“أيهما أفضل الصراخ وتبجيل نهايتنا ،أم السكوت والحوز على احتضار أكثر بطئا ؟
أيوجد جواب واحد لهذه الأسئلة ؟
الحياة الإنسانية لا تحدث إلا مرة واحدة، ولن يكون في وسعنا أبدا أن نتحقق أي قرار هو الجيد وأي قرار هو السيئ، لأننا في كل الحالات لا يُمكننا إلا أن نقرر مرة واحدة. لأنه لم تعط لنا حياة ثانية أو ثالثة أو رابعة حتى نستطيع أن نقارن بين قرارات مختلفة.”

بداية الرواية دى مؤجلة عندى من زمان بصفتها أشهر روايات كونديرا ، كنت دايما بحس انها صعبة وبخاف منها . كونديرا مش سهل برضه

You know those books that you finish and then immediately begin again because they were just that good? That's what happened with Unbearable Lightness and me. After turning the page on the incredibly heart-wrenching last chapter, I needed to begin it anew so that I could savor those doughnuts of wisdom that Kundera tosses out like they were stale day-olds.

After reading the first few chapters of the book, I wrote a note to myself that said "If Love in the Time of Cholera is a representative of Latin passion and willingness to fling oneself off the cliffs of insanity, then The Unbearable Lightness of Being is its Teutonic counterpart. This book is filled with enough neuroses, doubt and angst to keep Freudian analysts busy for thousands of billable hours and make the reader wonder whether love is even worth all of the trouble." I thought that would make a great beginning of a review. Then I kept reading and realized that my first impressions, that this is a book about love and it's fall-out, was a remarkably short-sighted interpretation of this grand epic.

Sure, this book deals with love, but only so far as we can say that life inevitably deals with love at some point along the way. Kundera's greatness is that he attempts to chart the intertwining paths of life that groups of people take and how chance encounters that mean so little to one party can have profound, life-changing ramifications for the other. How one person can be cursed to flit through life living only skin deep, the titular Unbearable Lightness, while another drags their guilt and lust with them like some albatross strung about their neck. How national identity does shape who we are, no matter how far we run from the country itself.

Any review that I could write of this book would do no justice to the book itself. It is beautiful. It is heart-breaking (I could title this review "Animals in Literature and Why They Kill Me Every Fucking Time"). It gives you hope for your own life and then rips it away at the last possible second. This is a book that makes you believe that writing is an art form and the grandmasters of the craft are sorrowfully few and far between. This is a book that I know I will reread again and again as the years go by and experience reshapes me along the way, if only to see how these different iterations of Logan react to Kundera's genius.

Задав в самом начале романа философскую задачу, основанную на постулате Ницше об идее вечного возвращения, в котором на каждом поступке лежит тяжесть невыносимой ответственности, Кундера разворачивает перед нами роман об ответственности. Да, об ответственности, ибо именно она «утяжеляет» бытие и ее отсутствие «облегчает» ее. Ответственность может быть разной – в любовных отношениях, перед страной и обществом. Вот об этом и размышляет писатель. Дело происходит в конце 60-х, в годы Пражской весны, в годы антисоветских протестов, которые были подавлены в августе 1968 года вошедшими в страну советскими войсками.
Вместе с тем, писатель указывает на нравственную извращенность мира, основанную на несуществовании возвращения, с прощением наперед и циничной вседозволенностью. Принцип «Einmal ist Keinmal» («один раз не считается») – та волшебная палочка, снимающая груз ответственности. Легкость дарует свободу, в том числе и от ответственности, но так ли это хорошо? Тяжесть бытия, обремененная ответственностью, делает поступки взвешенными, человек несвободен от своей совести, но у его поступков есть вес значимости, именно ответственность делает его достойным человеком. Пара легкость – сложность или легкость - тяжесть рассматривается на протяжении всего романа. И хотя герои стремятся к легкости, их выбор неизменно оказывается в сторону тяжелого.

