منذ متى وانا لم اقرأ رواية بتلك الروعة ...
ميلان كونديرا أعادني من جديد الى عالم الروايات المترجمة الذي كنت برحته منذ زمن ليس بقليل ..
من أين جاء كونديرا بكل هذه الفلسفه ...وهذه المعاني الراقيه
يطرح كونديرا تساؤل عميق حول "" إمكانيةإدانة ما هو زائل؟ "" بمعني هل يمكننا الحكم على صحه او خطأ أفعالنا أن كانت حياتنا هي واحده فقط ...
وعلى ضوء هذه الأشكالية الفلسفيه العميقه يقص علينا حكاية الدكتور توماس وحياته ...الصدف التي تحكمت فيها و إختياراته التي تسببت في تغيير مساراها أكثر من مره ...

الدكتور توماس كان نموذج للكثير من المثقفين التشكيين إبان الاجتياح الروسي للتشيك وما صاحب ذلك من تغيرات سياسية و أجتماعية أثرت على شكل المجتمع وعلى حياة الأفراد.

يضع كونديرا مشاعرنا في ميزان الحياه لنحدد وزنها ثم نعيد تعريف معني الثقل والخفه
لنتعرف من جديد اي تلك المشاعر قد أرهق حياتنا لثقله وربما لخفته ...!
أذن فأي المشاعر أفضل لحياتنا الثقيل منها أم الخفيف ..! ربما هذا واحد من الاسئله التي قال عنها الكاتب ..
"" وحدها الأسئلة الساذجة هي الأسئلة الهامة فعلاً. تلك الأسئلة التي تبقى دون جواب. إن سؤالاً دون جواب حاجز لا طرقات بعده. وبطريقة أخرى: الأسئلة التي تبقى دون جواب هي التي تشير إلى حدود الإمكانات الإنسانية، وهي التي ترسم وجودنا.""

A pesar de ser un clásico y un libro muy conocido, sólo puedo darle tres estrellas.
Me gustaría darle cinco, porque el libro lo merece, pero no puedo darle la máxima puntuación a un libro que no comprendo completamente.
Hay que decirlo, es un libro difícil, es complicado. A penas son 350 páginas y he tardado más de dos semanas en leerlo. Y no porque me aburriese o no le dedicase tiempo, sino porque en muchísimas ocasiones he tenido que releer lo mismo para ver si lo comprendía un poco más. Y no lo he conseguido.

El autor presenta mil cuestiones filosóficas que a veces son complicadas de entender, o bien, se quedan grabadas en el lector: "El hombre nunca puede saber qué debe querer, porque vive sólo una vida y no tiene modo de compararla con sus vidas precedentes ni enmendarla en sus vidas posteriores" o " Lo que ocurre necesariamente, lo esperado, lo que se repite todos los días, es mudo. Sólo la casualidad nos habla"
También podemos encontrar palabras que comparten origen con el autor y que no tienen traducción, como por ejemplo "Kitsch", y que te hacen llevar a cabo un ejercicio de concentración extra.
Otra de mis dudas: ¿quién cuenta la historia? La mayoría del tiempo se trata de un narrador omnisciente que todo lo sabe, pero a veces habla en primera persona y se implica. Eso me ha hecho pensar que, tal vez al final del libro, se aclararía quién es el narrador (mi gozo en un pozo)

Los personajes. Tomas me ha dado pena, lo he admirado, me ha creado repulsión... ¿Cómo un hombre íntegro no le da importancia a una vida de infidelidades constantes? Pobre Teresa, sobre todo por el dolor de saber, casi en todo momento, lo que su marido hace. La frase mil veces repetida del olor del pelo de Tomas, simplemente me impacta (negativamente).
Sabina y Franz, el complemento perfecto para conocer los tipos de personas que nos podemos encontrar en la vida. Fantástico el fragmento en el que el autor habla de "cómo le gusta a cada persona ser vista" y compara a los cuatro personajes con esos distintos puntos de vista.

En definitiva, creo que es un gran libro, pero que he de volver a leer en unos años, a ver si mi mente está más abierta a cuestiones filosóficas...


Por cierto, este libro entra dentro de mi lista de #1001librosqueleerantesdemorir. Enlace en mi blog:http://unablogueraeventual.com/1001-l...

n  The Weightless Burden of Non-beingn

There are few books which give its reader complete freedom to get lost and get found. Despite the thematic title Kundera chose to give, there are a million angles to be derived from this asymmetric, anachronistic, perplexing and intriguing masterpiece. It's as if you sit and form your own book in your head, with your own thoughts.

To the motivic question (Which is better, a burden to drive you or a lightness to let you be free?), I reply: Should we even ask this question?

