Identity

by Milan Kundera

There are situations in which we fail for a moment to recognize the person we are with, in which the identity of the other is erased while we simultaneously doubt our own. This also happens with couples--indeed, above all with couples, because lovers fear more than anything else "losing sight" of that loved one.

With stunning artfulness in expanding and playing variations on the meaningful moment, Milan Kundera has made this situation--and the vague sense of panic it inspires--the very fabric of his novel. Here brevity goes hand in hand with intensity, and a moment of bewilderment marks the start of a labyrinthine journey during which the reader repeatedly crosses the border between the real and the unreal, between what occurs in the world outside, and what the mind creates in its solitude.

Of all contemporary writers, only Kundera can transform such a hidden and disconcerting perception into the material for a novel, one of his finest, most painful, and most enlightening. Which, surprisingly, turns out to be a love story.

Genres: Fiction, Novels, Czech Literature, Literature, Classics, Philosophy, France

176 pages, Paperback

First published October 29, 1997

About the author

Milan Kundera (1 April 1929 – 11 July 2023) was a Czech and French novelist. He went into exile in France in 1975, acquiring citizenship in 1981. His Czechoslovak citizenship was revoked in 1979, but he was granted Czech citizenship in 2019.

Kundera wrote in Czech and French. He revises the French translations of all his books; people therefore consider these original works as not translations. He is best known for his novels, including The Joke (1967), The Book of Laughter and Forgetting (1979), and The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984), all of which exhibit his extreme though often comical skepticism.

Reviews

[Angelica Mitrovic Chikri]

Forstod meget lidt. Noget med identitet. De to hovedpersoner skal lige tage sig sammen👎🏼

[Ane Nielsen]

Første bog i lang tid som jeg bare har slugt. Hele handlingen blev til levende billeder i mit hoved … gad godt se den filmatiseret.

[Mharen]

Kunne være endt meget bedre

[Linus]

Legen med virkelighed og drøm bliver lidt klodset, eller måske jeg bare havde håbet på lidt magisk realisme.