"Wtf is this bullshit? Fuck off!" said Alex, flinging the book against a wall. The book was light but the wall was heavy. The lightness of the book was such that anyone must think, due to the distance from which the book bounced off the wall without denting it, that truly, nothing is heavier than that wall. But it was only because the book was so light, by comparison with the wall, that anyone could reach that conclusion; it was a perception borne of limited experience with light and heavy things. For truly, a great many things were heavier than that wall, such as a train, or Saturn.

But what is the act if throwing a book against a wall if not the desire for another, less shitty, less smug and self-satisfied book? Well it could be a great many things, such as an attempt to kill a spider, or the momentary surrender of a child to its most destructive tendencies. Hmm, I guess the danger of turning everything into an aphorism or homily is that what you may produce is a lot of stuff which is revealed to be shallow, pretentious drivel as soon as the reader gives even five seconds of consideration to anything the author says.

And then they made love.

Τελικα πώς θα πρεπει κανεις να αντιμετωπιζει τη ζωη? Να σκεφτεται τη "Νιτσεικη" θεωρια της "αιωνιας επιστροφης" , συμφωνα με την οποια καθε δευτερολεπτο της ζωης που ζουμε τωρα ειμαστε καταδικασμενοι(?) να το ζησουμε ξανα και ξανα και ξανα σε ολη την αιωνιοτητα με ακριβως τον ιδιο τροπο,οποτε να δινει βαρος και σημασια στην καθεμια κινηση του και στο καθε βημα του μιας και αυτο θα εχει αντιλαλο στο απειρο? Ή να σκεφτεται οτι η ζωη ειναι μονο μια και ετσι, εφοσον ειναι η "πραγματικη παρασταση" και δεν υπαρχει καθολου χρονος ουτε για προβες , αλλα ουτε και για διορθωσεις των λαθων μας, να την παρουμε τελειως αναλαφρα και σαν ενα αστειο? Αυτο ειναι το μεγαλο διλημμα που θετει ο μεγαλος Κουντερα σε αυτο το πολυ πολυ σημαντικο βιβλιο.και το θετει μεσα απο τις ιστοριες απλων ανθρωπων που προσπαθουν να βγαλουν ενα νοημα σε αυτο το ακατανοητο πραγμα που λεγεται ζωη. Φιλοσοφια, μπολικος υπαρξισμος, εξαιρετικο χτισιμο χαρακτηρων που σιγουρα εχουμε συναντησει μια ή πολλες φορες στη ζωη μας , ειναι μονο λιγα απο αυτα που θα βρει κανεις στην "αβασταχτη ελαφρότητα του ειναι".
Σαφως και δεν εχω λογια καταλληλα και αρκετα για να εκφρασω ποσο σημαντικο ειναι αυτο το βιβλιο και ποσα πραγματα εχει για να σε προβληματισουν. Παντως σιγουρα θα το τοποθετησω στη λιστα μου με τα βιβλια που με κανουν να αισθανομαι λιγο καλυτερη και λιγο πιο σοφη τελειωνοντας το.

The desire for utopia is the basis of the world's ills, we are too much narcissistic to take life an ingenuous phenomenon, the fear of oblivion has always titillated Man to fancy another life after this one, the failure to cope facts led Man to dwell in highlands of fantasy, and the failure to cope the ratiocination of universe made our earth pregnant with religions so many, all we were to do was to live, to live to the fullest of the moments we have here, and to love, to love those who ceased caring for us a long time ago, so long as we keep living, all we are to do is love.
Kundera intellectualizes this simplest of thing as “lightness of being “his story takes its origin from Nietzsche’s eternal resurrection and body-soul dualism, the air of whole book is quite blue as compared to the existential approach toward life of his main characters. The principal act of author’s imagination is epitomized by them, which is to conceive of a paradox and express it elegantly. The paradox he is most fond of is the essential identity of opposites and he is never hesitant to express it time and again....
It could easily be a “book of sexual encounters” as we come to witness so much of what is normally expected of the reader to grasp on his own, in an explicit manner, giving the book an artificial aura sort of, we might be concupiscent for a while and commiserate at the other, the whole air of the book and tone never touches the inner chords, it seems to be merely populated by some puppets the author had to place in order to exert his philosophy, I might conform to his idea of living life but I remained totally detached from the fashion his characters adopted to put it in practical.
At times I felt kundera was desperate to done his philosophical musings in robes of an erotic story, he failed at both grounds miserably. He writes beautifully, quite redolent even, he has that scholarly tone in his prose we so savor in writings, (recall the sumptuousness of Marry Shelly in her Frankenstein) but just can't be taken seriously as a work of philosophical or psychological depth.

