The Unbearable Lightness of Being in Classics Without All the Class

Jun 06, 2019 Avisek Bandyopadhyay rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: overhyped, duh

2019 has been a strange kind, rather a disappointing year in my tryst with books. I had read my fair share of books but there's none that really captured my attention. In my search for something as memorable as Shadow of the wind, I ended up staring at this book.

Well, they say, What's in a name but the book had me with its name. A vibe resonated around the book. And then there were the glowing reviews. I picked it up.

Well, now that I have completed it, I have very mixed feelings. Let me state a 2019 has been a strange kind, rather a disappointing year in my tryst with books. I had read my fair share of books but there's none that really captured my attention. In my search for something as memorable as Shadow of the wind, I ended up staring at this book.

Well, they say, What's in a name but the book had me with its name. A vibe resonated around the book. And then there were the glowing reviews. I picked it up.

Well, now that I have completed it, I have very mixed feelings. Let me state at the outset that this is a philosophical discourse veiled through a story. The story is really simple.

Tomas, a serial womaniser meets a naive, innocent woman, Teresa, through a series of fortuitous events. Fortuitous is a word that runs as a motif throughout the novel. I digress. So, Teresa believes that her relationship with Tomas stands on a single pillar, her fidelity. And Tomas believes his heart is exclusive to Teresa while his libido should be spread around the woman folks. So, he sleeps with anyone and everyone including his favourite mistress, Sabina. And, oh, there's also a dog, Karenin, who is a dummy for Tomas in the eyes of Teresa.
Franz, a lecturer and a victim of a loveless and sexless marriage, is also in love with Sabina who herself is a fiercely independent woman and discretion is her aphrodisiac of choice while any legit relationship is a turn-off. The story runs fluid intertwining these four lives and tangling and separating their footprints.

The author, Milan Kundera, has a very interesting approach to the structuring and pacing of the novel. As I started it, the first 10 pages or so were like fast winds, no, it was more like a tornado. No character establishment, no introduction, no conversation, half the storyline was told in the first 10 pages. In the first half an hour, I wondered aloud, wow, what will the author talk about in the entire novel? He didn't peel even the first layer of the onion.

Then, as I sat down in intense expectation that the next set of pages will bring about something similarly breezy, the author slacked off the pace. Slacked off the pace so much, that a dream was recounted in 4 pages. Every word spoken in the first 10 pages were explained in great length. Even hand-holding of Teresa & Tomas while sleeping got a backstory as did Teresa's moanings while having sex. And every backstory had dollops of musings from the author - sometimes philosophical, sometimes not-so-philosophical.

I was intrigued with the structuring as I said. So, I read on. At around the middle of the book, the climax was revealed in a very curt paragraph. I didn't believe that was the climax and so, I kept my hopes high. But, on further reading, yes, that was the climax scene. Isn't it wonderful? That again, after I know how the story ends, I read the contours on how the story drifted that way. As is evident, I had already lost interest in the plot and well, for me, the story will always be the boss.

But, there were some interesting sections also. Milan Kundera does ponder on certain relevant points, raises the most trivial of issues and soul-searches trying to find meaning in the most automated of actions. Sometimes it makes sense, and I actually wondered aloud, wow, this guy has really thought about life and observed humans. Otherwise, it seemed like he needed this novel to jot down all the creepy and abstruse thoughts he must have had. Believe me, he describes a latrine pan as a water lily in the bathroom. And then, there are six-seven pages of description of what Kitsch means.

To confess, I rushed through the last few pages. It made no point. I already knew how the threads get tied. Another novel in the long-growing disappointing list of this year. ...more

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