The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Ratings24
Average rating3.9
15
Ratings24
Average rating3.9
Interweaves story and dream, past and present, and philosophy and poetry in a sardonic and erotic tale of two couples--Tomas and Teresa, and Sabina and her Swiss lover, Gerhart.
Reviews with the most likes.
2nd reading, Jan 2013. Still sublime.
I see in it an exaltation of the deliberate life. Of wakefulness. A recognition that we have one life to live; that the choices we make (or which are made for us) have their consequences but we can never know how it would be “otherwise”. I see open-eyed appreciation of beauty in myriad forms. The unexpected clash between honesty and openness. The satisfaction of staying true to one's values. I see a warning against the Disneyfication of our world.
We never really get to know the characters—not in the conventional sense—but we recognize their inner conflicts. And we learn or re-learn to keep our eyes open and to embrace joy where we find it.
It was definitely different from the books I've been reading these past few months.
A kaleidoscope of people, stories, fates, all in the backdrop of Soviet invasion in Czech Republic. Some thigs sound eerily familiar these days. Not in a good way.
