emilybschramm

A beautiful book. I had a hard time at the beginning because I think I was expecting it to be The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, and it wasn't. But as I got deeper into it I enjoyed it more and more. I still prefer The Book of Laughter and Forgetting and think it's a 'better' book. Unbearable Lightness was great though, using his same style of short vignettes, sliced up chapters that jump around in time and have long flowing descriptions and stiflingly isolated characters. The ending was beautiful, to draw a completely erroneous analogy, it made me think of Grapes of Wrath, as if the entire book is worth the taste that just the last ten pages leaves in your mouth. It's a culmination of all this sadness and beauty and tiny little happinesses we find. It's quite good. I enjoyed it very much. Milan Kundera continues to make me think about things and entice me with his extensive etymological and czech-historical knowledge. And, granted this is because of my past semester and my studies, but it is totally enchanting for anyone grappling with their own sense of agency in a deterministic world. beautiful discussions of fate and self vs. body. just very rich all around.

2022-11-14 18:00