"الحنين إلى الجنة إذا هي رغبة الإنسان في ألا يكون إنسانا."

هذه رواية فذّة، متجاوزة، مرعبة، تصدمنا بشكل مباشر في عجز الإنسان ومحدوديته وخوفه من حريته، في تجريده من الأوهام والأصنام الكامنة خلف الكثير من المسميات. رواية تطرح سؤال عصي الإجابة، ليس سؤال واحد بل أسئلة كثيرة. تسير بنا إلى تصور حتمي، حول خفة الوجود الإنساني. "أليس من ذلك بد؟ ليس من ذلك بد." قراءة كونديرا كغيره من الروائيين مزحة كبيرة، لا تقل خفة عن نزوع شخصيات هذه الرواية.

لم ينتهي الحديث هنا، لكن الكلام سيطول ويتفرع إلى ما هو أكبر من مجرد مراجعة أو مقال.

n  einmal ist keinmaln
Μια φορά είναι ποτέ
(αλλά καμιά φορά μπορεί να διαρκέσει για πάντα)

Ανάμεσα στους κάθε λογής στοχασμούς και διλήμματα που ο Milan Kundera τοποθετεί στο μυαλό του Τόμας, ενός από τους ήρωες του μυθιστορήματός του, πέραν ασφαλώς της νιτσεϊκής ιδέας της αιώνιας επιστροφής, είναι κι αυτός της καβαφικής «μεγάλης άρνησης», της εσωτερικής διαπάλης, δηλαδή, του σύγχρονου ανθρώπου ανάμεσα στο «μεγάλο ναι» και το «μεγάλο όχι». «n  Είναι σωστό να υψώνει κανείς τη φωνή, όταν προσπαθούν να επιβάλουν σ’ έναν άνθρωπο τη σιωπή;n». Η πρώτη αυθόρμητη απάντηση του Τόμας είναι ένα «μεγάλο ναι», αν και, αμέσως μετά, αισθάνεται την ανάγκη να επαναδιατυπώ��ει το ερώτημα, προκειμένου να δικαιολογήσει το μεγάλο του όχι (σωστό ή λάθος, δεν έχει σημασία, ίσως «αν ρωτιούνταν πάλι, όχι θα ξαναέλεγε»): «n  Είναι προτιμότερο να φωνάξει κανείς και να επισπεύσει έτσι το τέλος του; Ή να σιωπήσει και να αγοράσει μια πιο αργή αγωνία;n».

Στο πιο ερωτικό και γνωστότερο από τα μυθιστορήματα του, που δεν το κρύβω ότι το διάβασα με κάποιο δισταγμό (που δεν έχει να κάνει ασφαλώς με τον ίδιο τον Κούντερα, τον οποίο εκτιμώ όσο λίγους συγγραφείς, αλλά με όλο αυτό το hype – άγνωστος όρος τότε ακόμη – που ακολούθησε την έκδοσή του), μέσα από μια πρωτοποριακή λογοτεχνική αφηγηματική δομή (άλλοτε παράλληλη κι άλλοτε διακεκομμένη, συνήθως τριτοπρόσωπη, αν και δεν είναι λίγες οι φορές που ο συγγραφέας παρεμβαίνει σε πρώτο πρόσωπο για να υπενθυμίσει στον αναγνώστη του κάτι που έχει ειπωθεί ξανά), πραγματεύεται τον έρωτα και τις ανθρώπινες σχέσεις, το πολιτικό κιτς, τον ολοκληρωτισμό του κομμουνιστικού καθεστώτος, το φανταστικό βλέμμα που έχουμε όλοι ανάγκη να παρατηρεί τη ζωή μας, και, πρωτίστως, τη ματαιότητα της ανθρώπινης ύπαρξης, τη διαφορετική βαρύτητα που αποκτούν για τον καθένα μας οι ανεπανάληπτα βιωμένες στιγμές της και τον θάνατο.

