THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING
By Milan Kundera
Harper & Row
1984
Translated from the Czech by Michael Henry Heim
Ms. Hen happened to buy this at a used bookstore a while
back since she had heard it is considered one of the great books. She had no
idea what it was about when she started reading, but soon she was engrossed in
the story of tortured love.
The title of this novel has to do with lightness and
heaviness. The protagonist, Tomas, believes that everything is light and
nothing he does, including having numerous sexual partners, matters. His lover,
Tereza, who becomes his wife, believes that everything is heavy, and she
cannot bear the weight of the world. He believes she came to him in a “bulrush
basket” like Moses, and he cannot turn her away, because that would be cruel.
She comes to visit him in Prague after a brief encounter in
the small village where she lives. After he seduces her, she gets very sick,
and he believes that he has to take care of her. He refuses to give up his
other lovers, however, and even introduced Tereza to the sly Sabina so she can
help Tereza find employment.
Around Tomas and Tereza, Prague is in an uproar. The
Russians are taking over the city with tanks and guns. Citizens are being shot.
Tereza, a photographer, takes pictures of what is happening to prove to the
world that this is wrong.
Tereza and Tomas leave and go to Switzerland, but come back
eventually because Tereza leaves and Tomas follows her. They have a difficult
love; he loves her, but he thinks he needs other women.
He chases what he says is the one-millionth part difference
between all women. He is a surgeon, and he believes that intimacy with a woman
is similar to cutting open a body with a scalpel; he does it to discover how unique each woman is underneath everything else. He considers tastes in art
and music interesting, but he is more interested in finding out the secret
difference that dwells beneath.
Even though Ms. Hen knows this is one of the great novels,
she found the character of Tomas to be unsavory. She doesn’t know anyone like
him, nor would she wish to. She found his philandering unpleasant, and she was reminded
of another novel she had read years ago, one of her favorites, LOVE IN THE TIME
OF CHOLERA, in which a man, Florentino, and a woman, Fermina, are in love, but
she is forced to marry a doctor because of his money and status.
In that novel, when Florentino’s heart is broken, he sleeps
with every woman he can find. Ms. Hen did not find Florentino as creepy in that
novel as she did Tomas in this one. In LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA, the
character stayed true to his heart. Tomas never stays true to his heart, and
that is what disgusts Ms. Hen about him, and it prevented her from loving this
novel too much.
There are some chickens in THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING,
but not too many. What Ms. Hen did learn was the original German meaning of the
word “kitsch.” It is “an aesthetic ideal of categorical agreement with being in
a world in which shit is denied and everyone acts as though it did not exist.”
This can mean actual shit or figurative shit. The word has become used in all
Western languages and has changed its meaning. Ms. Hen does not deny shit; she
knows it exists; her world is full of it. People who deny shit have rose-colored
glasses, and Ms. Hen cannot tolerate that. The world may be full of shit, but
that doesn’t mean there aren’t good things too; Ms. Hen is not a complete
pessimist. But she does not ascribe to kitsch.
Even though Ms. Hen did not love this book completely, she
found it illuminating and educational. The world does have unpleasant people in
it, like Tomas, and that cannot be denied, but that doesn’t mean that some
things can be beautiful.
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