The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
The Unbearable Lightness of Being can serve as a perfect argument in making the case for why reading literature is worthwhile. With its immense richness, it can open one's understanding and appreciation of life to other dimensions. Heavy on philosophy and inner thoughts, interjections of characters' lives with side historical stories, old legends, and even classical music, the book is a profoundly absorbing and encompassing reading experience. A book about metaphors, burdens, lightness, vertigo, decisions, es muss sein's. About grand marches, bulrush baskets, bowler hats, half-buried crows, tombstones, misunderstanding, and whether or not the fifth repetition of human history would be less bloody.
Following the stories of four main characters against the backdrop of despotic Communist regime and the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia, that heavily influenced even the events that took place elsewhere, the narration jumps back and forth in time from the different perspectives of characters using the voice of an omniscient narrator who repeatedly broke the fourth wall and directly addressed the reader. The story progress is slow as the main emphasis and attraction here is on the characters' depth and the reflections and philosophy surrounding each turning point, driving the main story calmly towards an ending where weightless and acceptance conquered lightness and rebellion, and even though Kundera gives away the ending of the main story less than halfway through (if it can be called an ending, as every single human eventually dies), the book never fails to impress in any way afterwards.
Naturally, a reader can relate to one character and storyline more than the rest, but all of them were thoroughly convincing. And while the inner thoughts of characters were all intriguing, the disillusion of many characters against communism as well as the endless revolutionaries was remarkable for me. At some point, one of characters, Sabina, expresses an important idea:
She would have liked to tell them that behind Communism, Fascism, behind all occupations and invasions lurks a more basic, pervasive evil and that the image of that evil was a parade of people marching by with raised fists and shouting identical syllables in unison. But she knew she would never be able to make them understand.
The narrator express a similar thought:
But the people who struggle against what we call totalitarian regimes cannot function with queries and doubts. They, too, need certainties and simple truths to make the multitudes understand, to provoke collective tears.
And I can't find in my recent memory a sadder, more poignant passage than this one, where peoples' lives after death are boiled down to a single statement or inscription that not just fails to describe them, but also misrepresents them altogether:
What remains of the dying population of Cambodia?
One large photograph of an American actress holding an Asian child in her arms.
What remains of Tomas?
An inscription reading: HE WANTED THE KINGDOM OF GOD ON EARTH.
What remains of Beethoven? A frown, an improbable mane, and a somber voice intoning "Es muss sein!"
What remains of Franz?
An inscription reading: A RETURN AFTER LONG WANDERINGS.
And so on and so forth.
A much recommended read, and for the first time I will be looking forward to the film adaptation. Adaptations of such huge works of literature are often disappointing, and the characters and sets are invariably different, even slightly, from what the reader pictured in mind, but I am interested in finding out how the filmmakers relayed the characters' inner thoughts, and looking forwards to the beautiful film locations in Prague and Geneva as well as the integration of Beethoven's symphony that weighed heavily over the entire book:
Beethoven- Op. 135 IV
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