاتب ميلان كونديرا
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صراع الانسان ضد السلطة هو بالدرجة الاولى صراع الذاكرة ضد النسيان
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في الحقيقة كلمة مثقف تعادل في الرطانة السياسية المتداولة شتيمة خالصة .. إذ تعني الكلمة رجلاً لا يدرك كنه الحياة .. وكائنا منعزلاً عن الشعب
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المستقبل لا يعدو كونه فراغاً لا مبالياً ولا يهم احداً .. في حين ان الماضي لا يلبث نابضاً بالحياة .. ووجهه يغيظ ويدعو للثورة .. ويجرح أيضاً بحيث نرغب في تدميره أو اعادة طليه .. ولئن نحن رغبنا في ان نكون اسياد المست...more

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Jun 06, 2011 Giuseppe rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: activists, poets, philosophers, the high minded, sociologists

Kundera again fascinates with his matter of fact, take it like it is, humorous and utterly intellectual writing style propped up, again, by the historical event that must have rattled his life experience the most: the Prague Spring Revolution of 1968. I love this book. It is thought provoking, humorous and at times arousingly-erotic. These facts fail to impede the authors ability to carry a dead serious undercurrent important to the overall experience he seeks to share in this narrative. Kundera...more

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Dec 16, 2012 Robert Stewart rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I'm either the victim of a terrible translation, or robbed of my igorance about the supposed brilliance of Milan Kundera's writing. Based on his reputation and the endorsement of many well-read friends, I knew I would get around to reading him one day. Well, this Harper Perennial Classics edition is rife with typesetting errors (whole paragraphs appear twice, and sometimes not consecutively, which is maddening), typos are all over the place, and I'm pretty sure this Aaron Ahser translation is th...more

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May 27, 2009 Mike rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

As Paul Newman says at the end of 'The Color of Money,' "I'm back!!"

After finishing the stupid semester, I needed a break and this book is such a breezy book to read that upon picking it up by chance and flipping through it, I couldn't put it down. (I read this book a long time ago and enjoyed it very much, going on to read many of his other books.) So it's still pretty good and many of his insights into writing still hold and were quite prescient: namely, his idea that most people write just t...more

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May 23, 2008 Dusty Myers rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A novel written as theme-and-variations, in line with the musical genre. In seven parts, Kundera (as a very present, questioning narrator) posits various relationships among Czechs in the time of their country's ongoing fragility and strife. These relationships are often sexual, usually orgyistic. Sex is treated as a kind of performance of personal freedom and connectivity amid such national decay, even though in the end it never brings people fully together. Likewise, Kundera's seven parts don'...more

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Dec 07, 2007 Saxon rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: school

Our existence is constantly marred by the uncontrollable action of forgetting. Memory is fragile and constantly at risk of being changed, altered or questioned. Memory is also subjective and the details of our past that we retain are often coupled with our emotions; thus forgetting can sometimes be voluntary. However, the loss of our memory will always relentlessly plague our minds without our control and affect us, others and the world in a variety of different ways.
It is these varying degrees...more

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Nora Dillonovich I enjoyed this book as well... it's been some time since I thought of it. I also like reading about memory- from the interior workings of our mysterio...more
Dec 09, 2007 10:57am

Sep 17, 2007 liz rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: international, literary

More of a collection of short stories than a novel, all focusing on the experience of Czechs who left after the revolution. One of the most fascinating things I've found about Kundera is the portrayals of infidelity in his work (that I've read). On the one hand, he places enormous value on love, and the connection lovers feel. On the other hand, he exhibits very few limitations on that connection within the context of romantic relationships. Infidelity is portrayed almost as the logical outcome...more

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Aug 26, 2007 Eric added it · review of another edition

Shelves: peteredout

I don't get it. Why all the hype? I found the characters and their situations absolutely uncompelling. I felt like I was reading a movie treatment, a sketch for a scenario. Flat, jejune. And aside from the opening image of the borrowed hat and it's disgraced, airbrushed-out lender, I found very little that was striking or poetic in the prose itself. I'm a huge fan of Kundera's non-fiction (especially Testaments Betrayed, a lyrically erudite book, with an elucidating defense of Kafka from Brod-is...more

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May 12, 2013 Karl Loftis rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I read this book through twice. I hadn't read it since college and wanted to see how it weathered. It's still a wonderfully written and well thought out book. Basically the book is a selection of stories around a central theme.

