The Unbearable Lightness of Being

By Milan Kundera

Harper Perennial Modern Classics, pages 314.

Country: Czech Republic

'The Unbearable..' doesn’t have a set plot; rather the novel focuses on each character’s perspective and thinking than on a storyline. The author starts by exploring the principle of eternal return - as per which life that does not repeat is like a shadow, it means nothing. If only something is to recur eternally does it gain weight. This leads to the question of lightness versus weight - is it better to stay free, independent, wild in one’s choices or let yourself be burdened by commitments, responsibilities? This is what the author sets to explore through his characters – one who is completely light, another burdened by the weight, one experiencing the best of both and so on. So this book has a lot to do with philosophy.

As for the exact premise of the novel, I’ll just put up the blurb here. (The story is set in Prague in around 1968 at the time of Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia)

A young woman (Tereza) in love with a man (Tomas) torn between his love for her and his incorrigible womanizing one of his mistresses(Sabina) and her humbly faithful lover(Franz)--these are the two couples whose story is told in this masterful novel. In a world in which lives are shaped by irrevocable choices and by fortuitous events, a world in which everything occurs but once, existence seems to lose its substance, its weight. Hence, we feel "the unbearable lightness of being" not only as the consequence of our private actions, but also in the public sphere, and the two inevitably intertwine.

The book is divided into seven parts, each with chapters sometimes as short as half a page - so the ideas though many and varied are presented fairly well. Sometimes a part focuses on Tomas’s perspective and the next part recounts the same events seen by Tereza and so on for the other two main characters.

At the start of the novel, the German saying ‘Einmal ist keinmal’ which means that what happens once might as well not have happened at all (!) is brought up– and though you may not (or because you don’t) agree with this, curiosity takes you forward. The narrating style, interesting tidbits thrown in (I posted this excerpt earlier) makes it easy in the beginning. There is a part titled ‘Words misunderstood’ where the author brings out how we mean different things when we use the same words – this was the best part in the book.

However, towards the second half of the book, ideas are only mentioned in passing and there are many such. I don’t really understand why the author dwells so much on kitsch or rather the way he dwells on it in part six, “A Grand March”. Does he mention anything that adds more value to the actually plot that follows in this part?

There is a jumble of ideas presented. For example, the author talks about selfless love and why it’s possible for us to love animals unconditionally. He then says, ‘happiness is the longing for repetition’ (?!) (like in a dog’s life), whereas human time runs ahead in a straight line and so we are doomed to be unhappy! I wrote this post (and the aforementioned excerpt) when I was a few chapters into the novel – the admiration didn’t last to the end, got diluted in the maze.

While I’m glad I read this (it’s a fresh perspective), having just read 1984 before this, I could’ve timed it differently - given the similarities with the history of Czechoslovakia at the time of the novel (around 1968).

Would I recommend this book? I’m not sure if most people would like it, I’d suggest heading over to the Amazon reviews which will be more helpful. And if you have read this book, I'd love to hear how you liked it!