I fell in love with Kundera’s books even before I knew who he was or what he writes about. Coming across the copies of ‘The Book of Laughter and Forgetting’ and ‘The Unbearable Lightness of Being’ at a local bookstore, I immediately became fascinated with them. Their minimally unique covers, and their attractive titles came to fore as something totally different from what I had seen or read before back then.
Since my ‘readers package’ that the store offered had expired and I was low on budget, with such instantaneous impression I stole both the books from the local store. I’ve to say, stealing books is even more exciting than purchasing them. However, with the shame that remains afterwards and the fact that it is morally wrong, I don’t recommend it at all.
Until now, I’ve read Kundera twice, and both the times, I was at my most earnest and excited to read and like him. And although I was mildly impressed in ways I didn’t have words to define, overall Kundera and his writing didn’t win me over as his books, its titles and its covers enormously had.
‘The Book of Laughter and Forgetting’ failed to satisfy me because of its distinct set of stories, some of which then also repeated; such a genre was new for my second year into reading books, and his beguiling prose with its deceit simplicity was too unworldly for me to understand or appreciate.
‘The Festival of Insignificance’ was Kundera’s next book that I started and finished reading; and again, unlike its fascinating title and cover, its content did little to fulfill my high expectations, and only left an inexplainable effect on me.
In between these two Kundera books, I also tried reading this book, his most famous ‘The Unbearable Lightness of Being’, but since I was going through a depressive episode, and couldn’t read anything, let alone reading Kundera for the first time, I soon discontinued it.
Therefore, starting this novel a couple of years later, I was a bit skeptical; would Kundera, once again, feel mildly impressive and majorly weird? Much to my surprise, I absolutely adored and consistently awed at this novel! This is Kundera at his most impressive.
The novel follows the story of four characters. Tomas, an ‘epic’ philanderer unable to restrict his desire for new women, falls in love with Tereza, a woman distressed by the duality of soul and body, when exactly six fortuities follow one after another in their first encounter. Sabina, on the other hand, is one of Tomas’s mistress and is a talented artist and a betrayer at core; and Franz, an idealist and an unhappy husband, is Sabina’s lover. Besides these four characters, there’s also a dog, named Karenin after a character from Tolstoy’s novel ‘Anna Karenina’.
Like in his previous novels, Kundera here too is beguiling, original and unique, but unlike them, his prose here is clear, understandable, and therefore freshly joyful. His blend of beautiful and enticing philosophy with his masterful art of fiction would impress any reader reading him for the first time.
With a more patient prose, Kundera manages to merge philosophy and storytelling seamlessly; and his complete and transparent sentences produce a consistency and ease, which I found lacking in his previous works. Here he answers his own simple yet digging questions; and I found so kind and learned of him - really!
Ironically, this ‘heavy’ novel – which is equally as philosophy as it is fiction since Kundera writes about Freud, Nietzsche, Kafka, Tolstoy, Descartes and alongside them produces his own philosophical arguments and thought-experiments on the themes of soul and body, happenstance, scaring similarity, and more – is, nonetheless, made masterfully ‘light’ by Kundera’s excellence over the art of novel.
Reading this novel again and enjoying it so much reflected my own developing maturity in the vast realm of reading. Despite not getting his writing until now, my naïve instinct of admiring Kundera proves right with Bradbury strong comment that, ‘Read this book; here is a writer who really matters.’ I couldn’t agree more with him!
Ratings: 5/5 **** November 20, 2020