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Summary: Ever been caught in real life?
Review: This is a book about the complexities of life and love in the turmoil of the Prague Spring (Russian takeover of Cszekoslovakia)....
Tomas is a succesfull doctor who has an innate ability for conquering women, and a love of the subtleties of each woman he conquers....
Sabina, one of Tomas' lovers, is a very sensual artist, obsessed with an old hat that her father left her....
Teresa, Tomas' wife, is a small town girl, obsessed by Tomas' need to look for love and sex in the arms of other women....
Together they form a triangle that shapes their lives and actions throughout the Russian occupation...
Rating:
Summary: Dense and compact - a must to read
Review: The book is far from being "light", the quality of the ideas presented commands much thought. It is not a book for a Sunday afternoon read and must be tackled with a rather serious attitude. However, the concentration required is worth spent because as you conclude, there will be something different about how you perceive life. Extremely thought-provoking, it does us all a favour, compelling us to reconsider our views and to think about thinking
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Summary: The greatest book of the 20th century
Review: The Unbearable Lightness of Being is the greatest book written in the 20th century. The book is woven so tightly that it suffocates you. The language is so intense and just plain Kundera that it hurts. Kundera's building upon existential and Greek lights is extraordinary
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Summary: An entrhalling look at the sadness and joy of modern life.
Review: The Unbearable Lightness of Being is an amazing ride through the lives of four lovers as well as a peek into Kundera's own mind. Heartbreakingly sad, and gut wrenchingly funny. This book is a must read for anyone who has ever felt the unbearable lightness of being
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Summary: Read it!
Review: This is simply a must-read. For those of you who saw the movie, but didn't read the book, you missed the whole point. This is as good a commentary on modern times as
there is, and it rewards the reader for taking the
time to get beneath the surface (which the movie, didn't!).
Also recommended, Kundera's "Immortality." But start here first.
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Summary: A MIRROR OF MY SOUL
Review: This monumental work by Kundera is intoxicating to say the least. It is as poetic as the gospels and depicts lifes many truths as well as its infinite mysteries. This novel is told through the eyes of a man named Tomas and his struggles with love and life. He is burdened by the heaviness of life and feels crushed.... and he is also weightless by life's superficiality and lack of meaning. Tomas as well as each of us must struggle with life's paradox of weight and weightlessness. Hence the "Unbearable Lightness of Being"
Rating: 
Summary: Over-rated, but not bad. Typical Kundera.
Review: Anyone who has read any Kundera knows what to expect - narrative, history, and philosophical musings mixed into an "experimental" novel. They will not be disappointed (or perhaps they will, if that's not what they were looking for).For those new to Kundera, a few words of advice. If you don't like one of his books, you won't like any of his others, except for possibly some of his earlier ones. If you like one, you'll most likely like the rest. Kundera is smart - very smart - though possibly not as much as he thinks he is (some of his profound-sounding quotes take a way-too-large logical leap). The essence of his novels is not in the narrative but in the surrouding essays. The plot can almost never be condensed to a few sentences. The "I" in much of his works is him, Kundera himself, regardless of what some lit-critters want you to think. Finally, Kundera's books are intellectual, demanding, rewarding, and insufferable. On to The Unbearable Lightness of Being. All you've come to expect from Kundera is there - the musings on kitsch are among his best; discussion of eternal return is insightful (pay particular attention to his remark about not rehearsing for life), sex is everywhere (and, in his books, should be), the dream (or is it?) on the hill is absolutely brilliant, and on and on. But there are flaws - unavoidable, classical Kunderan flaws. First, he fails to convince the reader that lightness is bad and weight is good. *All* the characters are wretched, whether they're light like Tomas and Sabina or heavy like Tereza, Franz, the son, the editor, and others. Next - and this occurs every time in his books - Kundera has no timing, and chooses not to. It is my personal opinion that the only purposes of literature are 1) to make the reader think and 2) hit the reader's emotions. Kundera disdains the emotions (he hates feelings and is an uber-rationalist) and for some reason chooses not to go for part 1, either. Let me explain. Assuming the purposes of literature are those listed, then books that hit the reader's emotions or thoughts harder are the "better" books. The point should be to hit harder and harder. How to do so - by building up to one climactic point, such as when Winston betrays Julia in the face of the rats, when the boys burn down to island to kill Ralph, when Yossarian wanders through the dregs of humanity, and on and on. But Kundera purposefully puts the climax of his books before the ending (he wants his works to be like a "feast" not a "bicycle race"), with the result that the reader is enchanted by the beginning but let down by the end. If Kundera ended "Being" with Franz's death or the dream-not-a-dream sequence in Part 4, if Kundera ended "The Book of Laughter and Forgetting" with Tamina's drowning, if Kundera ended "Immortality" with Agnes's death, these three books would have been raised from, in my scale, "very good" to "one of the best books I have read."
