Finally, how should one face life? Should one consider Nietzsche's theory of the "eternal recurrence," according to which every second of the life we are living now we are condemned to live again and again and again throughout all eternity in exactly the same way, so that one should give weight and significance to every movement and every step of one's life since this will have an impact on the infinite? Or should one think that life is only one and thus, since it is the "real manifestation" and there is no time at all for repetitions, nor for corrections of our mistakes, to take it completely lightly and as a joke? This is the great dilemma that Kundera poses in this very, very important book. And he poses it through the stories of ordinary people who try to make sense of this incomprehensible thing called life. Philosophy, political existence, excellent character building that we have surely encountered one or many times in our lives, are just a few of the things that one will find in "The Unbearable Lightness of Being."

Surely, I don't have the right and enough words to express how significant this book is and how many things it has to make you think. Anyway, I will definitely put it on my list of books that make me feel a little better and a little wiser after finishing it.

It's an uncommon occurrence for me to encounter a title and instinctively label it as an oxymoron. Even rarer is the case where I continue to quietly contemplate the space existing between the two.

"Unbearable Lightness." How can lightness be unbearable? Isn't it heaviness that should be the one causing discomfort, as far as I know? But this oxymoron is further given a neighbor - "Being." And that thoroughly muddles up the equation for good.

What exactly is "Being"? Is it a floating mass of dissimilar silos, each absorbing and dispersing in surprisingly equal measure to stay afloat? Or is it a concrete structure of unified sketch without an exit, so that everything entering its surface always remains within, even if only in pale remnants? It's the curse of contemplation that draws a bridge between this airborne lightness and earthbound heaviness and allows a stream to flow beneath it. This stream, although palpable, remains an enigma in life's moonlit moments. We know the stream is running, but we don't know if it's flowing upstream or downstream. We know it has a temperature, but we don't know if a hand dipped in it would come out easy or numb. We know its flow can be moderated by erecting pragmatic wedges, but we don't know the location of the sturdy land underneath. Just the image of standing immobilized over the bridge, with the reflections of lightness and heaviness banks running through our eyes like a movie, can bear the print of many, many people, including the protagonists of this novel.

A whole lifetime of four intellectuals in the unstable Prague of the 1900s was spent in deciding which bank to advance to, although each "assumed" they had a specific bank in mind, supported by their distinctive weapons. The doctor in Tomas and the artist in Tereza embraced the heaviness of "Being" in their continued fidelity to each other, ironically supported by his sexual outings and her unwavering desolation. The artist in Sabina (Tomas' mistress) and the academic in Franz (Sabina's partner) responded to the lightness of "Being" in their effortless freeing of each other's emotions in favor of the adrenaline rush that uncertainty brings.

"On the surface, an intelligible lie; underneath, the unintelligible truth." As a spectator perched on Kundera's hill, I felt sheepishly sorry for the four as their assumptions faded under occasional showers of doubt, but they held on to their residual shades since habits are hard to abandon. Everything that cannot be fathomed or fought is labeled "es muss sein" (it must be).

A whole doctrine can be poured over as guidelines to wade this stream, caressing the surface with strokes of honesty, love, fidelity, and optimism, and violently pushing lie, betrayal, and cowardice behind. But it is far easier to mark the "surface" and "underneath" in a painting; it's nearly impossible in life. Who knows what thunderous flash might make either bank unattractive? Everyone who enters this cryptic stream is not necessarily looking to reach a bank; some simply grapple in the water, content with the thuds of moving waves of misgivings and contemplation that impart a certain momentum to their otherwise still lives. Sometimes, it's the chaos that rings in a lullaby, and no amount of Beethoven's notes can prove a worthy competitor.

I continued to look at these four figures that shrunk as the twilight ventured, and I was left with this somber feeling in my heart:

Questioning love, cuts it short a bit,
But questioning is a dogged human habit;
Limping in cowardice is in sour taste,
But often leisure's baton is flaming haste;
The clamor of new things reinstates the old,
And old remains just as difficult to behold;
Present lays quiet in dreams' hostage,
And dreams never reach a mature age;
Freedom binds and Binding frees,
But everyone leads a life on lease;
When cemeteries appear gardens and uncertainty, a song,
The heaviness of life takes lightness along.

The references to Nietzsche, Tolstoy, and Beethoven are tantalizingly well-placed. But the icing on the cake is the concept of 'kitsch'!

