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The Unbearable Lightness of Being
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The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera (Group Fiction Read April 2017)
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Shirley
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Apr 01, 2017 04:25AM
Here's where we can discuss this!
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One of my all-time favorites!
One of the most famous and quoted book titles in the world, but also unfinished book in the history of literature. I know that the phrase "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" is Kundera's own, but to understand it we actually have too start with Friedrich Nietzsche and the idea of "eternal return" https://www.thoughtco.com/nietzsches-... ... I'm anxious to do this social reading ...
This will be my first reading. I hope to start today.
I'm having trouble finding a copy at the library, but I'll join if I can get one in time :)
Shirley wrote: "Here's where we can discuss this!"Mine too!! I hope everyone reading it enjoys it as much as both Alice and I did, though I suspect it is not going to be everyone's cup of tea. I will be following along once the discussion begins.
I read this before, but I ended up hating parts of it, while liking others.
The author is very very offensive to me in that he so obviously objectifies women in this book. He has ridiculous backwards stupid old-fashioned assumptions of what women are like. To me, his women characters are caricatures, not characters. I feel insulted especially every time Tereza is on stage. She is not just pathetic, she is unrealistically stupid in every way.I absolutely despise Tomas because he is a machismo ass. (view spoiler)
Absolutely none of these characters behave like any person I have ever met in the real world.
I understand the body is a big obsessive-compulsive disorder all of these people have, but (view spoiler)
Mod
aPriL does feral sometimes wrote: "The author is very very offensive to me in that he so obviously objectifies women in this book. He has ridiculous backwards stupid old-fashioned assumptions of what women are like. To me, his women..."I in part agree with what you say ... I hope we'll discuss of these points on this kind of social reading ...
I would love to join this group read! One of my favorite movies, and this will be my first time reading it. Meant to just take a peek today and had to make myself stop--can tell I'm going to love it.Finding Tomas offensive is completely understandable, but personally I love the psychological and philosophical explorations. I appreciate the Nietzsche link, Antonio!
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aPriL does feral sometimes
(last edited Apr 04, 2017 08:38PM)
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rated it 1 star
I enjoyed the philosophical discussions, but to me they often were entirely divorced from the scene which inspired the rumination.For example: (view spoiler)
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what a book! I just love it!
5/5 It evoked a whole range of emotions in me, from hating to loving to sympathising with Tomas and Tereza.
I've been to Prague before but now I wish I could visit the city once more and maybe this time my experience would be completely different.
As the book quotes, Einmal ist keinmal.
What you say about the range of emotions, Neha, is so true for me too! I'm loving this book, but ... I'd love to hear what others think about the narrative voice.I have seen the movie many times, and love it. In the movie, you don't have Kundera stepping in and discussing philosophy and explaining the characters' actions. I love the philosophy, so I'm really enjoying that. But I'm finding the way he explains the characters' actions off-putting.
In the movie, I found all the characters sympathetic. In the book, (view spoiler)
I hope that makes sense. I'm curious how others are reacting to this!
aPriL does feral sometimes wrote: "I really liked the dog.A link to my review (spoilers)
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show..."
I felt very much the same as you (but I didn't give it nearly so many stars...)
I just finished the Classics read and am now jumping over to this one. Anybody else still reading?
David wrote: "I just finished the Classics read and am now jumping over to this one. Anybody else still reading?"I am. I'm about halfway through. I haven't seen the movie, and am enjoying the narrative voice so far. I have seen other reviews where people disliked it, but I like the easy, conversational feel to it. I just passed a rather shocking development, but don't have enough info to even figure out what happened at this point. I hope to finish it this weekend.
I finished yesterday and have to say, despite being put off at parts, as a whole it was amazing and I just loved it. I agree with your point about the conversational feel, Cindy. He certainly keeps you thinking!
