The Unbearable Lightness of Being
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| The Unbearable Lightness of Being | |
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| Author | Milan Kundera |
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| Original title | Nesnesitelná lehkost bytí |
| Country | Czech Republic |
| Publisher | 68 Publishers |
| Publication date | 1984 |
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (Czech: Nesnesitelná lehkost bytí) is a novel written by Milan Kundera in 1982, first published in 1984 in France.
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[edit] Synopsis
Set in 1968 Prague, the novel details the circumstances of life for artists and intellectuals in Communist Czechoslovakia in the wake of the Prague Spring and the subsequent invasion by the USSR. The major protagonists are Tomáš, a well-known, successful surgeon, who criticizes the Czech Communists and resultantly loses his position, and his wife Tereza, a photographer in anguish over Tomáš many infidelities. The book also explores the worlds of two other characters, Tomáš's lover Sabina (a painter), and Sabina's lover Franz (a university professor).
The book centers around the theory that existence is full of unbearable lightness, because each of us has only one life to live: Einmal ist keinmal (once is nonce: "what happened once might never have happened at all"). Therefore, each life is, ultimately, insignificant; every decision, ultimately, does not matter. Since decisions do not matter, they are light: they do not bind, yet simultaneously, the insignificance of our decisions — our lives, our being — is unbearably light, hence, the unbearable lightness of being. Because of the subject, some critics labeled this novel modernist, while others see it as a celebratory post-modern explosion of narrative craft.[citation needed]
[edit] Publication
The first publishing of the original Czech version was in 1985 in exile publishing house 68 Publishers (Toronto, Canada). The second Czech publishing was in October 2006, in Brno (Czech Republic), almost 18 years after the Velvet Revolution, because Kundera didn't approve it earlier.
A paperback edition of an English translation by Michael Henry Heim was reprinted in New York by Perennial in 1999 with ISBN 0-06-093213-9.
[edit] Characters
- Tomáš - The story's protagonist; a Czech surgeon and intellectual. Tomáš is a light-hearted womanizer who lives for his work. As a man, Tomáš practices a philosophy of lightness. He considers sex and love as two unrelated, discrete entities; he copulates with many women, and loves one woman, Tereza, and sees no existential problem with these two, simultaneous activities. He explains womanizing as a mental es muss sein! (it must be!) to explore the differences of each woman — only seen in love-making. At first, he thinks his wife a burden, a child, sent by a river, to be cared for. Ultimately, their love materializes when he abandons the Es muss sein! of job and womanizing, by living in the country with Tereza. There, he communicates with Simon, his son, after the occurrences consequence of the letter, likening the Czech Communists to Oedipus, he published in a magazine. Later, Simon tells Sabina that Tomáš and Tereza died in a car crash; his epitaph was: He wanted the Kingdom of God on Earth
- Tereza - young wife of Tomáš. A gentle, intellectual photographer, she delves into dangerous and dissident photojournalism during the Soviet occupation of Prague. Tereza does not damn Tomáš for his infidelities, and instead characterizes herself as weaker than he is. Precisely because of her intelligence and compassion, Tereza presents a kind of heaviness Tomáš cannot easily dismiss. She is mostly controlled by the division she places between soul and body, thinking of the latter as repulsive after the actions of her shameless mother. Throughout the book she expresses fear to be simply another body in Tomáš's array of women. Once they go live in the country, she devotes herself to taking care of cattle and reading. During this time she becomes fond of animals, reaching the conclusion that they were the last link to the paradise abandoned by Adam and Eve, and becomes alienated from other humans. By the end of the book she realizes that she was always a burden to Tomáš, as her love demanded that he became old. She dies with Tomáš in the car accident.
- Sabina - Tomáš's favorite mistress and closest friend. Lives her life as an extreme example of lightness, finding satisfaction in the act of betrayal. She declares war on kitsch, be it expressed through domesticity, unoriginality or untruth. Her struggle against the constraints imposed by her puritan ancestry and the Russian Socialists is shown through her paintings. Nevertheless, she many times expresses excitement at self-humiliation through the use of her grandfather's bowler hat, which starts as a sex toy between her and Tomáš, and eventually becomes a relic of the past. After the death of Tomáš, she becomes the correspondent of Simon, while living under the roof of some older Americans, who admire her artistic skill. She expresses her desire to be cremated and thrown to the winds after death--the last symbol of eternal lightness.
- Franz - Sabina's lover. A Geneva professor and idealist. Franz falls in love with Sabina, whom he (erroneously) considers a liberal and romantically tragic Czech dissident. Sabina considers both of those identities kitsch. He is a kind and compassionate man. As one of the dreamers of the novel, he bases his actions on loyalty to the memories of his mother and of Sabina, whose eyes he always feels. His life revolves completely around books and academia, so that he seeks lightness and ecstasy by participating in marches and protests, the last of which is a march in Cambodia. While there, he is mortally wounded during a mugging. Ironically, he always sought to escape the kitsch of his wife, Marie-Claude, but dies in her presence, so that Marie-Claude claims he always loved her. The inscription on his grave was: "A return after long wanderings."
- Karenin - The dog of Tomáš and Tereza. Although physically a female, the name given always alludes to masculinity. Reference to the husband of Anna in Anna Karenina. Karenin lives his life according to routine, and shows extreme dislike of change. Once the married couple moves to the country, Karenin becomes more content than ever, as he is able to enjoy more the attention of his owners. He also quickly befriends a pig named Mefisto. During this time Tomáš discovers that Karenin has cancer, and even after removing a tumor it is clear that Karenin was going to die. In his deathbed he unites Tereza and Tomáš through his "smile" at their attempts to improve his health. When he dies, Tereza expresses a wish to place an inscription over his grave, "Here lies Karenin. He gave birth to two rolls and a bee", after a dream she had shortly before his death.
[edit] Film
In 1988, an American-made film adaptation of the novel was released, however Kundera hated it and said the movie does not correspond well to the book. Since then he hasn't allowed any other adaptations of his works.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- SparkNotes
- The Unbearable Lightness of Being at the Internet Movie Database
- Criterion Collection essay by Michael Sragow
- An essay written by Giuseppe Raudino
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