I do this because, as soon as we force ourselves to choose either, we enter in an impasse where we constantly want to move to the other side having chosen one. Kundera here, more or less, forces his characters to choose and ultimately, all of them suffer from melancholy with intermittent happiness. Tomas and Tereza live with the weight of compassion and love, while Franz and Sabina live with the lightness of freedom. Unfortunately, like these characters, in our lives too, we don't really get to choose between either, do we? We are always the victims. Victims of love or hatred, truth or lies, passions or flings, and above all, of circumstances or vertigo.

The most wonderful thing about Kundera's writing is that it moves in unusual circles. He starts with telling something about a character at a point of time and then jumps to a different time on a different character and somehow magically converges these events while talking about something else altogether. It's not at all odd. In fact you'll find yourself saying "I like what you did there" a lot. He highlights a few of his personal beliefs now and then, and constantly reminds us, at various stages, of how correct he is.

Moving to the story, at the most difficult time of Soviet invasion over Czech, the characters majorly suffer from their own psyche and not the invasion per se. Sure, it altered the circumstances, but had the communist trouble not been there, they'd still be the victims(as I said earlier). My favorite part of this novel is the third part "Words Misunderstood" which in itself suffices to get into the depth of Franz's and Sabina's minds and hearts. It's only magic that using few simple words, Kundera has demonstrated their innate differences which eventually lead to their separation.

Somewhere in the middle, there's mention of a word "Kitsch". You'll find it in dictionary, but you'll never know what it means until you read this book. And, this discovery will remain with you forever.

Allow me to quote something from this book which stayed with me for quite a long time:

"The pleasure suffusing his body called for darkness. That darkness was pure, perfect, thoughtless, visionless; that darkness was without end, without borders; that darkness was the infinite we each carry within us. (n  Yes, if you're looking for infinity, just close your eyes!n)"

Warning: This book has long-term after effects.

(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 is a 1984 novel by Milan Kundera, about two women, two men, a dog and their lives in the 1968 Prague Spring period of Czechoslovak history.

From the book: “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. What then shall we choose? Weight or lightness? ...When we want to give expression to a dramatic situation in our lives, we tend to use metaphors of heaviness. We say that something has become a great burden to us. We either bear the burden or fail and go down with it, we struggle with it, win or lose. 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 the unbearable lightness of being.”

عنوانهای چاپ شده در ایران: «بار هستی»؛ «کلاه کلمنتیس»؛ نویسنده: میلان کوندرا؛ تاریخ نخستین خوانش: هشتم ماه سپتامبر سال1987میلادی؛ و بار دوم: سال2007میلادی

عنوان: کلاه کلمنتیس؛ نویسنده: میلان کوندرا؛ مترجم: احمد میرعلائی؛ مشخصات نشر: تهران، نشر دماوند، سال1364، در178ص، انتشارات باغ نو نیز در سال1381 کتاب را از همین مترجم و در127ص منتشر کرده است؛ موضوع: ادبیات چک؛ نقد و بررسی از نویسندگان چک - سده20م

عنوان: بار هستی؛ نویسنده: میلان کوندرا؛ مترجم: پرویز همایون پور؛ مشخصات نشر: تهران، گفتار، سال1365، در275ص، موضوع: داستانهای نویسندگان چک سده20م

فهرست: «یادداشت»؛ «مصاحبه ای با میلان کوندرا»؛ «غرب در گروگان یا فرهنگ از صحنه بیرون میرود»؛ «جایی آن پشت و پسله ها»؛ «نامه های گمشده (کلاه کلمنتیس)»؛ «فرشته ها»؛

کوندرا در بازنمایی قهرمانان خود میگویند: شخصیتهای رمانی که نوشته ام، امکانات خود من هستند که تحقق نیافته اند، بدین سبب هراسانم، نیز آنها را دوست میدارم، آنها از مرزی گذر کرده اند که من فقط آن را دور زده ام

تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 03/04/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 07/02/1401هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی

Edit: I am re-reading this for a book club, and you know? I have an even more deeper gut-reaction of revulsion towards the novel than I did the first time. I am changing my rating.

This time the high rating is not an indication of whether I liked this primarily philosophical and literary book. Quite the contrary. However, I did think the writing style was easy to read and I liked that. The translator and the author were experts at what they did: translating and a unique, sometimes playful, writing approach, to serious ideas.

I liked almost nothing else about it. It was so intellectual and foreign it was as emotionally dry as a sterile desert or as a dictionary of words. This is one of those books which was hard for me to grasp because of the underlying messages and the ugly (intentional? - I have no idea) surface imagery, yet I can see it is a product of an intelligent, educated and thoughtful writer.

I think overtly this was a book of philosophical musings about the meanings of life, love, politics, the body/mind duality, whether the body is beautiful or ugly, happiness, fidelity, loyalty, historical significance, sex, the tangible and intangible, communism, art, metaphysical symmetry, and people as Muses (which may seem flattering) that result in meh or meaningless or unjustified outcomes. It encompasses a lot, and perhaps does so smartly in terms of Literary Modernism. Subconsciously, I suspect the author was constipated.

