"To live once is to not have lived at all..."

books:


	• The Unbearable Lightness of Being: A Novel Milan Kundera Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 1999 - 320 pages average customer review:based on 239 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Simply A Masterpiece!

What can I say about the novel that created a new life in me?
Indeed, the greatest novel I've read so far...Kundera is a genius and this novel is simply a masterpiece.

I read it, and I wanted to laugh, cry and scream and smile, and I was overwhelmed by feelings I rarely felt before, and most importantly this novel made me think. It made me think in a whole new different way, and it opened my eyes to things I never noticed before...

This masterpiece deserves to be read!

An Amazing Novel

This is one of the most amazing works of literature I have ever read. Kundera offers the reader a lot of insight into the different nuances that people have. There are qualities in the characters that one may recognize in one's self, but these reflections are done in a remarkable way that make each character refreshing.

The novel is filled with obvious, and not so obvious, insights and wisdom that a reader could pull apart and think on. I keep a journal to document and reflect on books that I read, and this novel took a good number of pages.

I definitely recommend this to any reader looking for something deeper, and perhaps just looking for something interesting.

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"To live once is to not have lived at all..."

In short: magnificent. Kundera provides psychological sketches of his major characters and outlines how they interact. Couples brought together by fortuitous coincidences, mistresses exercising their power, secret police probing the populace - it's all here, told from various points of view, each adding more depth to the events that unfold.

I wonder what was lost in translation from Czech to English? The point about the roots of the word "compassion" in Czech vs romance languages provided a better basis for understanding the character of Tomas. There are too many philosophical underpinnings to discuss in a short review, but the variability of connotation, the play of "einmal ist keinmal" off of "es muss sein," and the conception and expression of love are themes that evolve throughout the story.

Thoroughly enjoyable. Not just thought provoking, but soul stirring. Highly recommended.

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A book that's smarter than all of us.

On the surface there is little to "The Unbearable Lightness of Being". It's simply a book that follows the lives of several Czechs, from the end of World War II to the mid 1970's. We feel the dark manipulation oppression of Soviet rule scattered through out the book, but that's not the point of this story. The devil lies in the details, more specifically...the details of four lives; Tomas and his wife Tereza, Tomas' mistress Sabina, and Sabina's lover Franz. Author Milan Kundera, describes the meta-physical details of these four and compares them to all lives. "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" ends up being a philosophical treaty akin to "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance". It is a book that both elevates and humbles the nature of man while it simultaneously grovels in it's frustration of mankind. It is a book that should be re-read again and again, for the wealth of insight it contains is invaluable.

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reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, page 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17

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