The Unbearable Lightness of Being “Jokes are bad with metaphors. Even from a single metaphor, love can be born. ”

In general, reading a book that is famous and its name has already been imposed on its teeth is a disastrous matter. And when I first took up the “Unbearable Lightness of Being”, already celebrated at that time, I experienced a natural disappointment. Firstly, the poetry of the title has already drawn in my head certain vague outlines that the real book for some reason did not want to match. Secondly – and I realized this only now, after repeated reading – I was still too small. I think that I will be right in assuming that readers leaving comments about the meaninglessness of the novel simply have not accumulated enough everyday experience. After all, a person likes stories that describe himself in some way. But to understand the heroes of Kundera – Tomasz and Teresa, Fritz and Sabina – and only a person can sympathize with them, who, though not at all like in this story, but experienced love, separation, betrayal …

Unlike many famous works of modern classics, amazingly pretentious forms, “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” is a novel in this sense absolutely standard. Here, the life of several heroes involved in love triangles and other figures is described sequentially and without excessive metaphoricality, there are no special jumps in time or any other technical decorations.

What has elevated this book to the zenith of fame? After all, millions of love stories have been written … It seems to me that the fact is that, in fact, the novel is not primarily about love. And not about politics – although there are lots of interesting observations on the times of the Prague Spring and political movements in general. And not even about how our childhood and our parents are inseparably pursuing us, managing decisions and actions – albeit about that too.

The book about betrayal is not in a tragic-epic sense, but in everyday, banal, daily. Tomas loves Teresa, she is the only one in a series of his countless love adventures with whom he lives, sleeps, cares about. But he betrays her not so much by incessant betrayals (in the end, for him it is completely different, his mistresses do not at all compete with his wife’s place in his life), but by reflections on the fact that this woman was brought into his life as many as six independent from each other random events. Unable to deny the peculiarity of his feelings, he never ceases to wonder – but did he invent it? Perhaps, with the same success, there could have been any other random woman in Theresa’s place? But Teresa herself, who bound his hands with her weakness and vulnerability, bewitched by the bizarre beauty of her nightmares – isn’t she betraying herself, trying to endure intolerable jealousy?

However, Sabina is closer to me – the eternal lover and traveler, running away from any attachments, betraying any connections. A thorough and boring Fritz will begin to pray and be equal to her all his life, admiring the level of freedom inaccessible to him and not understanding that everything is not so sweet from the inside.

A book about loneliness, which catches up even with happy mutually in love, which is why it speaks to each of the readers who have already managed to feel it. The book is about that we are doomed to doubt and ask questions, being never completely convinced of anything, because life is lived right away and no one will explain whether our choice was right or best. Or perhaps the most important happiness, promising that same notorious lightness, was around the corner, for which we did not turn? The book that we all see the same thing in different ways, and our path is marked by a series of miscellaneous betrayals, and no one will tell you the only true answer.