The 'plot' consists of characters, who are created for purposes of pure intellectual illustration (not entertainment or affection), that live and act through the Russian takeover of Czechoslovakia. Various Czech characters respond to the Communist regime in a bloodless philosophical two-dimensional fictional world, except when thinking about naked women or having sex, in which case they get spacey like people having a psychotic episode. They lose jobs, undergo social victimization, loss of freedoms of speech and respect, yet they find some meaning in loving each other. At least Tereza and Tomas do. Two other characters, Franz and Sabina have a bit of success, too, but perhaps arguably, and they seem to self-realize more realistically, if still too philosophically, unless having sex. Much of Kundera's philosophical angst happens to apply to other circumstances beyond the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia, at least accordingly to other reviews, especially about love (?!?) and sex (?!?), so, many readers have become ecstatic over another possible Great Book for the Canon - but not me.

Since Kundera's characters were mostly symbolic creatures either built from mental existential angst or as demonstration pieces artfully carved out from philosophical concepts made flesh (and perhaps the author's being derisively critical of Literary Modernism?), the characters appeared like aliens from another galaxy in their responses to sex, bodies, relationships, marriage, etc. Or are Eastern Europeans of the 1970's so intellectually different in language, culture and Art that their mental/sexual strategies are beyond my American, lower-middle-class, interpretation? It definitely reminded me of some art French films made in the 1950's and 1960's that I've seen on TCM with subtitles. Or is it simply culturally different in the general sense similar to how we Americans hear cats 'Meow' but the Russians hear cats 'Myau'. I don't know.

The inner dialogues of Tereze and Tomas (the heroes) were icky icky icky. Who thinks like these two? For instance, genitals having itches or smells or being used in sex isn't news to me, but paragraphs of personal neurotic obsessional thoughts which circle around and around (anal pun is intended - Tomas has an insistent anus fixation, and one of the women has to have sex immediately after picturing herself emptying her bowels) about women eliminating body wastes (not many thoughts about men's bodies by anyone), encompassing obviously some sort of interior symbolic but completely off-the-wall weirdness. All the while during pooping and pissing in front of each other or alone, or thinking about poop or piss they solemnly pontificate on the meaning of their relationships and their love lives and how female body images (almost never male imagery) determine life choices - these psychological insights and musings were more like using an anus thinking deep thoughts instead of a brain dripping words from a mouth. I finally understand why most literature in restrooms tend to be joke books, even if scatological - much more palatable than serious bowel-inspired philosophical desperation.

The pages of sex, bodies, love, vagina and anus arousal were so bizarre I thought maybe the author was a virgin! He definitely had a sphincter obsession. I wonder at what Tereza was actually smelling in Tomas's hair......


My confusion began with an early scene:

"Hoping to alleviate the pain in her heart by pains of the flesh, she jabbed needles under her fingernails." A dream, thankfully, she does not really jab her fingers, but Tereza is disturbed by this dream and tells Tomas. So, "He took her fingers between his hands and stroked them, brought them to his lips and kissed them, as if they still had drops of blood on them."

Ick! This is love? First, her extreme anxiety, second, his being turned on by her bloody self-abuse and torture. Ewwww. But Tereza is definitely the biggest idiot in the book, so don't waste your sympathy. As the book goes on, she is an embarrassment to the human race, and of her sex. If there is a wrong decision to make, or a crazy feeling to have, she will do it. She is Tomas's toilet bowl as well as Muse, or maybe Moses, but Tomas is a complete cad as well as idiot, too. He is a doctor, but I wouldn't let him near my nether regions!

Sabina, a painter, is Tomas's lover, even after he marries Tereza. Sabina and Tomas play around before and during sex. Sabina likes to occasionally play around with a bowler hat, wearing it while naked, which she inherited from her dead father, the only thing she had taken from his estate. "But suddenly the comic became veiled by excitement: the bowler hat no longer signified a joke; it signified violence; violence against Sabina, against her dignity as a woman."

Huh? Despite two pages of remembrances involving the bowler, at no point did any of it make any connection, to me, to Sabina's dignity as a woman being violated violently with disrespect. Yet, it is clear to the author and some of his characters.

Usually each scene in the book plays out in a similar manner: something happens, then an interior dialogue occurs full of mental angst, self-discovery and allusions which make absolutely no sense to me or with any visible connecting ideas, despite the quite clear explanations of their thoughts that are supposed to allow me to follow the insightful conclusions. However, the conclusion or end result or feeling IS quite clear, even if the process to get there is a complete mystery. I know how and what happens. What completely is mystifying me is why these characters are experiencing their personal dysfunctions, even after pages of supposed character musings, insights after incidents and consequences of explained emotion-based errors of judgement. Yet, there ARE wonderful insights and descriptions, somehow arrived at after senseless mistakes and choices.

