Immortality by Milan Kundera
I haven't picked up my copy yet, but I wanted to get some discussion going for those who have or those who are thinking about reading it. I also have an extra copy of Don Quixote if anyone would like to read it - just comment here and I'll get your address and pass it along.
Immortality by Milan Kundera (taken from readinggroupguide.com ( Read more... )
Immortality by Milan Kundera (taken from readinggroupguide.com ( Read more... )
Kundera quote from Immortality (just one of many)
" 'He who doesn't exist cannot be present.'
'That's too philosophical for me.'
'Forget for a moment that you're an American and exercise your brain.'"
So first off, I didn't know that this was considered the third book of a trilogy. So, I haven't read the first book, only the Unbearable Lightness. I am not crazy about the chopped up chapters and the complications of some of his tangents. Even though he brought the stories together at the end, I felt some of it was unnecessary. Does anyone have a good reason for this? It wasn't hard to understand and I think it is fast to read as a novel, just too complicated for no reason.
May favorite tangent throughout the book was the girl that sat in the road. Everytime we went back to her story it got better. And haven't we all sat in the road, even just in a cul-de-sac? *giggles*
Rubens was the story that I liked the least. Maybe you just have to be a man or something like that...I think the Unbearable Lightness was written to attract a female audience. Some of this is maybe too autobiographical? I like how he starts the story and that he puts himself in it. I also like when classic stories get added into a novel. It is nice to revisit them and for some it may open a new door.
So, what is immortality? This is where the philosophy starts. And the existential wants specific examples that add to reason. It seems it is always misunderstood and Goethe, Hemingway, and others pine over this in heaven. They thought their writing was enough, but they were wrong. They can even be remembered for things they never did. Too bad. Maybe its better to die young and leave a good looking body? OK I will get more serious if anyone comes back.
Reply
Reply
He writes the novel around various stories and these exapmles show that immortality, as how we are remembered or even how we view ourselves is our biography. Our biography is made up of important and unimportant events that we are too close to really distinguish. We supposedly never truthfully even ask ourselves what is important.
We accept what is important by what others tell us. (DO you need examples here? Like an article describes a person being interviewed by the words of the interviewer. Or, forms you fill out answer what another person thinks is relevent.) Life cannot be explained( and the best questions have no answers.)
Under the stories of the novel are true philosophies behind the popular existential thought. I was in another discussion not to long ago about another author picking up this theme.
"The fact of the matter is that existentialism is as true as depressiveness. Life is futile. We cannot know why we are here. Love is always imperfect. The isolation of bodily individuality can never be broached. No matter what you do on this earth, you will die. It is a selective advantage to be able to tolerate these realities, to look to other things, and to go on- to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."
-Andrew Solomon from The Noonday Demon
So, there is my mid-morning effort to exercise my American brain!LOL
Reply
Leave a comment