Has anyone read this guy? I read a couple of his novels...and he's blown me over His books aren't stories but philosophy...really really profound. The only thing I regret is having to read translations...
I heard a rumour his stories are Unbearable, so I was avoiding him. Agree about translations, at least for new works. But for older works (classics, as they say) translations are great, because you can read your favourite works over and over, in different voices.
Oh, this is embarrassing! My apologies to Kundera. To make up for it, I admit to being a fan of Czech writers. May I also recommend Josef Škvorecký? A good writer's writer (The Engineer of Human Souls).
Help with Kundera I'm just about to finish THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING, and I'd love to hear someone else's take on this novel. Your comment that "his books aren't stories but philosophy ..." certainly seems to fit this one. The problem is I'm not sure I even follow his philosophy. The writing seems random and uneven to me; and the storyline (if you can call it that) seems incidental--a vehicle to convey this philosophy that just doesn't make sense to my little brain. In fact, it almost reads to me more like a painting than literature. I'd love to "see the light." Some of his use of language is stunning--certainly visual, often even poetic. But I could do with an insight or two into the theme about lightness of being, why that's unbearable, and whatever else any reader out there can offer me.
Its been about ten years since I read Kundera (lots of them) and they all seemed ever so faintly misogynistic? Is that just my imagination? Wasn't his character always sleeping with some redhead and her sister or something? As I said, been a long time. But over in Czech there is also some old guy in a bar sitting in a corner, eating a pickled sausage and telling the young girls what 'beautiful darlings' they are. This to me is my image of Milan Kundera. Or maybe its all in my mind.
Well, maybe you're right. Is it possible this is a poetic justification for separating love from sex on the part of that Czech guy in the bar? If so, he has a round-about way of getting there and has wasted an awful lot of great imagery. Or maybe that's all in my mind ... From mine to yours.
Haven't read him, but probably should. Also, Alexander McCall Smith released a book last year (or the year before :S) entitled...The Unbearable Lightness...of Scones. Needless to say, it made me lol. But I bet most of his readers totally missed the hilariousity of the reference.
That's pretty funny. Sounds more like a cookbook than the novel it is. Since the only scones I've ever had are anything but light, I'm thinking maybe there's an insightful parallel here. Wish I knew what it was (maybe I oughta read Smith's book.