Sabina is not a horrible person, in fact, after Karenin, I liked her best, as far as I could like these peculiar unintentional space aliens. Her pursuit of 'lightness' meant having hundreds of lovers. Her relationship with Franz, another important character (the book revolves around Tereza, Tomas, Sabina, Franz and Karenin) sinks because he cannot cross the abyss of understanding about the bowler hat. To him it has no meaning, so he feels uncomfortable when she wears it and doesn't know why. Huh? What? I don't get any if this, neither Sabina's insight or Franz feeling ick or especially, how this scene is emblematic of their deadly misunderstandings. There follows a completely lucid and amazingly wonderful paragraph comparing how the creation of meaningful motifs when young are still pliable but when people are older motifs are more complete, yet more inflexible. How this wonderful observation fits the preceding revelations that the bowler sets off is beyond me. The computing of it is bizarre.

Many many scenes are like this. The serious interior monologues that these characters fill these pages with left me scratching my head in puzzled frustration. It was like trying to enjoy jokes told by Martians I just met about people from Pluto, without my having any context or knowledge of a single atom of either of their cultures. For example, in simpler terms, it was like reading a book of incidents described like this: a rock fell down and rolled two inches, and suddenly I knew green was my friend's favorite color, so I hated her for the rest of my life knowing she would cut my car's brake lines after my funeral, The End.

When I was a young, and even middle-aged, lass, if a book was praised by the New York Times, the New Yorker and other esteemed organs of literary knowledge, and given accolades, awards, and acclaimed status, and I also, in the reading of the book, could clearly see the obvious erudition of the author, I would have swallowed hard and joined the crowds clapping in ovation. Now, I feel free to admit I think this a bit overwritten and a lot disgustingly weird. If it is supposed to be 'post-modern', well, ok, then. I actually believe the author was making fun of modernism. If I'm right, then I 'got' it, but geesh. This was such an unpleasant book!

I felt as if the book's characters (and those of the Artistic reading audience) are the type of people who get intellectually stimulated and artistically ecstatic over the discovery of a genital hair floating in a glass of water during the eating a bowl of soup which had been served dreamlike by a deformed undefinable person dressed in colorful wallpaper remnants, hands smelling of poop, thinking this is some kind of intellectualized romantic Art significance. Sorry, but I can't even pretend to a New York City or European intellectual cool at this level of artifice. Why do Modern Art communities of Europe and New York City of recent decades think poop and piss and genital emanations and the acts of pooping and pissing and eating genital hairs and blood in almost every paragraph or project are so emotionally and socially truthful and impactfully symbolic that it all should and will be smeared luridly into the face of every viewer until they embrace Birth-Life-Death-Beauty in this 'exciting' expression of 'the human condition'? Isn't this actually very childish and demented? An ugly naked emperor who believes himself dressed in Couture as Truth and Art, instead of juvenile thrills?

I want to write about something I liked: the dog. I disliked every single character, with the exception of Karenin, the dog. The dog was cute and dog-like, a natural crowd pleaser, but unfortunately, s/he was only peripheral to the action. However, there is more to the eye about Karenin than being a lovable fictional pet. The name is a homage to a famous novel, Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. The dog is female, but the couple who own the dog, Tereza and Tomas, decided to ignore its sex and Karenin is referred to as a male throughout the book. This kind of sex obfuscation, and the naming after an important character created by a famous author with an equally fascinating real life history is never done as an accident. There are literally hundreds of books analyzing and critiquing the book 'Anna Karenina', as well as hundreds of biographies about Leo Tolstoy. Tereza was carrying the book 'Anna Karenina' when she meets Tomas. But eventually, I didn't care about whatever meaning that was supposed to be in the renaming and sexing of this dog. Karenin ended up being the only likeable element for me as a breathing character. So what if s/he is a joke or reference on the endless deconstruction, symbolism and analysis of literary ideas and tropes? I liked the dog, and only the dog.

This book is entirely an ick, even if I think the book deserves a high-ish rating. I also thought the movie 'Animal House' was ick, and now some people consider the movie a life changer or a movie that defines a generation. I suppose it does. I still think it is stupid and ick. Whatever message(s) is here in 'The Unbearable Lightness of Being', which is perhaps a sarcastic one on an artistic style popular in literary history, as well as genuine angst about love, relationships and the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia, it did not reach me except to cause distaste.

I can recommend this book only as a curiosity read and a brain exercise. However, I guess New York intellectuals and artists find it a deep and intelligent book, as do European intellectuals. I thought it a literary joke played on intellectuals by a clever writer using Modernism -isms, but he did have an honest ax to grind about Communism, women in love, and being in love or in relationships with women. He does not like women in love, I think, even more than he hates Russia, equating marriage and women and Communism as heavy being states that smother happiness. He seems to regretfully accept relationships are necessary evils, since women must love and men must feel sorry/need for them, (over) powered by the sex drive as he assumes we all are. Although I think these scenes about love and desire were Kundera being 'real' and honest, I was offended by the, too obvious, male depiction of these particular women and their motivations. All of the characters seemed like they were expressions of the one-sided view of the same man at different ages, or with different women through the years, and putting it together as a novelistic representation.