I am going to post a long quote from the book:

“Let us define our terms. A woman who writes her lover four letters a day is not a graphomaniac, she is simply a woman in love. But my friend who xeroxes his love letters so he can publish them someday--my friend is a graphoman...more

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Apr 14, 2013 Inderjit Sanghera rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Although I enjoyed 'The Unbearable Lightness of Being' I think 'The Book of Laughter and Forgetting' is a forgettable novel, bloated with page upon page of elephantine platitudes, banal sex scenes and forgettable characters devoid of any personality beyond the misanthropy which surrounds them; Kundera's characters function as mannequins for him to wrap his disconsolate opinions on, 'The Book of Laughter and Forgetting' attempt so be a kind of daring expostulation of the human condition but turns...more

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Mar 06, 2013 Elizabeth rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Perhaps more of a 3.5... But, in Kundera's technique there's much to be admired. Often when the structure of a book strikes my fancy, I find I can hear the gears grinding ever so softly. Not here, narrative floats from thought to thought unimpeded. In fact, the book merits a second read just to better understand the shape taken by the thematic variations and their connective tissue.

The meditations on forgetfulness and the devilishness of laughter are interesting, but I didn't feel the book went...more

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Jan 12, 2013 Shubhendu Trivedi rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

As with most others of Milan Kundera's books, while leafing through "The Book of Laughter and Forgetting" one is invariably nudged to reconsider the question - What is really a novel? Does it have to be one story? Or could it be a collection of loosely connected beads that somehow beautifully string together after all are read in a non-obvious way to make one point?

Somewhere in the fifth (out of seven) chapter Kundera introduces a poet named Lermontov and makes the following observation: "... Le...more As with most others of Milan Kundera's books, while leafing through "The Book of Laughter and Forgetting" one is invariably nudged to reconsider the question - What is really a novel? Does it have to be one story? Or could it be a collection of loosely connected beads that somehow beautifully string together after all are read in a non-obvious way to make one point?

Somewhere in the fifth (out of seven) chapter Kundera introduces a poet named Lermontov and makes the following observation: "... Lermontov once read Pascal's pensée about subtle minds and geometric minds and ever since had divided the human race into two categories: Those who are subtle and all others". I can imagine that this book would be greater appreciated by the former in Pascal's classification.

The book deals with a few recurring motifs: Oblivion and its associated torment, the idea of "litost", absurdity and meaning and the supposed "boundary" between them which when crossed converts one into another. Each theme is elaborated in a separate chapter. Each chapter in turn is subdivided into parts that are sometimes unrelated to each other but illuminate different sub-motifs of each motif and thus finer angles of the iridescent whole. It is thus a "book in variations". The "variations" are not just around the main theme but also in "scale" with delicious analogies to emphasize how the same idea applies not just to individuals but also to societies: For example the book starts with the story of the communist Klement Gottwald and a famous photo of his with Clementis during the Czech coup of 1948, who puts a hat on Gottwald to protect him from the cold. After Clementis falls out of favour with the government and is executed, he is removed from all official versions of the picture and all that remains of him in the photo is his hat on Gottwald - a reminder of what once was. This is an instance of forced social amnesia (another sub-motif in the book), which is distinct from "natural social amnesia" that that is induced by a barrage of historical events that force supposedly important events (at the time they happened) into oblivion from public memory. In a chapter "Lost Letters", the protagonist Mirek, aims to rewrite his past just like the communists did with the picture for hopes of a more peaceful future (but like the hat in the altered picture that serves as a constant reminder of what happened, he too keeps catching glimpses of his past because of random events). The amnesia induced by events that supersede each other is contrasted with the character of Tamina (which in many ways, as noted by Kundera, emobides both the story of and the audience for the book) who is numbed by the remorse associated with the memories of her husbands death. However, a chance encounter with a man smitten by her erases some of the memories she holds dearly to. This erasure induces the feeling of guilt that she could not no longer recollect how her dead husband looked like, which in turn also fades into oblivion by an encounter with a group of children; the mutability of memories. He also contrasts Tamina's lingering sadness that appears to have form but no content with the memory of his own father who while knowing everything could not communicate anything, having lost the ability to speak as he died - appearing to reduce everything to an bungled undifferentiated whole. Another major recurring motif is of meaning and the "border" that once crossed renders something that one could give their life for on a platter completely meaningless and absurd and factors that might cause "crossing" of the border.