**The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera**

(Book 256 From 1001 Books) - Nesnesitelná lehkost bytí = L’insoutenable légèreté de l’être = The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera



The Unbearable Lightness of Being, a 1984 novel by Milan Kundera, is a captivating work that delves into the lives of two women, two men, a dog, and their experiences during the 1968 Prague Spring period of Czechoslovak history. The story explores profound themes such as the nature of existence, the weight of choices, and the significance of human relationships.



From the book, Kundera presents a thought-provoking perspective on the concept of burden and lightness. He writes, “The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to the earth, the more real and truthful they become. Conversely, the absolute absence of burden causes man to be lighter than air, to soar into heights, take leave of the earth and his earthly being, and become only half real, his movements as free as they are insignificant.” This passage highlights the complex dilemma of choosing between weight and lightness in life.



The novel has been translated into multiple languages and has received various titles, such as “بار هستی” and “کلاه کلمنتیس” in Persian. It has been published by different publishers with different specifications and has gone through several editions. Kundera's description of his characters adds another layer of depth to the story. He states that the fictional personalities he has created are his own unrealized possibilities, which is why he fears and loves them, as they have crossed a border that he has only skirted.



The Unbearable Lightness of Being continues to be a significant work of literature, captivating readers with its profound insights and engaging narrative.

ΚΟΥΝΤΕΡΑ ΣΕ ΑΓΑΠΑΩ





And I will love you from here and beyond, whether with the love that lies in the field of gravity or with the unrestrained lightness in the fluidity of the world.



You taught me simply and abundantly that whenever I can choose one of the two qualities: gravity - lightness.

This story that automatically passed into my eternal favorites is a hymn of doxology written on the thousands of musical scores of the world to love.
Deep within this unique writing are hidden undisclosed political, philosophical, musical, poetic, religious and historical tales.
It is a multidimensional work, an original written simple and understandable while dealing with theories, meanings, concepts and spiritual quests that torture and afflict human life from the dawn of the world.


Everything is so simple and so specific. It is enough to understand that nothing is repeated, that there will never be a second chance in our human journey of existence with the "first" destination being the earth.


"One can never know what one should want, because we have only one life and we can neither compare it with previous lives nor correct it in future lives.
Not being able to live more than one life is like not living at all."

"It is the random that makes such magic, not the necessary. For a love to be unforgettable, the random must meet it from the first moment."

Thus begins the love of Tomas and Tereza.
Tereza, a consciously sensitive waitress, loves possessively, gives great weight to the burden of her love and suffers from jealousy for the lovers who abound from the beginning in Tomas' life.

Tomas, a respected surgeon, leads an extremely erotic life towards all female existences, searching with surgical precision to find that something different that is hidden in the secret moments of the female soul. For Tomas, love and the sexual act are separate generative instincts. Separated, with a son who refuses to accept him into his life because a woman and a child would burden his unrestrained lightness. They would condemn him to the "shoulds" that he hates or not...


"Love begins with a transfer. In other words: Love begins from the moment a woman is registered with one of her notebooks in our poetic memory."

Among Tomas' lovers is Sabina. An artist who enjoys life without commitments and in the absolute lightness of it, she believes that without betrayal, existence has no meaning, it becomes hopelessly predictable. Thus, she refuses her great love, Franz, when he begins to burden her with exclusivity and chooses once again the quality of lightness.

Sabina travels a lot to escape from everything.
Tomas emphasizes his relationship with Tereza but the field of his life does not change. He always prefers lightness.

All this takes place a little before and after the "Prague Spring". The Soviet invasion of 1968 and the social and political changes leave no one untouched. The lives of our heroes are affected and connected with all the developments. The "yoke" of communism shakes consciences.

"In a society ruled by terror, declarations do not bind you to anything because they are torn away by force and an honest person has the duty not to give them meaning, not to listen to them."

The last chapter, "The Smile of Karenin", broke my heart. Karenin is the female dog that lives the last ten years with Tomas and Tereza.
No human flesh can give the gift of the idyll to another. Only the animal can because it was not driven out of Paradise. The love between the dog and the human is idyllic. Without conflicts, without scenes, without development.
It draws around the human the circle of its life that is based on repetition and expects the same thing from them.

Yes, happiness is the desire for repetition.

ΚΟΥΝΤΕΡΑ ΣΕ ΑΓΑΠΗΣΑ!!



Good reading.
Many greetings.

DNF @ a very painful 50%

Don't you just love it when an older man approaches you and begins to drone on and on about all the life lessons he has accumulated throughout the years? And not only that, but also starts sharing his thoughts on what it's like to be a woman?

No? Well, then you might want to seriously consider skipping this book.

