“The Unbearable Lightness of Being” by Milan Kundera

Here’s a book that’s been on the periphery of my awareness seemingly forever without actually directly penetrating my consciousness. Which is to say I’d heard of the book (and the movie) but didn’t know anything about them. 

Now that I’ve read the book, I’m still not sure I know anything about it. I mean, I definitely got the surface plot. (Minimalist as it is... although I must admit I’m not sure where Franz came from. I can’t remember if I forgot his introduction, and thus his link to Tomas, or if the more tenuous link that I do remember—Sabina—is the only one. Anyway...) It's mainly the love story of Tomas and Tereza, told against the backdrop of the Russian invasion of Prague during the late 1960s.

But the book is full of symbolism and philosophy and I’m not sure I grasped all the deeper layers. I bet this book is perfect for studying in English class. But most of the time I have to have the hidden meanings pointed out to me. 

In a way it reminded me of Paolo Coelho’s The Alchemist (deceptively simple and full of quietly confident philosophical statements), but whereas I found Coelho’s statements often did not withstand scrutiny, I thought many of Kundera’s did. 

For example, Kundera states that “we all need someone to look at us,” thus he divides humanity into four types of people: 

1. Those who “long for an infinite number of anonymous eyes” (fame)
2. Those who “have a vital need to be looked at by many known eyes” (esteem) 
3. Those who “need to be constantly before the eyes of the person they love” (love)
4. Those who “live in the imaginary eyes of those who are not present” (dreams)

Assuming this is true, which one are you? (I’m #3)

I’m interested in seeing the movie. So much of the book is internal—how did they externalize it??