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Summary: My favourite book !
Review: This is the only book I read 3 times, and I think I'll read it again... It really cheered me up when I was wondering in my life, and I like a lot the story. Thanks Milan for this bestseller.
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Summary: it is really so light
Review: the book really does not live up to what i had been told about it. i approached the book with the certainty that i was going to find a masterpiece of modern existetialism, but instead i found a story which seems to be so empty, and so superficial as to be unbereably light to read. i hope to get a good impression from his other books, because this one has left me empty.
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Summary: Czech Out With This Novel
Review: There is a certain magic about Kundera's prose that seems to lift it off the page and into the imagination of the reader. His words are like music, or the ocean, ebbing and flowing, building to a magnificent crescendo. It is time that Nobel finally recognizes the profound contributions of this literary master. This book may be his finest effort. After reading it, after soaking in all the colors it has to offer, your opinion of what a novel can achieve may be changed forever.
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Summary: The best book about relations af all time.
Review: I have no words to say about this book. I' ve read it twice and I think I'll read it again. Thank you Mr. Kundera.
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Summary: inside the woman and the man.
Review: The thing that stirkes me more than anything in this book is the sad realization of the fact that very light things(like crossing a certain border) could bring down heavy consequences. Consequences that would shape ourlives and hence ourselves in a drastically different way. All over the story the inside of the man and the woman performed the same torturing dance. But only inside the heavy she became certain that he loved her. She was happy to know that he really did(happinees is light) and she was sad(heavy) to see him the victim of the proof. Milan Kundera flips the coin of heavy and light showing us different faces (of many different dark colors) for the same two sides of his coin until all the faces blend. He is a true magician.
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Summary: phony profundity
Review: What makes the best novelists brilliant is the way they go about saying things we all know -- a writer who thinks he's handing us profound insights into the universe and humanity, like Kundera, is simply pontificating. _The Unbearable Lightness of Being_ is a particularly bad example of Kundera's style,, as we get not only the egotistical existentialist meandering, but also transparent characters, eroticism recycled from previous books, and rather stiff prose.Don't get me wrong; I do like some of Kundera's books. _The Joke_ is the only real novel he wrote (no coincidence it's his first), as the insights are part of the novel itself and not the mini-essays, and I love _Immortality_, which is such an extreme example of his style that it actually works. But _Unbearable Lightness_ simply is simply irritating, as it tries to make itself a real story, like _The Joke_, while also going on for pages about Kundera's marvelous insights into human nature. Avoid this book, unless you're as easily impressed by this stuff as most of the reviewers here.
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Summary: An all-time favorite. I keep "lender copies."
Review: A sensual story. The book is written so each "scene" is presented/related, then followed by a chapter analyzing the "light" of the scene, and another chapter analyzing the "weight" of the scene. Multi-level book that you know the movie could never capture. To compare it to the movie: of the 400+ pages in the book, the movie maybe covers about 100 pages worth. An excellent book to read with a "significant other"
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Summary: His most original and characteristic work
Review: This is the most original book Kundera has written, to know his essence this book is a most...although not his first nor last to have published, you can truly get to know his work (Except for his essays) through this novel.
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Summary: kundera as ususal
Review: i've read "unbearable" along with "life is elsewhere" and, if you heap kundera into the existentailist catagory, then he doesn't quite add up. i was suggested to read him due to my existentialist studies. so far i've experienced the same thing: two parallel plots, man urging after woman and man dying at the end. though its notas simple as that the earlier existentailist texts are more rewarding. though between teh two texts i enjoyed this one better, especailly the final chapter.
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Summary: The light and the heavy
Review: The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera is a book which is difficult to describe, as one does not know how to label it. The novel provides many topics to which readers will react in various ways. They will also differ in their opinions about the most important topic. To me, the topics love, sex and friendship are the most important. In his novel Kundera gives a description of how deep emotions can express themselves, as for example by nightmares. He not only gives psychological insight in emotions, such as love, but gives philosophical information on them, too. Kundera for example tells in the book the story of Aristophanes by Platon. As the novel is set at the time of the Prague Spring, one also gets historical information. Although the story evolves around different fictional topics it could just as well be the story of real people, which for me is an attractive factor. Tomas, the male protagonist, falls in love with Teresa and marries her, while still having several one-night stands. Moreover, he maintains a love-affair with Sabina, who herself has one with Franz. Teresa is aware of Tomas' adulteries and can hardly bear the situation. For Teresa, love and sex go together, whereas Tomas believes that having sex without being in love is possible. The female protagonist therefore suffers from the heaviness of life, while her male counterpart feels the unbearable lightness of being. Teresa later tries to gain this lightness for herself. The description of emotions given by the omniscient narrator is not alien to me and I suspect will not be to other people either. Most of us carry the heavy and also the light, the expression of either part depending on character and circumstances. For that reason, one can identify with Teresa as well as Tomas and Sabina, too. I like the novel because the deepest emotions are frankly talked about. When I read the book for the first time the thoughts expressed on the three main topics resembled what I called the truth. As truth is subjective, not everyone will find his or hers in this novel. Still it is a book worth reading for it provides a stimulus for further thoughts on the topics, which for me are the essential ones of life.
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