What runs through in common in each bead is Kundera's beautiful and easy writing style (he also has a habit of repeating sentences and sometimes complete paragraphs), his sharp sense of humour and eroticism running through his stories. I can understand that this might make some people uncomfortable with his writings. There were infact a few stories in the book that I found strange but I married them with the fact that Kundera wants to emphasize absurdity in those sections. He makes many observations related to these themes that most of us might have thought about at some point in time when we experienced some similar pain, but which are incredibly hard to communicate. Reading them made me think how similar all of us really are. (less)

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Dec 14, 2012 Andrew rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Milan Kundera’s The Book of Laughter and Forgetting is a 300-page masterpiece that unites historical, philosophical, psychological, fictional, and autobiographical elements. Divided into seven parts, this book illustrates various stories that are beautifully interrelated through similar themes and moods.

Situated in Czechoslovakia, Kundera’s novel develops unique characters and plotlines that inform readers of the countries various take-overs, while simultaneously expressing numerous philosophica...more

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Oct 17, 2012 Gary rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The narrator spins stories in seven sections that are all variations on several themes while commenting and dissecting his characters. He maintains a voice that is deceptively light and the first time I read this strange book, I missed some of its subtleties; the author ranges from muted anger, sarcasm, great sadness, and a strange sense of humor. Although it is in a specific historical context of Czechoslovakia's painful years of oppression, this book speaks to all of us about alienation, hypoc...more

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Jul 12, 2012 Punit Soni rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Czech writers have a certain sense of impending doom about them. They write with a sense of fatalism as if viewing life like a mildly amusing charade. This book is a collection of short stories, all woven in common themes of laughter and forgetting. The ones about laughter are tragic and the ones about forgetting are even more tragic. Having said that, there is sense of pathos which runs through the humorous bits of this book too. Certain situations are almost like a forgotten clown in a small t...more

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Jun 05, 2012 Shari rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A professor told me that putting Kundera on an undergraduate syllabus guaranteed about a 25 percent increase in course registration.

S-E-X.

I first read Kundera when I was about 18 or so, and was absolutely besotted. Kundera, Kundera, Kundera. Had to read a lot of what he had written, including "The Art Of The Novel." (He followed not long after my Camus phase, I believe.)

I returned to Kundera in my late 20's .... and thought, "Oh my God. What on earth did I see in this stuff. Garbage." I turned m...more A professor told me that putting Kundera on an undergraduate syllabus guaranteed about a 25 percent increase in course registration.

S-E-X.

I first read Kundera when I was about 18 or so, and was absolutely besotted. Kundera, Kundera, Kundera. Had to read a lot of what he had written, including "The Art Of The Novel." (He followed not long after my Camus phase, I believe.)

I returned to Kundera in my late 20's .... and thought, "Oh my God. What on earth did I see in this stuff. Garbage." I turned my nose up and walked away, completely satisfied with my growing sophistication.

I had to reread a few works for a graduate class, after this, and saw much more subtly, irony, and poetry that I had judged in my second assessment. I was, in fact, wrong the second time around, my first readings being far more visceral and spot on if less analytic and informed in their untrained instincts. A good lesson, buried there.