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Summary: This book is anything but light!
Review: Tomas, a doctor turned window washer, very much in love with his wife Tereza, cannot help but find interest in other women, particularly the intriguing Sabina. Tomas and Tereza, leave Czechslovakia when the Russians overtake their country but feel the need to return both for different reasons.
It is so hard to read this book. It reminds me of the saying of "You're damned if you do and damned if you don't". I believe the lovers' story is a statement of how people fit into society. There is no right or wrong, but simply how a situation is seen in place and time. The story is very cleverly done. However, it was difficult for me to follow because the story line jumps all over the place with philosophical and political ideas woven throughout. For someone who likes to read stories on different levels, this is a great choice. For me, it was tough going. I decided to continue through to the end and was glad I did. Near the end of the book, I became interested in the historical background of the story and took some time to read more about it elsewhere. I also liked reading about the relationship between Tereza and her dog. It was very touching.
Rating:
Summary: read it
Review: I should first say that this is the first Milan Kundera book I've read and it was not as scary/difficult/intense as I thought it might be. Kundera's writing has an almost fairy taleish feel to it that makes the story rather inviting. I think Kundera's skill is the ability to create characters and situations that most people can identify with. Everyone I know who's read this book finds elements of himself in one or a combination of the characters. Kundera articulates emotions infinitely better than I do in my own head, which makes the reading pretty cathartic.
The book is divided into seven sections of short, sometimes dense, yet digestbile chapters. It took me about 4 days to read, but you could spend weeks going over and over it. I really recommend it.
If you want to know a little about the substance of the book read on:
The beginning section is devoted to explanation. The difficulty in human existence, Kundera writes, is that life only happens once and thus nothing, bad or good, ever returns or repeats itself. Depending on one's perspective this makes life either fantastically liberating or unbearably pointless and insignificant (and thus the title).
Tomas is caught between his wife Tereza, who despises feeling insignificant and longs for substance and value in life, and his mistress Sabina, who thrives in life's lightness and rejects any inkling of imposed burden. Tomas is unclear what to do. Does one want the freedom of nothingness or the substance of burden? Which makes a man feel more real? Most of the book tells the events and and dynamics of the two couples.
The final (and very creative) section section of the book ties things up beautifully. It tells the story Tereza and her relationship with Karenin, Tomas and Tereza's dog. Kundera opens the section with a recap of man being expelled from Paradise, which, he reminds us, immediately prompts the human obsession with right and wrong, moral and immoral, tasteful and distasteful, embarassment and comfortability. Animals, however, were not expelled from Paradise and therefore don't worry at all about such issues. Unlike humans, Karenin does not want progress or improvement or success or achievement. Karenin wants the same thing every day from his masters: a walk and his food.
Rating:
Summary: The lightness and heaviness of love
Review: There was a time when Milan Kundera was the be-all, end-all in writers for me. He found a way to mix philosophy with everyday banalities with seemingly random events with an obsession for the intriguing other with history with surreal characters popping in and out of multiple threaded stories. I have moved on but not moved from the opinion that Kundera is a great writer. The Unbearable Lightness of Being is a book I've recently returned to and this is what I found.
I have read the majority of Kundera's works and find that though he is best known for "The Unbearable Lightness," it is not his best works. The story is intriguing and you will found yourself twisted into the lives of Tereza and Tomas, Franz and Sabina, and the St. Bernard Karenin. A few of Kundera's philosophical detours didn't hold me as the reader rapt and the writing space could have been better served expanded on some of the more relevant thinking threads throughout the book. The writing is quite adept, the chapters broken up into 2-5 page vignettes which keep the book moving and make it a perfect one to read aloud with a significant other. You find yourself getting in the skin, heart, soul, and head of Tereza and Tomas. When you find yourself there, you find one can't escape the inescapable pull of attraction between two people regardless of circumstance regardless of will regardless of the balance or imbalance of heaviness or lightness in your relative world.
Don't miss reading Kundera's "The Unbearable Lightness of Being." If you aren't thoroughly impressed with the writing style it will make you think and feel just a little more for just a little while.
--MMW
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