If I'm missing whatever is supposed to be 5-star GREAT about this book because of my ignorance of literature or misunderstanding the plot, will someone please enlighten me?

Edit: April, 2017. 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 doggy 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.

THE GREAT BANANA SPLIT:

That Summer Feeling

Her name wasn't Banana, but I used to call her that, because it rhymed with her actual name.

She was a photographer, and I was working at Rocking Horse Records. Sooner or later, everybody walked through the front door, especially photographers.

Soon after Banana's musician lover (Johnnie) had headed south to further his career, we hooked up at a dance party one summer Saturday night. Nothing untoward, but we both sensed that something might happen, given another opportunity at a different party.

Word soon started to filter back that Johnnie had a new girl, and so the opportunity occurred sooner than either of us had anticipated.

Banana had already read this book, and regarded it as one of her favourites. She lent me her copy. Well, she encouraged me to read it when I stayed at her apartment in New Farm. It wasn't so much her way of encouraging me to stay at her place, as a suspicion that once I got into the book, I probably wouldn't return it.

Eventually, it became apparent that we were better friends than lovers - we were really inbetweenies, in her case before a resumption of her relationship with Johnnie, and in my case before meeting somebody with whom I'd have a long term relationship.

We used to read passages out of this book to each other in bed. We'd even act out the roles of the different characters. It sort of became our book.

Critique of Separation

When it came time to part, I asked if I could take our copy of the book. She agreed subject to a condition...that I give her my single of the Raincoats' "No One's Little Girl".

It was a song we both loved and played a lot. The single was out of print, and pretty rare (not that many people would have been interested in it).

On the other hand, if I'd wanted to, I could have just gone and bought another copy of the book. But I wanted this particular copy of the book, and Banana wanted the 45. So we did a deal.

I searched for a CD with the song on it for years, and finally found it on a 1990 Rough Trade compilation called "A Constant Source Of Interruption".

I had forgotten until now what other great songs were on that CD: "That Summer Feeling", "Shipbuilding" and "I'll Keep It with Mine".

Thanks, Banana. It's time I re-read this book of winter feelings and listened to this summer feeling soundtrack again.






REVIEW:

TRIFLING WITH METAPHORS:

Metaphysical Metaphors

This is a wonderful novel, ostensibly about sex and relationships in late communist era Prague, but it's equally relevant to contemporary life under capitalism.

From memory, the film highlights the sexual relationships between Tomas and Tereza and Sabina and Franz.

However, there's a strong philosophical thread in the novel, which is difficult to capture on film (much to Kundera's frustration). As in his other novels, Kundera uses metaphysical concepts as metaphors for life in general (which, when you think about it, is what metaphysics is really all about, anyway).

The metaphysics is spread throughout the novel, interspersed between character details and a fragmented plot. It's almost as if philosophy is just one more ingredient in the ideal post-modernist novel (at least, what is in effect a novel of ideas). Metaphysics is the existential framework within which the characters operate, even if we don't necessarily hear what they are thinking. Their actions within the existential environment or situation are meant to be enough.

You absorb the metaphysics bit by bit without having to think too much about it at the time. However, once you finish the novel, you might be left with an impression, rather than an understanding. It takes time and effort to digest and integrate the philosophy. Besides, it's arguable that there is a dialectical conflict between the ideas that isn't necessarily resolved into some neat synthesis.

The Danger of Metaphors

I want to try to assemble and document my understanding of some of the key words, metaphysics and metaphors, so I at least don't forget them.

However, we shouldn't forget that Kundera himself warns us against the power of metaphors (though perhaps he's being a bit tongue in cheek):

"...metaphors are dangerous. Metaphors are not to be trifled with. A single metaphor can give birth to love."

On the other hand, he revealed the importance of key words in a subsequent interview:

"As I was writing 'The Unbearable Lightness of Being', I realised that the code of this or that character is made up of certain key words. For Tereza: body, soul, vertigo, weakness, idyll, Paradise. For Tomas: lightness, weight...Each of these words has a different meaning in the other person's existential code. Of course, the existential code is not examined in abstracto; it reveals itself progressively in the action, in the situations."


LIGHTNESS AND WEIGHT:

About the Light and Heavy Weight Title

This is probably the most important metaphor, certainly it's significant enough to be alluded to in the title.

Kundera refers to pairs of opposites defined by the philosopher Parmenides. Lightness and weight are one of the pairs, lightness being assigned a positive quality, and weight a negative.

This perspective isn't shared by Beethoven, who believes that weight is a positive (which is then reflected in his music):

"Necessity, weight, and value are three concepts inextricably bound: only necessity is heavy, and only what is heavy has value."

So, what are lightness and weight?