There's an unmistakable musicality and lyricism to Kundera's writing that I appreciate, and he also relies heavily on music in his structural devices. Kundera's a well-known Janacek snob, overseeing and editing Janacek's use in film production of "The Unbearable Lightness of Being." There are only a handful of conductors that he thinks interpret Janacek well; I'm inclined to agree. Kundera's got a magnificent ear, and it translates in his writings. I also appreciate his appropriation of Nietzsche; his philosophical moves coupled to the musicality of writings allow for a fluid and imaginative text, rich in both lyricism and aphorisms (Nietzsche, too, loved the aphorism).

Once you realize, also, that sex isn't just sex, but there are political, metaphorical dimensions that Kundera's playing with, he assumes a gravitas that may seem lacking, for many readers.

Several images that he's presented in his works are indelibly etched my memory, as are the cadences of some of his paragraphs: if a writer can make their way into your being with that intensity, there's something to be deeply honored, if not revered.

p.s. I find it interesting that I wrote a review, more or less, of Kundera's oeuvre, here. As readers of Kundera recognize, his works don't really exist as isolated "children." Rather, there are themes and meta themes in his work, and its fair to assert that his oeuvre is a work that is being revised at a specific point in time, rather than a singular work among works. Just an aside. (less)

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Jan 25, 2012 Anthony rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This may be my favorite Kundera. When I was reading this in June of 2007 and carrying the book around with me at a bar with a friend I was approached by a woman who asked me if that was in fact The Book of Laughter and Forgetting I was reading because she had read that book 15 years prior and could still remember the following passage:

"…every love relationship is based on unwritten conventions rashly agreed upon by the lovers during the first weeks of their love. On the one hand, they are living...more

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Dec 23, 2011 Sarah Anne rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book combines a lot of things together in a lucid dream-like way:
1) physical pleasure, sex, eroticism and the psychology/memory/perception thereof
2) western philosophy, concepts of judeo-christian religion, famous poets and writers like Geothe
3) the socialist/communist politics of eastern europe
4) death, and what it is
5) and most obviously the themes of laughter and forgetting - what they mean on both large and small scales throughout individuals and society
6) social acceptability, "crossin...more

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Nov 21, 2011 Maggie rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 1001-books, fiction

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. There are seven parts to this book, each related to some common themes but, apart from a few exceptions, entirely unrelated to each other in terms of content. Why seven parts? Kundera himself states in the sixth chapter, "This book is a novel in the form of variations. The various parts follow each other like the various stages of a voyage leading into the interior of a theme, the interior of a thought, the interior of a single, unique situation, the understanding of which recedes from my sight...more There are seven parts to this book, each related to some common themes but, apart from a few exceptions, entirely unrelated to each other in terms of content. Why seven parts? Kundera himself states in the sixth chapter, "This book is a novel in the form of variations. The various parts follow each other like the various stages of a voyage leading into the interior of a theme, the interior of a thought, the interior of a single, unique situation, the understanding of which recedes from my sight into the distance."

On principle, I liked the idea very much. However, finding out what exactly Kundera was saying about those themes or thoughts was much harder to see. At times, it was hard to figure out what the theme was in the first place. Upon much reflection, I came up with this:

First part, Lost Letters: Mirek, an anti-Communist in Bohemia, struggles to forget his long ago affair with ugly Zdena, mirroring his countrymen's struggle to overturn the Communist regime that they established in their youths.
Second part, Mama: Marketa and Karel reconcile with Karel's mother while quietly struggling in their marriage. They eventually have sex with Eva, a mutual friend brought in to feed Karel's desire for sex.
Third part, The Angels: Laughter is used in different situations to mock, to joke or to express happiness. This is illustrated through Michelle and Gabrielle's assignment and Kundera's use of a horoscope to make fun of a Communist leader.
Fourth part, Lost Letters: Tamina, a Czech exile tries to obtain the letters between her and her deceased husband that she left in Czechoslovakia, but uncooperative friends and family members force her to give up. She refuses to return to Czechoslovakia herself as she feels betrayed.
Fifth part, Litost: A city student spends a night with great poets, then returns to the torment of an affair with a lowly country woman who refuses to open her legs for him. This takes place before the Communist era, and the narrator looks back with wistfulness at a time when poets and their trivial trials still existed.
Sixth part, The Angels: Tamina, abandoned on an island of children, forgets her time with her husbaand and its associated pain, but experiences new pain, showing that pain can be forgotten but not erased. Sex is reduced to an animalistic act.
Seventh part, The Border: A womanizer, Jan, finds more to life than sex. Uncontrollable laughter erupts twice to ruin serious moments.

