FINISHED READING - The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundara

The central protagonists of The Unbearable Lighhtness of Being are Tomas and Teresa, with secondary characters Serena, Tomas's mistress, and her boyfriend on the rebound Franz. Another dominant presence is the author himself, whose voice repeatedly intrudes into the narrative, commenting, with post modern philosophical observations from time to time. 

Tomas has form as a philanderer. He has these brief flings, sometimes they are just one night stands with women whose names he barely can remember after. But he really loves Theresa, who knows of his infidelities, fears these affairs becoming serious rivals, so just hopes they will pass, which most do. Their endures a strong bond between her and Tomas. Until, from time to time, she can take it no more and moves house or country, occasionally pursued by Tomas. She can't live with him, but can't live without him. You know the shtick.

Serena, his mistress, is prone to becoming a creative man's muse. Her long lived affair with Tomas to her mind was a high point that no one else can live up to. Poor Franz, though he comes a poor second is similarly besotted with Serena, whilst remaining married to the less than loveable Marie Claire. Franz always makes love to Serena with his eyes closed. For Serena there can be no future in it, she leaves him. For Franz, Serena remains his eternal love, which allows him to be content with just having loveless sex with his young students.

All this is set is around the Prague Spring in 1968 when Russia invaded Czechoslovakia. People disappear, people inform on others, writers and intellectuals become imprisoned, their work banned. But, though it is most definitely there, it all feels like a largely superfluous circumstance.  The sexual shenanigans in the world of Tomas and Theresa will forever looms much larger. And so the novel progresses along its frequently very tedious trajectory.

I read it all, let's just say that right now. It was one of my through 'to the bitter end' novels. The writer John Banville said many years later that he found the effect of reading The Unbearable Lightness of Being had left no discernible impact upon him. The characters he realised were neither memorable or likeable. I tend to agree, there is a self absorbed coldness about them all, which makes this a book that's truly hard to like. For all its high flown pretenses, it feels unbearably shallow.

Kundara's portrayal of love and of women is a very male one. All these long suffering women putting up with male infidelity because of their deeper more enduring sense of love. Surrendering their lives and careers to be with their man. So aware of the double standard that they're afraid of their husband discovering their own unfaithfulness and the possibility of anger and rejection. For all his philosophical pontificating on the complexities of love and loyalty, I couldn't believe a word of it. It didn't ring at all true to me. 

Nothing else meaningfully interacts with these self obsessed love affairs. If it had been a book exploring the nature of fidelity, to values and beliefs, both sexual and political, maybe I'd have been more interested in the reading of it. I wonder, when we are now so post Post Modern and in the middle of the #Me Too repercussions, how well this novel from 1984 would fare. Acclaimed at the time as a literary classic, it is overdue a less adoring reappraisal. For me it was a rather boring mess

.

CARROT REVIEW - 2/8