Δεν πρόκειται ασφαλώς για το καλύτερο μυθιστόρημά του (προσωπικά θα επέλεγα ως τέτοιο «Το Αστείο», το πιο πολιτικό απ’ όλα τα βιβλία του), ούτε για το βαθύτερα φιλοσοφικό (όσοι ακόμη δεν έτυχε, διαβάστε την «Αθανασία»). Έχει την υπογραφή του Κούντερα, όμως, κι αυτό είναι αρκετό νομίζω για να αφεθεί, χωρίς κανέναν δισταγμό, ο αναγνώστης στην πολυπλοκότητα και καθαρότητα της σκέψης του.

It’s time we start oppressing men so they can stop writing pretentious garbage like this.

Rereading this novel for the second time, I was startled to note what a novel of ideas it was--the first time I read it, I was quite young and concentrated primarily on the love stories, identifying mostly with the serious lover, Tereza, and her difficult love with the untamable womanizing doctor Tomas, and the free-spirit Sabina as the third side of the triangle. I hardly noticed Sabina's rather flat-footed Swiss boyfriend Franz.

This time, I am equally attracted to the big ideas of the book, the concept of lightness vs. weight, intention vs. the fortuitous--and how they are embodied in the characters: the earthy Tereza who shows up on Tomas's doorstep with a heavy suitcase, whose love is heavy--attachment which is heavy; Tomas who is light, who nevertheless takes on the heaviness of Tereza from the very first; and Sabina, who fights for her freedom, for betrayal, as an existential position.

"Which shall we choose, weight or lightness?" the narrator asks. Which one is positive? "The absence of a burden causes man to be lighter than air, to soar into the heights, take leave of the earth and his earthly being, and become only half real, his movements as free as they are insignificant."

Spending so much time in the literature of Russia, I understand far better this time the respect for the burden, the willingness to shoulder it. Insights on everything from love to nationhood to uniformity to fidelity are examined both in the story and directly by the narrator, how these issues are played out as they stem from our basic personalities, but also as they stem from our attempts to subvert or liberate ourselves from our basic instincts and preferences. I loved how his characters struggle with ideas of 'how to be'.

My favorite sections of the book in this rereading, oddly enough, have little to do with the romantic story, and most to do with the incomprehensibility of people to one another. In little chapters comprising "A Short Dictionary of Misunderstood Words"-- Kundera illustrates the extraordinary differences between Sabina, an artist and now a Czech emigre in Switzerland, and Franz, her stolid Swiss married lover, in experience and character, by taking a word-- say 'parade' --and showing in the meaning for each of the lovers how mutually un-understandable each of them must be to the other, like a venn diagram in which the circles only touch at that one point--the word itself. Sabina, growing up under Communist conditions, forced to take part in parades and the required 'happiness' and lock-step, becomes the rebel, where Franz, an academic who feels divorced from the real, longs to be one of the mass and recalls demonstrations in 1968 where he really felt at one with others.

A glorious book, a political story, a philosophical rumination, an acute and unsentimental portrait of love.

A friend of mine refers to the movie version of this book (which I preferred, in fact), as "Sammy and Rosie get Laid in Prague". Well, he has a point. But I still really like it.