David wrote: "I just finished the Classics read and am now jumping over to this one. Anybody else still reading?"I'm about 2/3 in, and hoping to finish in the next week or so.
message 24:
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aPriL does feral sometimes
(last edited Apr 20, 2017 01:57PM)
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rated it 1 star
I am re-reading the novel. I still think the book completely sucks. In fact, the first time I read it I gave it four stars because of the translator's erudition and some of the philosophical asides of the author often struck me as wise. However, in my re-read, I am even more appalled by the blatant overt sexist crap (both literal and implied). I simply cannot fathom how any woman can tolerate the absolute hatred this author feels towards women. Additionally, while some of the early philosophical asides amazed me into thoughtfulness, eventually, as I read on, the rest seem like complete purposeful garbage. Whether the author intentionally is leading intellectuals into revealing themselves as pseudo-intellectuals by feeding into their vanity by including philosophical garbage, or if Eastern European males who were in their prime in the 1960's really thought like this I don't know. I have read other Eastern intellectuals materials and books, or English writers who were influenced by this kind of philosophical musing, and Kundera certainly has captured the mindset whether he was being satirical or for real. Personally, I find many of these entire philosophical conversations ridiculous beyond belief. Kundera has selected those philosophical conversations which are most nonsensical to my mind in this book.
Since I have not read any other Kundera books, it is currently impossible for me to judge if he seriously thinks about whether lightness or heaviness of living life is determined by the hypothetical ability to re-live our singular life and being able to choose what path - marry or not, move to a new country or not, get a male dog or a female dog - over and over in a singular circular loop, or not. How he defines heaviness and lightness in the first place does not appear to stay rigid anyway, as the areas he defines as light or heavy appear fluid to me and do not match up. One - linear or circular reality makes life heavy or light. The emotion of love is heavy, no, its light. In any case, my reaction is, whaaaaaa?
The case the philosopher makes is the linear path of history makes our lives meaningless, but re-living it in a circular repetition, like the movie 'Groundhog Day' makes it meaningful. If we are living in a linear straight line of time once and only once, what we choose at each intersection is meaningless because we can choose only once? What about the accomplishments of Einstein? What about Steve Jobs' forceful marketing of Apple products, especially the cellphone? What about Franklin Roosevelt speeding up America's forward pace of modernization? As far as our ordinary lives, like the fictional Tomas' or Tereza's, the mistake Tomas made to move to Czechoslovakia, and I think it was a mistake, is heavy because he loved Tereza, but meaningless because he can choose only once? Or the author hopes, or maybe he is satirizing this, Tomas can choose again when his life starts over again, maybe the same choice or maybe not?
I am going back to my review and choosing to change my review to one star.
Oh scathing! You've actually made me more interested in reading it now. Your comments make it sound like something I won't like, not just your criticisms, but what it's actually about. It seems like a book people either love or hate.
Pink wrote: "Oh scathing! You've actually made me more interested in reading it now. Your comments make it sound like something I won't like, not just your criticisms, but what it's actually about. It seems lik..."I actually am glad more people 'choose' to read this. Perhaps that turns more of us to the 'heavy' side of being, though, which by Kundera's musings, could be a bad thing. I don't know.
Anyway.
I want to see this book discussed, REALLY discussed, which is why I am glad you will read it Pink. I want to understand what and if I am missing something, because I am probably doing so. People who love it, on GR and elsewhere, NEVER go into detail why they love it. I am willing to be stupid. I am not kidding.
The author hates Communism, and maybe he is saying people think philosophically with their genitals and bladder and anus, thus explaining our general a**hole behavior and mental fallacies about love and politics; however, he obviously sees women as a bane on Humanity, destroying the happiness of (male) society, almost as equally evil as Communism. At least, that is what I see in this book. I don't care if people who love it think my opinion is just plain dumb. I would like more people to read it and tell me something besides "oh, I love it...." and then silence.
Well, I'm going to have to wait a while longer yet. I have 8 library books ready for collection, but still not this one...
Okay, I’d be happy to give some specifics why I liked the book. But I don’t really like debating whether a book is good or bad. My opinion is just my own personal reaction, and I’m not interested in defending any book I like. To me, my reaction to fiction doesn’t have to be logical. I like Lolita. I obviously don’t admire Humbert Humbert. I fall for Rochester when reading Jane Eyre. Wouldn’t go near him in real life. That’s just me. I totally respect people who feel different.
I liked this book because I enjoy being exposed to a new way of thinking, like Kundera’s heavy/light ideas. I’m not drinking the Kool-Aid, I just like thinking about them. I also liked it because there is something unique in the relationship of Tomas and Tereza that you don’t often see explored in fictional relationships. I think it is the falling into compassion that Kundera discusses. And one idea he brings up that I am 100% on board with is that a person can love a dog in a way more than they love the people in their lives, and I was interested in his reasons why this might be.
