The Book of Laughter and Forgetting

the book of laughter and forgetting

For my second assignment, I had a bit of a hard time deciding what book to read when it came time to narrow down a second book for our travel blog. I wanted something that I could use as a basis for understanding Czech culture and how natives think, but at the same time wanted something that I would both enjoy and that would serve a practical purpose, so in that spirit I did my research and found just the book. As it turned out, I chose to read “The Book and Laughter and Forgetting” by Milan Kundera, one of my favorite authors, who wrote one of my favorite books of all time, “The Unbearable Lightness of Being”. Funny enough, I later got an e-mail from the NYU Global Affairs office stating that NYU in Prague students were actually assigned to read the same exact book after I had already purchased it (needless to say I returned my free copy at Barnes and Noble and now have a store credit which I’m planning to use to buy the Harry Potter-related Tales of the Beetle and the Bard). ☺

Anyway, back to the book now: The book is one of those rare books where one struggles to classify exactly what to call it. On the book cover it might state that it is a novel, but most would see it as more than that. It is part political commentary, part love story, part historical document that reflects the author Milan Kundera’s experiences under the Soviet rule of Czechoslovakia from the 1940s and beyond prior to his escape from the Iron Curtain. What I found most appealing about this book however, is the common human element of the book which is something that I for one have experienced, is the loss of a loved one and then one’s attempt at trying to not forget them and honoring their memory. Needless to say, it isn’t an easy thing to do, and the character Tamina’s quest to retreive her husband’s love letters is one that I can relate to. In addition, I found this book to be quite insightful in terms of Prague’s ambience thanks to Kundera’s vivid imagery and detailed descriptions of Czech life, and it made me look forward to meeting the Czech people. But moreso, Kundera’s dark sense of humor and perspective on everything spoken about in this novel makes the work a great read that has proved useful for my experience abroad.