Anyone whose goal is 'something higher' must expect someday to suffer vertigo. What is vertigo? Fear of falling? No, Vertigo is something other than fear of falling. It is the voice of the emptiness below us which tempts and lures us, it is the desire to fall, against which, terrified, we defend ourselves.
The Unbearable Lightness of Being ~~~ Milan Kundera


Buddy Read with Dani

Random thought ... n  this is the most European novel I've ever read.n

The Unbearable Lightness of Being is a book I have been meaning to tackle for years. I finally got to it in 2022 while doing a buddy read with my friend, Dani. I loved this read. Dani's insights into this were amazing. I wish I had tackled it sooner. It is a book I will return to later in life as it's themes appeal to me.

Another random thought ... n  This is a sexy book ~~ a very sexy book. There is no better way to describe it. I will never look at bowler hats the same way again.n



Milan Kundera ~~ the author ~~ is a Czech novelist who’s been living in France for the last few decades. He is the poet laureate of the mythological Velvet Spring of 1968. This was when the Czech people rose up against their Russian occupiers in a movement full of youth and hope. A hope which was quickly and brutally put in its place by the force of Russian tanks.

The novel is set around that period and it follows the lives of four people. Tomas, a surgeon who is forced to leave his occupation after writing an Oedipus article the secret police found distasteful. Tereza, his mistress and eventually his wife, a woman whose high-point in life came when she ran into the streets to photograph the Russian tanks that overwhelmed Prague in 1968. Then there are Franz and Sabina. Franz is a strong, attractive lecturer out of love with his wife. And Sabina is an artist with a kinky penchant for bowler hats.



The narrative isn’t linear. Instead, the lives of these four characters flow and ebb like a river flowing thru the countryside, but not quite sure to where. Kundera also interrupts the narrative with his own philosophical digressions that are as interesting to read as the storyline itself. Like Cervantes ~~ he makes himself an authority on love, politics, history, Oedipus and everything in between. I found these sidebars to be fascinating

The Unbearable Lightness of Being isn’t just a novel ~~ it’s an entire experience on so many levels. This is not a novel stripped bare. It is a full, heaving collection of humanities. I could not put it down.

The most interesting character in the novel is Tomas. A bachelor who can’t help himself womanizing, even when he marries Tereza. She is aware ~~ because he doesn’t hide these affairs ~~ of his infidelities and tolerates them to a point. Although she does hate it when he has the smell of a another woman’s groin in his hair at night.



Kundera has a way of uniting the intimate with the historical and Tomas is both a victim of his times and a profiteer. At first Tereza feels like an oppression to him. n  The only relationship that can make both partners happy is one in which sentimentality has no place and neither partner makes any claim on the life and freedom of the other.n But later, when his troubles with the secret police start, the two are forced to move out into the country to live as farm-hands, shadows of their former urban glories.

Sabina, the artist Tomas had an affair with early in the novel, is the visual centerpiece of the novel. The iconic scene where she has sex with Tomas wearing her grandfather’s bowler hat is not something you will quickly forget. She is also a woman who Kundera describes as being addicted to betrayal. She leaves Franz even when she’s happy with him. She leaves all the time, that is, for her, the unbearable lightness of being.

The themes of lightness and heaviness pervade the novel and filter through the lives of the characters. They are all weighed down by something, and lightness feels like even more of a curse. And Sabina ~~ what had come over her? Nothing. She had left a man because she felt like leaving him. Had he persecuted her? Had he tried to take revenge on her? No. Her drama was a drama not of heaviness but of lightness. What fell to her lot was not the burden, but n  the unbearable lightness of being.n



This isn’t a light, summer read. This is to be read when you’re alone in darkened room at night, the mysteries of what lies outside beckoning you. It is also a timeless novel that could be read and appreciated by someone living in the 18th century or in the paranoid, confusion of today.



n  For Sabina, living in truth, lying neither to ourselves nor to others, was possible only away from the public: the moment someone keeps an eye on what we do, we involuntarily make allowances for that eye, and nothing we do is truthful. Having a public, keeping a public in mind, means living in lies.n Isn’t this so frighteningly close to the truth in the social media dominated world of today?