I will be starting this today. Now that I see here such polar opposite reactions to it, I am a bit nervous... Fingers crossed that I am in the 'love it' camp rather than the 'hate it' one!
Kathleen, I certainly agree with you that liking a book, or having an emotional reaction doesn't mean that you have to like the characters, or the author. Sometimes it's hard to pinpoint exactly why certain books work for us and why others don't, so thanks for explaining a bit more what you enjoyed about this one. Good luck Leslie!
message 31:
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aPriL does feral sometimes
(last edited Apr 21, 2017 12:41PM)
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rated it 1 star
The dog is the only character I loved, too. : )I think a number of people believe the 'Romance' angle is the main joy of the book. (view spoiler)Literary Modernism and Post-Modernism plots usually turn romances into major jokes or use romance as if the lovers are developing a horrific cancer which destroys their lives. Not always though.
Also, every love-making scene in the book seems to turn into a narcissistic philosophical debate of how the characters feel awful, demeaned debased and demoralized, apprehensive about the future or they each individually suddenly realize they have misread their past which was much worse than they realized before, or simply how love has made them pathetic to the world at large and especially to their loved object(view spoiler).
I also love books which I could not explain. My list of five-star novels on GR includes books other people have justifiably given only one star - and I agree with them. I simply really like it though.I have noticed though, such books often get other bus riders, who I don't know, to suddenly smile and say, "oh, I LOVED that!" I think those of us who stubbornly enjoy some panned book, and carry it around, have met a few new friends on buses or subways!
Pink, I'm happy to explain--thanks for understanding!And April, I can tell you understand too. I agree with what you're saying about the love-making scenes. I tried to comment on that above, but you explain it well. Even more than the (view spoiler) Definitely strange. But like you say, I simply really liked the book as a whole. :-)
I thought the book was good, not great. I liked the historical aspect of the time, place, and the political events surrounding the story. I didn't like the characters so much but I found them interesting. I gave it 4 stars. My review is linked.www.goodreads.com/review/show/1743414586
I thought the story was quite enjoyable (albeit sexist) but didn't appreciate all the philosophical interludes so only gave it 2 stars. My full review can be found at:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
message 36:
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aPriL does feral sometimes
(last edited Apr 23, 2017 05:28PM)
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rated it 1 star
Below is an example of the UTTER nonsense about Romance and Love which caused me to guffaw:"The only explanation I can suggest is that for Franz, love was not an extension of public life but its antithesis. It meant a longing to put himself at the mercy of his partner....for Franz, love meant the constant expectation of a blow...While Franz attended to his anguish [he was freaking over his mistress preferring Geneva over Palermo, suspecting she hated him], his mistress put down her brush and went into the next room." And so on. Page 83.
Franz (along with every character in the book) has a number of illogical and completely outside the mental and feeling experience of every person I have ever shared confidences with about relationships, whether good or bad, as well as constantly making amazing leaps of conclusions and judgement based on completely unrelated surmises and feelings, which are insane, but are apparently correct when the other characters confirm they felt exactly like everyone else guessed. It is as if everyone shares the same Bizarro Universe introduced in Superman comics of the 1960's, where all logic is turned inside out and upside down to us, but is perfectly clear to the Bizarro land people.
Even the dog thinks like a person who is an alien non-human being divorced from the physics and real life of life on earth, and perhaps this universe, but at least the dog IS non-human. "In Prague, when Tomas and Tereza bought a new chair or moved a flower pot, Karenin would look on in displeasure. It disturbed his sense of time." WHAT in frick is that supposed to mean? page 74. Moving furniture affects his sense of time? This is like saying, I enjoy eating ice cream, which obviously means I like the color green, and I intend to drop a paintbrush in the bathtub tomorrow.
This is the kind of bizarre interior examination and ruminations which caused me to give the book one star. The author uses his women and men characters to connect schizophrenically ideas that have absolutely no linking ligaments that I can see in their thinking when in love or making love or on the toilet or naked or working; except in this world of the novel everybody does share the disassociated linkage.