The author seems to think that his perspective as an older man is the be-all and end-all when it comes to understanding life and the female experience. It's almost as if he believes that his years of existence give him some sort of authority to speak on behalf of women. But the truth is, his views are often outdated, insensitive, and completely out of touch with the reality that many women face today.

Perhaps if the author had taken the time to listen to the voices and experiences of real women, this book might have had some value. But as it stands, it's just a painful read that left me feeling frustrated and disappointed.

So, if you're looking for a book that offers a fresh and insightful perspective on life and gender, I would highly recommend looking elsewhere. This one is definitely not worth your time.

A book that I had been longing to read for years, I finally obtained it in a precious second-hand edition. Many times, it had been touched by the hands of its (or their) previous reader. Automatically, it became one of the best books I have read this year, or perhaps in this life, who knows. I even had a great fear of finishing it, so I prolonged its last pages as much as I could.

This book took something from me, and I took something from it. Do you understand? Like a part of it that now lives in me, and a part of me that now lives in it.

I loved it.

It will be, and I feel this way, one of those books that I will reread for the rest of my days.

A veces me pregunto hasta qué punto un lector puede leer más allá de su propia vida. ¿Y si los libros que más ama no son justamente aquellos que le hablan con mayor precisión de sí mismo?

Kundera es aquí un escritor de ideas. Apenas maquilla a sus guiñoles. Le basta con que estén presentes, con darles nombre y entidad, para que puedan representar con solvencia los papeles de su filosofía y creencias vitales.

Los personajes son su experiencia. Los recoge y los manosea, los cambia de escenario sin preocuparse de que su indumentaria encaje, porque sabe que su valor reside en lo que sienten y piensan. Esa es toda la clave, pero no hay trampa alguna. El juego está perfectamente concertado con el lector en el momento en que este ha pagado la entrada y escuchado el memorándum de Parménides.

Después de esta lectura, pienso en aquello que muchas veces he hecho. He defendido a muerte a autores que representan nuestra condición vital, enarbolando los argumentos más caprichosos e intelectuales a que nos alcanzan los sesos, en lugar de admitir con simplicidad que nos representan, que nos vemos en ellos, que somos así de perversos en el acto de vivir y crear, así de soñadores e ilusos, o así de introspectivos.

La presunción entierra lo necesario.

Kundera dice en varias ocasiones, refiriéndose al tema de la creación, que un escritor solo puede articular personajes como potencialidades o malversaciones de su propio yo. En este sentido, he venido a maliciarme con el tiempo que todo criterio literario es estéril salvo la honestidad, y que en la actividad de leer con ahínco no hay mucho más que la egolatría inocente de quien halla sentido a su vida en las palabras de otros.

Leer es buscarnos.

Sólo puedo añadir que sí, yo también estoy aquí, como muchos de vosotros, y eso ya significa suficiente. Por una vez, tan sólo daré las gracias por haber podido conocer un adarme más de mí, e igual que vine, levemente, me marcharé.

I have a major issue with Kundera and his adherents.

People, let's face it, this has to be the most overrated book in human history. Just the references to infidelity alone (even when it involves funky costumes like 1950s gangster hats - which is the only somewhat interesting aspect of this book!) do not equate to good literature. And that's precisely what "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" is, in a nutshell.

The male protagonist is, without a doubt, a one-dimensional and dull buffoon, while the female protagonist is lackluster and underdeveloped. This book is nothing more than chicken soup for those obnoxious, lonely intellectuals who dream of being playboys and thus admire Dr. Love's tired antics.

Moreover, Kundera's references to philosophy and Beethoven seem to have been randomly plucked from a cracker jack box. In conclusion, the emperor is truly naked! Kundera followers (and you are the majority), free yourselves (!) and stop pretending that this book is anything but mediocre.

13% and I'm done.

I have had a series of books that have either bored me, annoyed me, or simply failed to engage me in any way. This particular one is truly a mystery to me. You know, I'm at a loss for words when it comes to describing this book.

From the very first page, I pretty much despised it. I simply cannot fathom the high rating it has received on Goodreads. The mere thought of picking it up again and reading more about the characters, whom I couldn't care less about, makes me cringe.

We are introduced to Tomas, who is standing on his balcony, indecisive about whether to ask a woman he claims to be "in love with" (but really, it seems more like an infatuation from a chance encounter) to move in with him. Miraculously, she shows up at his doorstep with her bags packed, ready to move in. And she does. Then, every night, she clings to him, to the point where he controls her sleep patterns. He even has the nerve to play mind games with her when she's half asleep, telling her he's leaving her forever just so she'll chase after him and drag him back home.

