most people would probably call it being idealistic or a romanticist but personally i believe i am pretty novelistic, and in the mood i am right now (i just got the bell jar from the library yesterday and it has me wanting to write and be philosophic) i have decided to write about one of, if not my favorite novel
about a year ago i finally read the novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera, who is a Czechoslovakian author, and in just the first few pages i was in total and complete love with how he wrote and it all seemed so beautiful and amazing to me
the novel is set in Prague in 1968 during the time of the
Prague Spring and the subsequent invasion by the USSR, it focuses mainly around the characters of Tomas, Tereza, Sabina and Franz but also centers on Nietzsche's idea of
eternal returnKundera plays with this idea, offering an alternate interpretation that each of us has only one life to live, and what happens once will never occur again. He calls this idea "lightness", and refers to the concept of eternal return as "heaviness" or "weight". In describing the effect his idea of "lightness" has on a person's life, Kundera says
Einmal ist keinmal ("what happens but once, might as well not have happened at all").
By this logic life is, ultimately, insignificant; in an ultimate sense, no single decision matters. Since decisions do not matter, they are light - that is, they don't cause us suffering. Yet simultaneously, the insignificance of our decisions — our lives, our
being — causes us great suffering. Hence the phenomenon Kundera terms
the unbearable lightness of being: because life occurs only once and never returns, no one's actions have any universal significance. This idea is deemed unbearable because as humans, we want our lives to mean something, for their importance to extend beyond just our immediate surroundings.
Kundera's musings on this subject continues throughout the novel and using his main characters he illustrates a few of the effects of this lightness and weight
the character of Tomas is someone i immediately fell in in love with, i guess like Tereza he is someone i had been searching for before i ever knew he existed, most women would condemn this love but i just find this character as someone that i could not help but care about and truthfully he is a wonderful, intriguing and interesting character
in the novel Tomas is an internationally known surgeon and is stripped of his career because he refuses to renounce an anti-Czech Communist article he wrote. Ideally, Tomas would like to avoid political parties and society altogether in favor of being a free agent and independent thinker who acts as he chooses. Tomas attempts to practice a philosophy of lightness. He considers sex and love two separate and unrelated entities; he sleeps with many women, and loves one woman (Tereza), and sees no problem with the simultaneous existence of these two activities.
Although Tomas is an intellectual and a thinker, he is no romantic idealist and his lover Sabina calls him the complete opposite of the shiny, perfect ideals of politics and love. Tomas cannot take seriously the laws on which politics and romantic fidelity are based. His pragmatism, experience, and individualism make him unwilling to identify himself as a political liberal or as a faithful husband.
Tomas's character does not fundamentally change over the course of the novel. Instead, Tomas gains a modicum of heaviness. He also grows a little more cynical, as he becomes uncertain of his once firm views on life and being. His love for Tereza and eventual exile to the countryside curb his erotic adventures, but he never necessarily loses the desire for sex with many anonymous partners, or the conviction that such a desire is no crime.
with the character of Tereza i also have a distinct attachment to, i find her similar to me in so many ways but i am also disgusted by a few actions or characteristics she has. nevertheless, tereza has made an incredible impact on me in the ways of self understanding
in the novel Tereza represents purity and innocence that lead Tomas to see her as "child put in a basket and sent downstream" for him to find. Tereza is waiting for someone like Tomas to appear even before she meets him; even after she meets him, his constant betrayals mean she must frequently wait for him to return. The two love each other deeply, but make each other miserable. Tereza is not vulgar or kitsch in any easily recognizable sense; however, where Tomas and Sabina are light, she is heavy. Tereza does not damn Tomas for his infidelities, and instead characterizes herself as weaker than him. Precisely because of her intelligence and compassion, Tereza presents a kind of heaviness Tomas cannot easily dismiss.
Tereza changes considerably during the course of the novel, as she is increasingly forced to recognize the impossibility of her youthful dreams. Nothing remains as black and white as she feels it should be; Tereza even comes to admire her archrival Sabina and feels Sabina's powerful sensuality, although she knows Sabina is Tomas's beloved mistress. Just as Tomas must question his lightness, Tereza must question her heaviness.
the characters of Sabina and Franz also have a great importance in the novel and i shockingly see a bit of myself in both of them, however, i do not have as great of an attachment to them as i do to Tereza and Tomas, not that haven't made any impact on me i just adore Tereza and Tomas more
anyways, this novel had such a wonderful effect on me and i adore it so much more than i think i can describe here, i would just love to own a first edition of the novel, not as a collectors item but because of the personal meaning it has to me
if you would like to learn more about the novel feel free to visit its
wikipedia and
sparknotes page where i also took some of my information because, well, to be frank i'm lazy and didn't feel like typing as much as i have ended up doing
so with all my love, to everyone, best wishes for your future