Some people think this stuff is deep, which is why some museums in the past displayed such things (I am inventing my own example to avoid issues with anyone's favorite artwork, but my pretend example is similar to real life displays I have seen) as a box of pee with a piece of long wood standing in it, and titled Progeneration - which, perhaps, an Arts journalist goes wild speaking how it moved him beyond tears as it is SO true to the human experience of time and loss.
I have seen such art works and read 1960's European books before with such disjointed leaps of thought with a complete lack of connective tissue, or anything to do with my emotional experience, and I used to feel I must be an ignoramus. Maybe I am. But whether that is true or not, this book certainly appears to be the same kind of Art. Is the author being serious, or is this novel completely satirical?
I'm mentally casting the whole book as a Kids in the Hall sketch.Tomas is Dave Foley
Teresa is Kevin Macdonald
Sabine is Bruce Mccolloch
Franz is Scott Thompson
Haven't decided where to put Mark McKinney yet.
Phil wrote: "I'm mentally casting the whole book as a Kids in the Hall sketch.Tomas is Dave Foley
Teresa is Kevin Macdonald
Sabine is Bruce Mccolloch
Franz is Scott Thompson
Haven't decided where to put Mark ..."
Well, obviously Karenin! ; )
I read this years ago for a book club and was the only one who even tolerated the book (it was okay for me - I recall finding the ideas interesting but overall a bit boring and sexist) and was one of I think only two people who even finished the book. One thing that struck me is that it would have been an interesting discussion if only anyone had wanted to finish it.
message 40:
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aPriL does feral sometimes
(last edited Apr 24, 2017 01:48PM)
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rated it 1 star
I finished it because I was trying to see why admirers adore it. There are certain books which are so obviously: 1. an author's secret joke on intellectuals; 2. or a satirical blast against certain intellectual or philosophical ideas ; 3. or completely misunderstood, such as the song by Bruce Springsteen's 'Born in America' (a liberal protest song often mistaken for a pure politically conservative patriot song).
(A book which fits the bill of most misunderstood, maybe, was On the Road. When I first read it as a young adult, it was enthusiastically embraced by college boys who after finishing it were booking flights to Mexico in order to hire teenage Mexican prostitutes and to be free to use drugs and alcohol without being hastled by authorities. They believed it a manifesto for sexual freedom and uninhibited substance abuse. When I finally read it, it was clear Jack Kerouac was actually saying how living the life of drug and alcohol abuse destroyed men, women, and children. He died at age 47.)
From what I have been able to suss out by people who have finished 'Being' and willing to explain or able to explain, many readers find the Romance of Tereza and Tomas heartrending and epic. To me, it is obviously the most satiric relationship invented by the author for the book.
Many of the philosophical discussions or asides ARE cool in my opinion, but others are completely alien to any actual human experience or thinking that I know of, but commonly included in other certain novels written by primarily Eastern European intellectual or academic authors, or by French or German or South American authors of the late 19th century or early 20th century who wrote Modernist or post-Modernist fiction.
I am a 'wilder', self-taught in Literature. I have been able to crack the mysteries of some intelligentsia favorites, but not 'The Unbearable Lightness of Being'. To me, it seems a scathing indictment of all forms of Romance - both political and personal relationships- a satirical novel virulently angry at how romantic notions lead people down paths which end up in complete destruction - politically and emotionally. It is as if the author is really saying "A pox on all forms of romanticism and romantics!"
However, the author also appears to irrationally and seriously blame women for arousing his own and generally-speaking, male sex drives, leading his male characters helplessly into poor political decisions, because women are so tragically brain-dead and driven by irrationality and primitive Edenic natures.
So, in this book, men cannot resist political Romantism or female body odors and beauty, making of men slaves to their higher brainier biological imperatives, thus leading to their destruction; and women are like dogs, slaves to their basic biological imperatives, obliviously and unthinkingly leading men to their self-destruction like Judas goats.
So, I hate this book.
April, I am about 1/4 of the way through and I am beginning to wonder if we are talking about the same book. I will grant you that the characters are not very appealing. Tomas is more of a dog than Karenin is. I see him as a character trying to cope with an irrational world without the tools he needs. An educated man, Tomas nonetheless allows his lizard brain to control his actions in general and his relationships with women in particular. Tomas is in love with Tereza yet carrying on liaisons with dozens of other women: is it any wonder that he is desperately unhappy?I see Tereza as a woman driven by forces she cannot see. She was unhappy before she met Tomas but she is even less happy now. She feels her life spinning out of control and she feels weak and helpless.
