Blogs
The Unbearable Lightness of Being: One of the Czech greats provides us with something to cherish.
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
For my first reading for this course, I chose to discuss one of my all-time favorite books by Czech author Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being. The story takes place in the 1960’s and the story follows a young womanizing Czech physician named Tomas who goes on several erotic encounters as a substitute for getting involved in Czechoslovakian politics, and uses it as a way to feel that he is in control, as he feels that he has no control or freedom in his country. Eventually, however, he ends up falling in love with a woman, (his wife Tereza) while ending up being drawn into the political unrest while trying to choose between the women that he has begun these erotic journeys with, or the woman he fell in love with. It essentially is a character development plot set against the tumultuous political system within the Czech Republic at that time. It’s a bit of a doozy to explain the plot further, but essentially, Milan Kundera uses the characters as a method of posing though-provoking questions in existentialism, and other philosophical outlets. These questions spoken through said characters analyze mankind, and most importantly what it truly means to be human. This novel has still left me thinking a year after I initially read it.
This possibly causes the story to suffer a bit, simply because the philosophical aspect of the book undermines the ability for Kundera to go into great psychological depth with the characters, but merely uses them as pawns for his philosophical ramblings (which, quite honestly, isn’t a bad thing...they are fascinating!). What I found most fascinating about this book is the fact that Kundera manages to explore humanity to a depth that I’m still left puzzled as to how his level of understanding reached such heights. In the midst of political oppression, Czechs believe that the only things that they can still hold on to are love and sex, which is why the characters manipulate themselves and others to still feel as if they are in control. Kundera toys with the reader by making them look deep within themselves to wonder if this need for control is merely weakness in the face of adversity, or strength in reasserting one’s dominance as a human being creating some sort of impact. The Unbearable Lightness of Being, makes us think whether our actions here on earth truly have ramifications and staying power, long after our time is up, or if they are in fact, “light” and fleeting, and if we ourselves are the ones that are able to attach importance to our actions, or if we are reliant on others to do so. This debate continues throughout the length of the novel, and rather than answering the question, Kundera gives readers the freedom to decide for themselves.