Tereza (the woman in question - I had to look up her name) starts having nightmares that Tomas is cheating on her. This is after she finds a letter from another woman in Tomas's drawer, describing exactly that. In just a few sentences, we learn that Tomas has never stopped womanizing, he lied to Tereza about it, tried to justify it, and now just attempts to hide it from her, but still won't stop.

Yet, she stays. He gets her a dog, hoping it will "develop lesbian tendencies" and love Tereza because he can't handle her on his own and needs some sort of help.

So, yes, Tereza not only stays but marries him. Why? Well, the book just says so.

Then war comes, and they relocate. But after a while, Tereza leaves Tomas (taking the female dog named Karenin, whom they now refer to using male pronouns - perhaps to make Tomas feel as if Tereza has a lover too? Who knows. This book is just so absurd).

She leaves him, and I think, "Finally." There's no real reason given for why she decides to leave him now, rather than any other day in the previous seven years when she dreaded him coming home smelling of another woman and feared every woman she saw would be his next conquest. She just decides to leave now... because the book says so.

And then he realizes he can't be without her and goes to her. She takes him back, but then he realizes he feels nothing for her but mild indigestion and "pressure in his stomach and the despair of having returned."

I am a character-driven reader. I need characters that I can identify with, understand, and perhaps even like. But these characters were none of those things. I don't know them, I don't understand them, and I have no connection with them whatsoever. And quite frankly, I don't want to.

I just want to stop reading about them.

And so I did.

A Book about Everything

There is a book that weighs heavily on your mind, covering everything from love to politics and communism, the relationship between humans and animals, doubt and judgment, and other issues.

Love

In the context of love, we encounter four different types of behaviors and responses in the book. Tomas, who doesn't want his whole life to be tied up in chains of loyalty forever. Teresa, who is by nature a loyal person and sees love as a transaction where for everything she offers to her beloved, she expects the same in return. Sabina, who desires complete freedom without any kind of attachment. It doesn't matter to her if others serve her wishes. Franz, who always wants to be under the gaze and in the sight of love and shine in its eyes. With these different behaviors, we witness that in the end, the essence of love, despite all its twists and turns, preserves the personalities in the story, independent of its various models. However, Kundera describes the highest type of love in the form of the relationship between Teresa and her dog. This love, according to Kundera, is unconditional, without struggle and argument, and most importantly, without expectation.

Kundera's Art

The characterization in the book is completely flawless, and the reader is often drawn into the doubts that the characters face, unable to easily judge their actions for better or worse. This is Kundera's art. The author's hatred of communism and his blatant portrayal of its hidden crimes is excessive, and the people's inability to deal with this system is also conveyed to the reader, making them feel that even if they were in the story, they would be powerless. Overall, it was a good experience. This book must be read with patience and analyzed simultaneously, not easily passing over any line. I deducted one star because of Kundera's sometimes chaotic writing. The switching between the book's sections was a bit bothersome for me, and at times the author would step out of the story entirely and say, "Forget the story, I have something to tell you myself," which caused the book's momentum and coherence to be lost.

Certainly, more information about the concept of kitsch, which Kundera constantly refers to, must be obtained. This is something I encountered for the first time in this book.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being was truly a challenging read. It seemed to be filled with a great deal of pseudo-intellectual meandering, discussing things that perhaps required a bit more substance and depth. For me, I have a preference for a touch more reality in the stories I consume.

I found myself completely disengaged from the characters. It felt as if they had no real concerns or passions. I initially thought I could say that I was impressed with the thoughtfulness of this book, but as I began to type those words, I realized that I would be buried under layers of irony. Before I knew it, I might accidentally find myself being sincere again.

But what was I really trying to say? Oh, right. I suspect that if I were more sexually active, I might have a greater appreciation for this book.

NC

Turns out an unbearable lightness and an unsustainable heaviness aren't that different, after all.

This book truly is a remarkable piece of work. It is whip-smart, filled with profound insights and ideas that have the power to expand one's mind. Reading it is an absolute pleasure. I don't even feel the need to go into great detail about it - I'd rather let the pleasure of reading it speak for itself.

If you have a penchant for feeling intelligent, are willing to put in the effort to engage with a challenging book, enjoy philosophical undertones, or simply love books with cool titles, then this is a must-read for you!

Bottom line: This book is more than capable of speaking for itself!

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currently-reading updates

And the Greatest Title Of All Time award goes to............

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tbr review

More like the unbearably HEAVY BURDEN of being am I right.