The age of lightness and anxiety

Milan Kundera has been amongst the most popular Czechoslovak exile authors. Escaping to France, his beloved land, he wrote plentiful books, which entail complicated reflections on human beings along with satirical comments on the address on their pride and vanity. 

After multiple, rather unsuccessful attempts of mine to read the author in french I finally got to the artwork considered to be his greatest: The unbearable lightness of being. The author offers a plethora of motives, some are more accurate, and some seem rather tense and artificial in the book. Before diving deep into what each of the motives means in the book, I will get into the characters of the book. 

The story mentions 4 core characters, primarily the young couple of Tomáš and Tereza, starting off rather abruptly after "6 happy coincidences", resulting in something resembling very close to the notion of true love. However, their love is troublesome and erratic at the same time, as Tomáš, a renowned surgeon in the city of Prague, is a notorious womanizer. Despite his strong distinction of love and "just simple sex with other women", Tereza suffers from his sexual endeavors and struggles to keep on.

Meanwhile, another pair of characters is Sabína and Franz. Sabína, a former mistress of Tomáš, escapes Czechoslovakia after occupation in 1968 and decides to live in Switzerland. There she meets Franz, physically strong but psychically weak person. Kundera apparently enjoys contrasting attributes of characters to one another, doing so multiple times in the book. Franz is originally unable to escape the grasp of his directive wife, Marie-Claude and his daughter Marie-Anne, who bears uncanny resemblance to her mother and considers her father to be lame. Only with discovering his unexpected love to Sabína he gains the power to escape his unhappy marriage. However, Sabína has troubles with settling down for any relationship as she feels betraying people is the only thing she was ever good at. Thus, she eventually leaves Franz for Paris, only to later end up in the United States. Nevertheless, she does not feel as she belongs anyhwere or has meaning, because of the phenomenon described as the lightness of being. 

This is precisely the feeling which Sabína gets after leaving Czechoslovakia and settles down in Switzerland for the first time. She feels as light as a feather but it is not a lightness that would free her. It is rather tense and anxious feeling of not belonging anywhere, having nothing planned in the life in front of her. Despite the feeling liberates her, it also feels unbearably light and simple. Assuming no eternal return is possible, humans are light of the burden of making right decisions in life. The fragility of human decision-making, the feeling you could be anyone at all makes Sabína uncomfortable and thus as she leaves Switzerland for France and later U.S. for France, she does not get rid of it. She wants to "die in lightness" but is the price of meaningless, unburdened life worth it? Kundera leaves that for the reader. 

Source: https://www.facebook.com/The-unbearable-lightness-of-being-188154467895267/

Second important motive in the book is the notion of love and from what it could be raised. The love described by Tomáš and Tereza commences from what the two of them have in common and what they are able to share with each other - the detest for the socialist regime, their dog Karenin and the strong dependence on each other which they express in their sacrifices throughout the book. On contrary, the love of Sabína and Franz is based on the fact that they do not share anything, therefore their love does not last for long. Evidence for that is given by Kundera in "small dictionary of words misunderstood", in which both of them give different meaning to particular words. Being one of the most beautiful parts of the book, the analysis of individual words describes different values and perceptions on life Franz and Sabína have. This is again, contrasting the relationships both of the couples have.

Thirdly, there is the motive of hypocrisy of modern era that is best seen in the Grand march on Cambodia. Kundera was taking a lot in this novel from actual historical events and from heinous crimes of totalitarian regime which was present in Cambodia back in 1970s. Thus, in the book, Franz joins numerous celebrities and influential people on the Grand march, which is a protest against the conditions in the country. However, throughout the march we see plethora of people having different intetnions than to help poor Cambodians, that is, American movie star taking pictures of herself everytime she gets the chance. There is also a strong desire of other members of the march to be first in the row so they are the most visible, only to increase their popularity. The whole "hypocritical aid to the developing world" for the developed world only to feel better is a recurrent motive that could be seen even nowadays. 

The only thing which struck me as rather inconvenient and not necessary was "analysis of shit" which could be interpreted in a multiple ways. Kundera takes his time to analyse how shit is a proof of actual living, in comparison to the perfect, kitsch propaganda provided by socialists. Therefore, shit denounces kitsch and admitting the existence of shit fights unrealistic ideals provided by the propaganda. Even though original thought in itself, for me the notion did not fit into the story. In comparison to the other parts of the story (as the grand march or relationships described), the picture of shit does not fit. 

Overall, the book is written in a rather unconventional way, as Kundera intertwines historical events, philosophical meditations and story of young lovers. Nonetheless, it is an impressive descriptive of an era of chaos and anxiety on how to have a meaningful life in the modern, rushed era. In case you seek a literary catharsis from the well-renowned writer, seek no more!