The Unbearable Lightness of Being: Twentieth Anniversary Edition Hardcover – Deckle Edge Author: Visit Amazon's Milan Kundera Page | Language: English | ISBN:
0060597186 | Format: PDF, EPUB
The Unbearable Lightness of Being: Twentieth Anniversary Edition – Deckle Edge Epub FreeDownload The Unbearable Lightness of Being: Twentieth Anniversary Edition – Deckle Edge Epub Free for everyone book with Mediafire Link Download Link
Review
"Brilliant . . . A work of high modernist playfulness and deep pathos." --
-- Janet Malcolm, New York Review of Books"Kundera has raised the novel of ideas to a new level of dreamlike lyricism and emotional intensity." --
-- Jim Miller, Newsweek"Kundera is a virtuoso . . . A work of the boldest mastery, originality, and richness." --
-- Elizabeth Hardwick, Vanity Fair"Brilliant...A work of high modernist playfulness and deep pathos." -- Janet Malcolm, New York Review of Books
"Kundera has raised the novel of ideas to a new level of dreamlike lyricism and emotional intensity." -- Jin Miller, Newsweek
"Kundera is a virtuoso...A work of the boldest mastery, originality, and richness." -- Elizabeth Hardwick, Vanity Fair --This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
Language Notes
Text: English, Czech (translation)
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Books with free ebook downloads available The Unbearable Lightness of Being: Twentieth Anniversary Edition – Deckle Edge Epub Free
- Hardcover: 320 pages
- Publisher: Harper; 20 Anv edition (May 4, 2004)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0060597186
- ISBN-13: 978-0060597184
- Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.9 x 1.2 inches
- Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
This is either a book of philosophy masquerading as a novel, or a novel about the lives of four or five characters with pretensions to be a book of philosophy. Either way, it's an amazing work. Since it is well-known and no doubt, well-reviewed, I might not be able to say anything new here. Kundera deals with his characters in a rather sketchy way, using them to pose a number of questions, rather than to go into great psychological depth. Yet, even there, the characters Tomas and Tereza do come through well. Their moods and motivations, even their dreams, hold a reader's attention. A couple of the others, Sabina and Franz, maybe Franz' wife, are very light indeed. Kundera is interested in sex and love, in the fact that they tie people down, in the fact that they are so fickle, so gosssamer light, yet so important. In a time when ideology and/or political oppression create craziness or stupidity and the common sense of daily life is overthrown---as in post-1968 Czechoslovakia and maybe pre-Gulf War II America---love and sex are more or less what is left for people to hang on to. Kundera also ponders the choices that people make, and the extremely haphazard way these choices come about, based perhaps on endless strings of coincidence.
This is not a novel long on plot. Rather it is a vehicle for some very intelligent musings. When living under oppressive rulers "is it better to shout and thereby hasten the end, or to keep silent and gain thereby a slower death ?" What is the nature of love ? Have you ever read the philosophy of excrement or kitsch ? You can find them here. Man is a cow parasite, he tells us, (though he's probably talking about a certain percent of humanity only) and goes on to say that attitude towards animals is a fundamental moral test of Man. We've failed.
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