Book review - The unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera

The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This book has so many sentences which simplifies the most complex of things in life for you. Take for example following lines:

" Love does not make itself felt in the desire for copulation (a desire that extends to an infinite number of women) but in the desire for shared sleep ( a desire limited to one woman)." - This is one of the basest desire in most of men and differentiating sex with love could not have been done better.

"Those years were more attractive in retrospect that they were when he was living them". - This line will be so true to many who do not relish life's each day and may be grumble while these would the best years of their lives.

"Ess muss sien. Ess muss Sien" "(It must be. It must be)" - We are either at the receiving end or giving end of this statement every now and then in our lives as we have to face the compulsions of life. We may want to break-away but this is what brings us back.

"Tereza would listen and believe that being a mother was the highest value in life and that being a mother was a great sacrifice. If a mother was Sacrifice personified, then a daughter was Guilt, with no possibility of redress" - I do not personally agree with the logic of this statement. Highest sacrifice of mother doesn't necessarily mean that being daughter/ son is Guilt. It is however a statement to ponder upon by the ladies/ mothers who keep emphasizing this statement to their children as some of the children may look upon themselves as Guilt.

"But is not an event in fact more significant and noteworthy the greater the number of fortuities necessary to bring it about?" - This is one of the most resonating piece to me. Looking back, the most important moments and people in our lives are combination of so many events falling sequentially into place to make them happen.

"She had come to him to escape her mother's world, a world where all bodies were equal". - This line in essence captures the ethos that each women (wife/ mother/ sister) desire to be treated in their own special way.

"What is vertigo? Fear of falling? Then why do we feel it even when the observation tower comes equipped with a sturdy handrail? No, vertigo is something other than fear of falling. It is the voice of emptiness which tempts and lures us, it is the desire to fall, against which, terrified, we defend ourselves." - I have fear of heights though not vertigo. As author puts it, vertigo is the insuperable longing to fall.

"On the surface, an intelligible lie; underneath, the unintelligible truth". - This line cracks open the realities of the society, family or relations. There is so much of undercurrent turmoil although on the surface it is an impeccably realistic world.

Photographer freind (PF) - "If you live only for your husband, you have no life of your own"
Tereza - "My husband is my life. Of course, I am happy"
PF - "The only kind of woman who can say that is very... limited/ anachronistic" -
This statement couldn't be more relevant in recent time when each educated/ self made girl is faced with this internal (and many times external) question after marriage (and more so after kids). So are those choosing to stay home are out of realities of present world? Well, it would be undermining their contribution on the home front which is not yet accounted in any GDP calculation. But, whether it is leading to dead loss; yes, for sure, as one's betters skills can be used upwardly while properly delegating the other unskilled jobs to other people thus creating more for everybody. However, will the ethos of motherhood be lost in this process? I doubt that.

"I want you to be old. Ten years older. Twenty years older!'. What she meant was: I want you to be weak. As weak as I am." - Tereza was so distraught with Tomas's infidelity and weak enough to strongly protest it. So the only alternative was to please Tomas to be as weak as she was. However , soon after this statement we are given this line " But when the strong were too weak to hurt the weak, the weak had to be strong enough to leave" . This is in a way rebalancing of power.

" Marriage bed is still the symbol of the marriage bond, and symbols, as we know, are inviolable" . Author loves symbolism. He goes on the explain the Woman by following " Not respect Marie Claude but respect the woman in Marie Claude"

Continuing with symbols, the betrayal is beautifully explained by following "But if we betray B, for whom we betrayed A, it does not mean we have placated A. The first betrayal is irreparable. IT calls forth a chain reaction of further betrayals, each of which takes us farther and farther away from the point of our original betrayal"

For Music he firstly explains that "Noise has one advantage. It drowns out words" . Then he mentions that "Music is the negation of sentences, music is the anti-word. " .

For people who are afraid of dark, following is so impactful that one would come to love the darkness "The darkness is pure, perfect, thoughtless, visionless; that darkness is without end, without borders; that darkness was the infinite we each carry within us. Yes, if you are looking for infinity, just close your eyes"

The balance of power between two people as is reflected in class divide is captured through "Marie Claude proclaimed Sabina's pendant ugly because she could afford to do so"

What is truth? Is not lying means living in truth. Explaining Truth negatively is easy but the way author puts it for Sabina i.e. "For Sabina, living in truth, lying neither to ourselves nor to others, was possible only away from the public: the moment someone keeps an eye on what we do, we involuntarily make allowances for that eye, and nothing we do is truthful." . These lines paint the reality, that most of us playact our lives based on people around us.

Apart from above lines, there are stories of Oedipus, of Stalin's son and the whole book trying to bring one to reality of living a light life which in reality is so tough. The symbolism of ending when the nocturnal butterfly circles the room and music rises from below is one of those endings which though seems odd, doesn't make you look for more as the book could have ended somewhere in between and yet be complete.














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