The Burden of Weight

Kundera isn't particularly specific about what he means, so there is an element of guesswork and paraphrase involved in my analysis.

Weight can be a burden:

"When we want to give expression to a dramatic situation in our lives, we tend to use metaphors of heaviness. We say that something has become a great burden to us. We either bear the burden or fail and go down with it, we struggle with it, win or lose."

On the other hand, weight seems to be something that grounds being, that cements it in place, that gives it meaning, certainty and comfort:

"The heaviest of burdens crushes us, we sink beneath it, it pins us to the ground...The heaviest of burdens is therefore simultaneously an image of life's most intense fulfillment. 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."

The Splendid Lightness

This something might be our relationships: personal, family, work, social, political, cultural. It might be things that unite or bond us.

Nevertheless, it can compromise our individuality or our freedom or our imagination.

Existentialism tends to oppose groundedness to concepts such as the abyss or the void. If we're not grounded, then we could fall into the abyss or void.

However, Kundera sees something positive in the lightness, in its very opposition to groundedness. Lightness lets us imagine, rise, float, fly, even if the result is that we fly away, flee or escape from burdens and responsibilities:

"If eternal return is the heaviest of burdens, then our lives can stand out against it in all their splendid lightness."

Erotic Friendship

When we first meet Tomas, he doesn't believe in love, because love is a bond, a chain. He speaks of "the aggression of love". He seeks instead "erotic friendship":

"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...

"The unwritten contract of erotic friendship stipulated that Tomas should exclude all love from his life."

Love, compassion, sentimentality, emotionalism are all heavy, weighty:

"...there is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one's own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels with someone, for someone, a pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echoes."

The Intoxication of the Weak

There are negatives attached to weight. However, freedom itself isn't meant to be easy either. As Sartre suggests, freedom is its own burden.

As we rise, weightless, light, we can get so high, so free, that we suffer from vertigo:

"...vertigo...a heady, insuperable longing to fall. We might call vertigo the intoxication of the weak."

The higher we get, the more we, the weak, want to return to safe ground, even if it suggests a fall, such as a fall into the abyss or the void:

"...man finds himself in a void that makes his head spin and beckons him to fall."

It's this vertigo or the fear of the implications of our own freedom that is the unbearable lightness of being.




ETERNAL RETURN VERSUS EPHEMERALITY:

Eternal Return

I've dealt with lightness and weight first, because of their apparent primacy. However, Kundera derives this metaphor from Nietzsche's idea of "eternal return", pursuant to which we think:

"...that everything recurs as we once experienced it, and that the recurrence itself recurs ad infinitum!"

The Shadow of Ephemerality

This idea causes us to think negatively of a life that does not recur (i.e., a life that is impermanent or ephemeral):

"A life which disappears once and for all, which does not return, is like a shadow, without weight, dead in advance, and whether it was horrible, beautiful, or sublime, its horror, sublimity, and beauty mean nothing."

This passage highlights a potential negative in the lightness of being. Kundera's allusion to Nietzsche questions the transitory or ephemeral, that which occurs only once:

"Einmal ist keinmal...what happens but once might as well not have happened at all. If we have only one life to live, we might as well not have lived at all."

Nietzsche (as represented and appropriated by Kundera) seems to associate lightness with worthlessness. The ephemeral has no transcendental value beyond the life of the individual. We mean, and are worth, nothing to anybody else.

Worth Its Weight (in German)

In contrast, recurrence implies weight, and weight implies value.

If it is eternal, it was meant to be, it was inevitable, it was meant to last. In German:

"Es muss sein!"

We tend to take this approach to love:

"We all reject out of hand the idea that the love of our life may be something light or weightless; we presume our love is what must be, that without it our life would no longer be the same: we feel that Beethoven himself, gloomy and awe-inspiring, is playing the 'Es muss sein!' to our own great love."

Unbearable Responsibility

Yet, eternal return also implies a responsibility:

"If every second of our lives recurs an infinite number of times, we are nailed to eternity as Jesus Christ was nailed to the cross...In the world of eternal return the weight of unbearable responsibility lies heavy on every move we make. That is why Nietzsche called the idea of eternal return the heaviest of burdens."

It's arguable that we should be more responsible for our deeds if they eternally recur than if they are merely transitory. If events keep recurring, there must be a consistent theme, a deliberation, a determination, or cause and effect for which we can be held accountable. We are urged to take our lives more seriously, if all our joy and pain will be locked in place in perpetuity.




COMMUNISM, CAPITALISM AND KITSCH:

Aesthetic Kitsch

Kundera ends his novel with a discussion of what he calls "aesthetic kitsch":

"The aesthetic ideal...is a world in which shit is denied and everyone acts as though it did not exist...kitsch is the absolute denial of shit, in both the literal and the figurative senses of the word; kitsch excludes everything from its purview which is essentially unacceptable in human existence.