At one point, the narrator says this is a book about Tamina, but I don't buy that. Tamina appears far too little for that. This is a book about Kundera. It is a book about his anguish at the Communist regime, and woven into it is the theme of forgetting, as the title reveals, but much less on laughter. It is a book about the darkness of human nature, with traits like self-centredness, torment, obsession with the past. It has lots of sex. It is supposedly fiction, but it is really a history lesson, a political diatribe and a philosophical discourse.

The only other Kundera I've read is his short story The Hitchhiking Game. That had lots of secrets and mind games, of Person A thinking something but not voicing it, Person B second guessing (whether correctly or otherwise) what Person A is thinking, and Person A second guessing what Person B is second guessing. This book has some of that as well, with many hidden motives and unspoken agreements. The characters all seem to over think each other, but that's likely because Kundera himself over thinks many things.
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Jun 25, 2011 Jen Estrella rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Loved this book! The title was slightly off putting to me, but mostly because it led me to believe the book was going to go in a different direction than it actually did. But once the book started, I was pleasantly... pleasantly surprised!

If you know me at all you know that I'm a sucker for emotional things. Books that are like a punch in the gut, the kind that reach out to basic archetypal emotions. You know... love, jealousy, pain, redemption, hope... faith, etc etc. Stories about relationship...more

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Apr 11, 2011 Susan rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I had to look at the cover at least twice to make sure it said "A Novel." Kundera's style is decidedly Eastern European and reminded me of many of the films I've seen from that part of the world in its bleakness and reference to emptiness in the human spirit and acts of political power. The narrative skips and hops from mostly short story 3rd person to fascinatingly-inserted 1st person and from one list of characters to another, making it seem more a collection of vignettes. But then I started r...more

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Nov 02, 2010 Michael Armijo rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This can be as DEEP a book as you decide to make it...

Seven stories that have some connection to each other in some various ways. This was an international bestseller which I did get something out of & I would recommend it. Depending on 'YOU' this book can be as DEEP as you want it to be. Each story gave me something different--here's the premise &/or what I got out of each: Story 1: Personal letters reveal secrets. Story 2: Exploratory love works for those willing to explore. A childhoo...more

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Mar 15, 2010 Daniel Virtue rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

31. The Book of Laughter and Forgetting = / +
by Milan Kundera
translated from french by Aaron Asher
If someone asked me what this book was about: I could not answer them. There were so many different characters, but the themes were the same. Stories about death and stories about forgetting (hence the title). The content was sex, and relationships. The character’s offered there interpretations of something and after that the author would tell you his. This is only the second book that I have read...more

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Dec 25, 2009 Ben rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Eroto-Borgesian seems the best genre by-line for this "novel": it requires an effort of reinvention to classify this book, seeing as the hero doesn't appear until page 109 (prefaced as a fictional fantasy). Nevertheless, Kundera manages to give a great deal of heart and soul to a highly deconstructed neo-intellectual pseudo-narrative. I'm not 100% sure how it happens... I think it has something to do with the essential simplicity of the text combined with his two prong attack of: 1) refusing to...more

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About Milan Kundera

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

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“Oh lovers! be careful in those dangerous first days! once you've brought breakfast in bed you'll have to bring it forever, unless you want to be accused of lovelessness and betrayal.” — 278 people liked it

“Living is being happy: seeing, hearing, touching, drinking, eating, urinating, defecating, diving into the water and gazing at the sky, laughing and crying.” — 182 people liked it

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