And most of this takes place in a country that is being crushed under the heel of the Russian boot. Perhaps this book is about the absurdity of the situation, where nobody is happy and no one can control his or her own life?
What I do not see is the misogyny that you see. I don't see the author as hating women as you do.
David wrote: "April, I am about 1/4 of the way through and I am beginning to wonder if we are talking about the same book. I will grant you that the characters are not very appealing. Tomas is more of a dog than..."When you finish the book, you will have a clearer view of the characters and of the author's feelings of what he thinks women are like and act like, as well as the author's angst over Communism.
His Ivory Tower philosophies weigh the story down in my opinion, particularly since many of them are completely divorced in thought from what real people think or from the fictional situations that are in the book, although smart and on-target as some of them are. The author's sexual obsessions will become more visibly upfront, particularly his obsession with the anuses of women. I know what 'golden showers' are, but does anyone know the term for pooping pleasuring?
The author is sometimes witty and sometimes bitterly satiric, and I guess on target in observing the inner intellectual life of some early 20th-Century overly-scholarly European and South American men, and perhaps of some men today who still remain in such bastions of Ivory Tower isolation which continue to exist (from what I have observed, still to be found in some American East Coast institutions and foundations which proclaim themselves the confidential advisors to Presidents and business leaders on matters pertaining to foreign affairs), confident of their intellectual world view based on 19th-century thought and class structures .
Much of the author's reveals of his male characters' inner life reminds me of other books written by other academic and intellectual men of the 1960's and the 1970's, many of whom wrote in the styles required of academic Modernism and Post-Modernism. It looks to me like all of these men studied the same philosophies from the same 19th-century philosophers in the same halls of academia - and unfortunately see women in the same class prism.
Mostly, you will get an eyeful of an older-style intellectual male perspective.
As a woman myself of 60+ years, having lived in three West Coast cities, having married and changed careers, I have seen NO adult women who act like Tereza (I have seen such girls like Tereza in middle school, immature and naive, still feeling fond about old dolls they can't quite put away, imagining who their husbands will be, boy crazy, hoping 24/7 for a romantic 'true love' or a handsome knight in armor who will 'rescue'/serve/worship them, and yes, many of us at age 12-17 are obsessed with our own face and body and appearance and clothes, overly concerned with minor physical flaws - but almost NEVER are grown women still this focused entirely on matters most juvenile girls admittedly put front and center.
For most maturing or mature women, such upfront obsessive narcissistic single-interest and intense body concerns the author believes we adult women think about 24/7 because he believes we are frightened of not getting a man or are fearful 24/7 we will lose the man we got is not true. Tereza's obsessive 'female' fussing over breasts, buttocks, and groin smells 24/7, with concurrent interest in other women's breasts, buttocks and groin smells 24/7 are actually not something grown women do either. Grown women actually think sometimes about more important issues, and often develop a multi-dimensional inner and professional life. Women even care about politics on occasion, and they can actually feel they might be better off without a man in charge, especially if they have decided to learn something educational from a job or school. Women have always created numerous social roles for themselves within the confined boundaries allowed them by societies. Tereza is one-dimensional and single-minded as no women, or girl for the matter, I have ever known.
However, I have read plenty of 1960-ish spy and detective and military fantasies written by male authors, some with reputations for actual hunting and military darring-do and adventure life, or those who are wannabes, some of whose biographies are full of sexual conquests and/or multiple marriages to models, some not, but they are full of Tereza characters who are usually Madonnas, as well as the more whorish Sabinas.
Yes, no wonder the character Tomas is desperately unhappy - his world of women is full of sexual frenzy, even if they are women he can't find the gumption to turn away. Gee whiz. All of those women catering to his every whim and fetish once they force themselves on him (his only power 'being' in his ritual demand that they 'STRIP' for him NOW - have you come to that part of his ritual with his women?) , sex coming at him day and night - poor guy. So wearing.
The women in this book seem more like a male fantasy of women than like realistic women to me. That 'Strip!' command of Tomas to all of 'his' women is definitely demeaning and demoralizing, a dog-training command for 'his' females to enforce their place at the bottom of Tomas's hierarchy of power and control.