Kitsch seems to be the weighty, the heavy, the sentimental, insofar as it's collectively embraced and enforced by society (whether communist or capitalist). The individualistic, the light, the free is anathema, a threat to collective self-belief:

"...everything that infringes on kitsch must be banished for life: every display of individualism (because a deviation from the collective is a spit in the eye of the smiling brotherhood); every doubt (because anyone who starts doubting details will end by doubting life itself); all irony (because in the realm of kitsch everything must be taken quite seriously); and the mother who abandons her family or the man who prefers men to women, thereby calling into question the holy decree 'Be fruitful and multiply.'"

The Brotherhood of Kitsch

Communism is particularly vulnerable to kitsch, because it seeks to establish a brotherhood of man on earth. Everything that threatens the achievement of this metaphysical quest here on earth (which is the only place it can be achieved) must be eliminated.

The Grand March is a crucial, if metaphorical, step on the journey towards brotherhood:

"The fantasy of the Grand March...is the political kitsch joining leftists of all times and tendencies. The Grand March is the splendid march on the road to brotherhood, equality, justice, happiness; it goes on and on, obstacles notwithstanding, for obstacles there must be if the march is to be the Grand March."

The Monstrous Threat to Kitsch

On the other hand, Tomas is too much of an individualist for marches. Sabina, his painter-mistress, says:

"The reason I like you...is you're the complete opposite of kitsch. In the kingdom of kitsch you would be a monster."

His monstrosity lies in his embrace of the lightness of being in preference to its weight. The monster is the one who by its very existence questions the earnest self-belief of a kitsch society (whether communist or capitalist).


FALLING BETWEEN TWO WALLS:

Looking at the Opposite Walls

Several times over the course of the chronologically disjointed novel, Kundera finds the recurring image of Tomas "standing at the window of his flat and looking across the courtyard at the opposite walls, not knowing what to do."

Falling, in Love

Tomas might never fall to ground of his own accord. However, he does love Tereza enough to marry her, even if he persists with his relationship with Sabina and many other women for much of their marriage. Sometimes, it seems, the mind has to sit back and listen to the heart.

Evidently, it's not as easy as it seems to decide between the opposites, to choose between love and erotic friendship, between kitsch and freedom, between the heavy and the light. Freedom is always vulnerable to vertigo, to a headspin and fall, particularly when in close proximity to others.


SOUNDTRACK:

The Raincoats - "No One's Little Girl"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEvl-...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yg7zS...

The Au Pairs - "It's Obvious"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjbBr...

The Au Pairs - "Diet"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iaCa...

Rainy Day - "I'll Keep It with Mine"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5Zeh...

Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers - "That Summer Feeling"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzc3l...

"When the cool of the pond makes you drop down on it
When the smell of the lawn makes you flop down on it
When the teenage car gets the cop down on it
That time is here for one more year...
That summer feeling's gonna haunt you the rest of your life...
If you’ve forgotten what I’m naming
You’re gonna long to reclaim it one day
You see that summer feeling's gonna haunt you the rest of your life
But if you wait until you're older
A sad resentment will smoulder one day
And then this summer feeling will come haunt you
Then that summer feeling will come taunt you
That summer feeling will hurt you later in your life."

The Blue Aeroplanes - "Weightless"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkPSL...

Robert Wyatt - "Shipbuilding"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6T9q...

The Passions - "I'm in Love with a German Film Star"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLn_o...

Guy Debord - "Critique of Separation" (1961)

https://vimeo.com/58914133

هل ينبغي عليّ الكتابة عن هذه الرواية؟


"الصمت في حرم الجمال جمال..والصمت في حرم الجمال جمال..والصمت في حرم الجمال جمال"..


من مكاسب عام 2014 فيما يخص القراءة:
البرنس للغاية..ميلان كونديرا

أعتقد أني سأكتفي بالتقييم..لا أعرف كيف أكتب عنها.

كاتب مُفضّل آخر أًضيف إلي القائمة :)

حاجه تانيه ضروري جداً:
ماري طوق يا جماعة، ماري طوق..
أي حاجه عليها اسمها ثقوا فيها بمجرد النظر

بلغني من أحد الأصدقاء أنها تحولت لفيلم لم اشاهده بعد، لكن ها هو لمن يرغب في مشاهدته :)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096332/?...

من فکر میکنم همه حرفی رو که کوندرا خواسته تووی کتابهاش بزنه حضرت حافظ تووی یک مصرع گفته ؛عشقبازان چنین مستحق هجرانند!؛ بار هستی روایت پردردی از انزوا و تنهایی سهمگین بشر و تلاش مذبوحانه نوع بشر برای رهایی از تنهایی هست .. سبک فلسفی رمان خوانش پر تعمقی رو برای خواننده به همراه میاره .. و بعد دنیایی که کوندرا اون رو به تصویر میکشه امیخته ای از عشق و خیانت و تنهایی و ترس و امید هست .. تضاد احساسی و جدال درونی که شخصیت های داستان گرفتار اون میشن همراه با ابراز انزجار کوندرا از کمونیسم دست مایه اصلی نگارش اثر هست .. نکته قابل تامل نامگذاری سگ ترزا بنام تولستوی هست ..سگ جوانی که در استانه مرگ قرار داره و بدست توما نجات داده میشه ..خوندن این کتاب تجربه خوب سخت خسته کننده لذت بخشی بود ...

