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Summary: .is this book deeply depressing or pessimistically hopeful??
Review: A complex book set against the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia. The main characters Thomas and Tereza struggle to forge an accomodation that seeks to make the most of their disfuctional relationship. One veiw would be that the very fact that they stay together and seem to find some degree of happiness makes this a pessimistically hopefull book. That despite the cards life deals and a fatalistic inability to change fundalmentally disfunctional behaviour (Thomas incessant sexual conquests) that an reconciliation and acceptance of a relationship, that falls well short of satisfying, is possible and congratulatory. Another view, which I hold, is that this accomodation is itself deeply depressing. The book seemed to suggest that change can only be incremental (at best) and that basically everyone just has to put up with life however awful. This seems so bleak and dismal and hopeless that it must be rejected. Life without dreams is no life at all. There is little character development as they simply are the vehicle to present Kundera's broadly existentialistic philosophy of life. Too many times in the book I was left wanting to know more about the Russian invasion. If the book is also a metaphor of this invasion then too much of the detail is lost on someone as ignorant of the players and chronology of the event as I am. Is Thomas and Tereza's move to the country, their tollerance of their imperfect love, their acceptance of where they have arrived at simply a reflection of the fact that you can't change the oppression of the strong. You may hate it, as Tereza hates Thomas' infidelity, but you have to accept it, deal with it and move on. This central dilema leaves you with the question of whether Tereza's acceptance is deeply depressing or pessimistically hopeful??
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Summary: Weight, lightness, and the world of kitsch.
Review: This is an amazing work. Kundera plays with opposing concepts, life and death, heaviness and lightness, dark and light, throughout his story. The characters are given a personality and set into motion. The narrator points out the way the characters think and then analyzes it along with the reader, thus blurring the distinction of whether or not these characters are people of the narrator's world or characters that he has created. And all of it set in a society of kitsch. Sentimentality, words that trigger emotions that we personally do not know nor can comprehend. Its wonderful how, in reading this novel, the reader can try to decide which life is happier: the light or the dark?
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Summary: Kundera the most eloquent lemming
Review: Kundera writes beautifully, hs musing voice takes the reader into meandering journeys into human nature that can surprise us by our own capacity for empathy. However, despite these marvellous insights and his grasp of philosophical tenets, ultimately, Kundera lacks any backbone to ground this novel in any sort of foundation common to the advancement of human civilization and the betterment of the human existence. The characters in this novel are fundamentally nihilistic and inherently pessimistic, providing hours of excruciatingly balletic pathos and melancholy, but eventually dissipates like a bad nap, leaving behind a sensation akin to shellshock. Kundera's exploration of the heaviness and lightness of life would drive a severely depressed man to commit a beautiful suicide, but as for anyone looking for a work that engages one's exploration of meaning and strength in this world with forthrightness, this book is like a wet weak slap in the face.
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Summary: Kundera's best
Review: With this book Kundera describes the life of a young surgeon living in communist Tjecho-Slovakia and his relationships. During the course of the story the protagonist is constantly searching for something that will give weight(meaning) to his life. He does this by having lots of relations with women. In this his social status in in constant decline. His non-compliance with the communist regime finally gets him demoted to window-cleaner and farm-hand. It is here where he finally finds an uncomplicated women who can give meaning (weight). The storyline is constructed as a framework for remarkable philosophical observations. Kundera takes his reader to strange, unconventional places with these observations. His views on life are sometimes disturbing, sometimes funny but always fascinating and these observations add enormous to the impact of the story. These observations are the gems in the book, Kundera shows most of himself in these sections. His ideas are highly original and I enjoyed them very much. Read this book, it is a great work of art.
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Summary: come on now creek
Review: just read Joyce and leave this garbage behind.
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Summary: Dual plot lines detract
Review: Though dual plot lines are supposed to strengthen and highlight parallels between scenarios, Kundera's seem to detract from each other, the intertwining tales being too lively for their own good. Great tales by themselves, the necessity for them to be brought together is up for question.
Rating: 
Summary: a let down
Review: this is not his best work. for the most part it is meaningless drivel. the book of laughter and forgetting is vastly superior. the only thing that saves this book from utter condemnation is that it is a translation and can't be judged too harshly but it is no four star book.
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Summary: Well, what is it?
Review: What is "The Unbearable Lightness of Being?" It is the realization that, with no hope of knowing the right path from the wrong, there can be no wrong path. One is necessarily absolved of mistakes. If you are a Kundera fan, you know the book already. If not, you may be reading this because you know the movie. The movie was entertainment-- read the book to meditate on "the unbearable lightness of being."
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Summary: Wonderful!
Review: Someone offhandedly pointed this book out to me as I passed by a NYC book seller in the street. It was a wonderful suggestion. Reading it stretched my immagination and my mind. If you want a good story that makes you ponder the world, with some bits of philosophy thrown in, then this is your book.
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Summary: Purposeful Ambiguity
Review: In the novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera takes great pains to mask what is essentially, an indictment against lightness. Through a process of purposeful ambiguity, Kundera sets up three important and interrelated themes in the novel. These three themes need to be examined at some length in order to understand Kundera's complexity and unravel his indictment against lightness. Firstly, there is the psychological construct of the eternal return as developed by Friedrich Nietzsche. Kundera begins The Unbearable Lightness of Being with: The idea of eternal return is a mysterious one, and Nietzsche has often perplexed other philosophers with it: to think that everything recurs as we once experienced it, and that the recurrence itself recurs ad infinitum! What does the mad myth signify? Putting it negatively, the myth of eternal return states that 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.(1) The eternal return forms the foundation of the discourse of the opposition between lightness and weight. The eternal return moves us to reconsider whether the accidental nature of human existence (einmal ist keinmal) makes it less significant. Is lightness positive or negative? Parmenides posits that lightness is positive. Kundera's position is that it is negative. Kundera and Nietzsche see the heaviest of burdens as the image of life's most intense fulfillment. Nietzsche and Kundera advocate the need for significance, which springs from weight as if both were synonymous. Kundera asks us what the mad myth of the eternal return signifies in all of its perplexity. The perplexity is played out in Kundera's stories within stories. Secondly, through the love story of Tomas, Tereza and Sabina, Kundera plays out his indictment against lightness. Within this braid of interwoven relations, Kundera places the duality of lightness and weight side by side, seemingly not endorsing one or the other. To give a better picture of the dynamics that surround the three main characters it is important to focus on each character separately and then in relation to each other. Kundera creates complex characters with hard choices and unique circumstances. Despite the purposeful ambiguity, the search for meaning leans towards the necessity of significance, which comes from a sense of weight. Thirdly, Kundera plays out his indictment against lightness in the public arena, placing the personal stories within the historical framework of the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia in August of 1968; through this mechanism history becomes another story within a story. Are events forgiven in advance because they happen only once? Kundera poses questions of historical significance surrounding the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia. History repeats itself while collectively we tend to forget that a similar event occurred previously. We regard events with little significance because we see occurrences in isolation, never to happen again. In this sense, his indictment against lightness is justified, accurate and timely. The Czech experience reflects the duality of lightness and weight within the context of the eternal return. How? Collectively, do we negate or affirm the takeover?
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