And yet, being told to strip turns those women on. These folks are all a bit different. I will take your advice, April, and wait until I have read a bit further, but I suspect that my thinking that we are not discussing the same book will not change much.
I've been enjoying this book and thinking of Tomas as a pretty likable guy, but I think I'm hitting the part April has been talking about and holy cow! I now think Tomas is either a) deeply disturbed or b) a complete ass. I haven't finished the book yet, so the jury is still out on which one it is. I mean, there's being a player, and then there's Tomas. (view spoiler) Okay, rant over!
I am now just over 1/2 way through and I find that there is a lot to like. Unfortunately, i don't know anything about Milan Kundera although I think I will try to correct that in the coming weeks. I am surprised that no one here has mentioned the Existentialists and Jean Paul Sartre in particular. I was much younger when I read "The Age of Reason," but there are parts of this book that could almost be references.
I see a lot of this book as being about how people react to absurd or irrational situations.
A bit of background about myself. Between my freshman and sophomore years I worked in a psychiatric ward in Florida. I had to confront irrationality in various forms every day. While I was marking time in that hospital job, Gulf of Tonkin happened and we waded ever deeper into the morass that was Vietnam. I went back to college and was amazed by how absurd that environment seemed given the year I had spent working in the psych ward. Eventually, I graduated and got sucked into the war as an Infantry Platoon Leader in the 101st Airborne. I discovered there that I had a lot to learn about irrationality and absurdity. I can tell you that the things we did, said and thought there seem absolutely crazy to me now.
But when I got back to the world, it was impossible to just take up my old life and move on. The things I had experienced in the Army made the life I was sopposed to lead seem equally absurd.
Consider, please, that these are damaged people trying to cope with an insane world where things only make sense in terms of the "New reality." There are Russian tanks in the street an spies and secret police everywhere.
And, a footnote of sorts: my wife spent her working life trying to help people who exist at the margins of society. This morning, I said to her "Just because I have never known someone who behaved in a certain way doesn't mean that nobody ever has," and my wife emphatically agreed.I have asked her to read this book when I am done: while I consider myself a bit more evolved than most of the men I know, I still need a woman's perspective to understand whether a male author's description of female thoughts and attitudes is sexist or not.
I don't believe a male author's description of female thoughts and attitudes is sexist. Some authors, including female authors, depict characters in a non sexist or sexist way. Now, some might be sexist unintentionally, but it is really up to the reader to interpret that.This is one of my favorite books due to the lyrical writing and ideas and the triangle was fascinating to me. I never watched the movie so I cannot compare the two.
A man gave me this book to read and would read passages with me and I didn't find Kundera sexist although the character of Tomas could be considered as depicted as such. This introduced me to my love of Kundera and an exposure to international writers. Of that I am most appreciative.
Heather, I tried to watch the movie on video tape (so you know that was awhile ago) and my memory was that after 15 minutes of not seeing anybody in clothes, I got bored and turned it off.I agree with you about the writing, Heather. It is spare and minimalist, but it is lyrical. I think that it is interesting that we sometimes get descriptions of flowers, trees or buildings, but we don't really know what Tomas and Tereza look like until halfway through the book.
David wrote: "It is spare and minimalist, but it is lyrical. I think that it is interesting that we sometimes get descriptions of flowers, trees or buildings, but we don't really know what Tomas and Tereza look like until halfway through the book ..."I really like your points, David. What you said above about how certain situations force us into dealing with absurdity is so interesting. I read Kundera's The Festival of Insignificance, which I didn't like nearly as much as this one but it was very much along the lines of what you're talking about.
And I agree that this is lyrical. I love it when an author describes a different side than what we'd expect, as the example you give. If nothing else, it just makes you see things in a little bit different way, which is always fun.
aPriL does feral sometimes wrote: [insert lots of things here]"April, I love reading your comments on this thread and others. I admire your ability to dislike a book while still engaging the people who like it. I often find myself in the position of hating a book in a way that excludes me from the conversation, when I'm actually trying to participate.
I disagree on McKinney as Karenin. I think Scott should be double-cast as Franz and Karenin, and McKinney could be Tomas' son.
Also, I think you sell middle school girls a little short. Many of them are more self-realized than Teresa.
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