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, y 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, de defender 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.

Dice Kundera 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.

Kundera is bringing sexy back
in a bowler cap.

Di come l'ingenuo lettore viene gabbato, e anziché leggere un romanzo, si avventura nelle fitte e deliziose trame di un testo a fronte.

Per un attimo fate finta di essere ancora sui banchi di scuola.
Per un attimo siete di nuovo al Liceo.
Entra la professoressa di Latino e Greco.
“Oggi faremo Il De bello Gallico”. Bene!!
Riuscite a vedervi? Siete quelli con la faccia annoiata in terza fila.
La vostra docente incomincia a leggere. Lei sì, che è concentrata. Perché sa.
Voi potete forse capirne il senso, seguirne la musicalità, ma è pur sempre un’altra lingua. E’ latino, e voi non siete dei professori, siete degli allievi saturi e stanchi, in un qualsiasi giorno dell’anno scolastico, che ascoltano cose che tra dieci anni non ricorderanno più.
Ma fortunatamente, la vostra professoressa, è una di quelle persone che crede in ciò che fa.
Non è stupida, ha capito benissimo che la storia della Guerra gallica non vi attira più di tanto, e che la maggior parte delle sottigliezze stilistiche latine vi lasciano indifferenti.
Allora vi prende per mano, rilegge ogni frase e ve la spiega, se non vi è chiaro torna indietro. Vi spiega anche il contesto storico, quello che succede a Cesare mentre scrive, vi illumina sulle parole fraintese e vi mette a disposizione i meccanismi adeguati per una corretta interpretazione.
E allora anche voi adesso, avete una luce diversa negli occhi. Quella di chi d’un tratto capisce grazie a chi ha avuto la pazienza di spiegargli per l’ennesima volta ciò che c’era di importante e di superfluo da capire.

Kundera è proprio quell’insegnante.
Non è tanto la trama che colpisce. Non sono tanto la storia di Franz e Sabina, o di Tomàs e Tereza ad affascinarci. E’ la pazienza con cui Kundera sviscera, sgomitola, comunica, confessa, adatta, delucida, sistema, illustra, afferma, espone e traduce quello che noi da soli non potremmo capire di queste storie.

A distanza di anni dalla prima volta che l’ho letto, mi rendo conto che gli spunti di riflessione che Kundera regala al lettore sono infiniti, come mi rendo anche conto che non è un caso se dei cecoslovacchi si dice che “Co Čech, to muzikant” (“In ogni ceco, un musicista”).
Anche questo libro è una danza, a partire dal titolo, che non parla di un dozzinale quanto banale vuoto, ma attraverso il più bello degli ossimori, “l’insostenibile leggerezza dell’essere”, imprime il ritmo al coro polifonico dei protagonisti (cane compreso).

E se alla fine non avete ancora ben chiaro com’è che si declina la parola Amore, tranquilli.
Adesso Kundera torna indietro e ve lo spiega un'altra volta.

Three hikers are out on a walk, and it starts to rain. Within minutes, they realize that they've been caught in a powerful storm, and they quickly find shelter under a rock overhang. As they are pressed back against the side of the sharp rock, they unknowingly perceive the storm in three very different ways.

Hiker #1 finds the unpredictability of the storm wild, wonderful and erotic. She knows that you can not control nature, nor would she be foolish enough to think that she could understand what was happening, what it means, or when it will end. She loves the feel of the rain on her face and the wind in her hair.

Hiker #2 is terrified by the storm. She is crouched down, eyes closed, hands over her ears, and she is convinced that they are going to die. She winces as each bolt of lightning strikes down before them and her heart is racing in discomfort and confusion. She wishes it would all go away.

Hiker #3 is a busy guy, a man who had to be convinced to join the hike in the first place. He realizes that this storm will delay them by at least a good half hour, and, in his disgust, he refuses to speak to or acknowledge the fear or excitement of his fellow hikers. He feels angry that his time is being wasted, and he's anxious over the loss of cell service.

After the storm, the three hikers have three different responses to the storm:

Hiker #1 goes home to write a poem and prepare a hearty meal.
Hiker #2 vows to give up caffeine and swears she'll never hike again.
Hiker #3 posts a nasty tweet (disparaging Mother Nature) from his car, as soon as his cell service is restored.

Coincidentally, all three hikers were reading The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera, at the time of the storm, but the topic never came up on their walk.

They will finish the book at three different times and go on to have three completely different reactions to the writing.

Ironically, they will respond similarly to how they responded to the storm.