Eigenwillig komponierte Mischung aus Liebesroman und Sachbuch: Was mich bei diesem Buch bis zuletzt - und zwar durchaus auch auf störende Weise - irritierte, waren die Interpretationen und Erläuterungen der Handlung durch den Autor selbst. Vielleicht bin ich altmodisch, aber wenn ein Autor glaubt, sein eigenes Buch interpretieren zu müssen - weist das nicht auf eine Schwäche der Handlung oder der Charakterzeichnungen hin? Stellenweise entsteht so der Eindruck einer merkwürdigen Mischung aus tragischem Liebesroman vor dem Hintergrund des Prager Frühlings und politisch-philosophischem Sachbuch. Immer wieder mischt sich Kundera mit seiner eigenen Stimme in die Erzählung und bewirkt dadurch beim Leser (bei mir jedenfalls) eine Distanz zu den Figuren. Andererseits ist an jeder Stelle des Romans zu spüren, dass dieser Autor sein Handwerk durchaus versteht - was mich vermuten lässt, dass dieser Verfremdungseffekt beabsichtigt ist.

Großartig und virtuos aber in jedem Fall die eigenwillige Komposition der Kapitel, die nicht der Chronologie folgt, sondern immer mal wieder Geschehnisse vorwegnimmt, die noch in der Zukunft liegen, oder Vergangenes geschickt in die Gegenwart einfließen lässt. Mit dieser Komposition hängen auch mein abschließendes positives Fazit und die Tatsache zusammen, dass ich diesen Roman ohne Bauchschmerzen zu lesen empfehlen kann. Denn nicht - wie zunächst zu erwarten - das Kapitel, in dem die Protagonisten Tomas und Teresa tragischerweise zu Tode kommen und das mit Grabsteininschriften endet, beschließt den Roman, sondern ein sehr versöhnliches, von gegenseitiger Erkenntnis und Achtung, sprich: endlich wahrer Liebe und Glück geprägtes. Trotz des im Politischen wie im Persönlichen - rein chronologisch gesehen - tragischen Geschichtsverlaufes, der die Leichtig-, wenn nicht gar Gleichgültigkeit aller Existenz zu belegen scheint, lässt Kundera meines Erachtens durch diese wohlbedachte Komposition die Hoffnung aufleuchten, dass es auch anders sein könnte.

A classic novel from one of the world's best writers. A passionate novel that addresses politics, love, and fidelity. Filled with challenging and stimulating ideas. ( )

From the outset, this novel breaks from traditional narrative, interspersing insightful bits of the author's philosophies and insights into the lives of his characters throughout the story, making this one of the most original reading experiences I have had. Characters and author alike ponder and explore just how "light" human existence can be. Intimate insight into the social, sexual and political lives of Tereza, Tomas, Sabina and Franz displays the author's deep care for his characters, and it wasn't difficult to share his love. ( )

Life in Czechoslovakia, before and after the Russian invasion of 1968. Drowned in sex, though not in a lurid or salacious way. I loved the philosophically-minded passages.

I am not so sure that this book is about as many things as some would like to claim. It struck me as being very thin.
First long ranting point, communism.
It would, if truly present, be a form of the setting. But it is not there as Paris is there in a Hemmingway novel, as the Sahara is there in Bowels. It seems more like a mechanism; something used to move the plot then discarded.
Why? Life, every day life, for the Prague characters is thinly described, before and after Communism moves in, that we simply have only the vaguest notion of the change. We do know that Tomas is a doctor, and it is hinted that he is well off. But just how well off is completely up to the reader’s best guess. Well off enough to maintain himself, Tereza, and an ex-wife somewhere. But is he, all that considered, barely making ends meet or still managing to roll in the dough? Various mistresses alluded to, and never do we find out the nature of those relationships, with the exception of a few. And to what extent, before communism kicks in, is money a factor in these dealings. If for no other reason than the fact that when Tomas is no longer a doctor his Mistresses change we become of the notion that indeed money was a factor in those affairs.
If you know nothing about communism, you probably think that his losing his job as a doctor due to what he wrote has something at all to do with communism. If that is the case, you know nothing about communism. And you are likely educated in the American propagandistic version. What happened to Tomas can be given many labels: totalitarianism, fascism, orwellianism. Fine. But it is not a characteristic of communism. (Monumental aside: Flawed educations hammered into students the following: “Under communism doctors were only paid 20$ a week.” And it is true. I met a Pole and asked him about. He said that indeed it was true, but you need to consider that that 20$ was absolute profit, considering the state [attempted to] provide everything for that individual needed. That 20$ was pocket money. Same Pole went on to say that a four course meal for two at a very nice restaurant went for about 1$ total.)
But I can oblige the point. While it was not communism, it was a reality for people living in Prague, and likely a scary one at that. Fine, but without life well described when they had capitalism, we have nothing to compare it to when the red menace goose steps in. And the description does not get much better after the transition. So we have no real way of knowing what this communist life was truly like.
People who want to beat the point about him having lost his job should consider that it is, at least as the novel is concerned, a somewhat isolated incident. If another doctor was richly described, who either did not run his trap about the government or apologized for it, then we would have a way of illustrating life under that form. But that doesn’t happen. Instead we have this notion of proud Tomas standing up for his beliefs, because it was at the end of the day only a misunderstanding. Point accepted, but again, that is not Communism (last time I harp about, I swear), and it could pretty much happen anywhere a government gets too much power. It does make for an interesting comparison with how Tomas lives with Teresa. But it is only interesting in passing. And then you move on.

The book struggles structurally. Teresa is at some point hassled by someone at her job as a waitress. The person nominates the fact that her husband is a lowly window-washer. Except we had not learned that yet – it comes a little later in the book. So we write the guy off as a drunk. Out of the blue, Teresa suspects the guy of being some kind of informant, damned if we can figure why. When, later, Tomas is a window-washer, it makes more sense. But a lot of information is delivered that poorly in the book. The book opens more or less about Tomas. Then it moves on to Teresa. This was indeed interesting. It was still interesting when it switched again to Sabina, who was with us from the beginning, more or less. At the end of that section, we are told Teresa and Tomas are dead. The chronology then breaks with the next section and they are alive again. And it became very hard to care.
But I really had to draw the line when the story jumped to Franz. Who was this upstart and why should I care? I am at this point damn near done with the book, have only known him for a meager 50 pages (most of which were really about Sabina), and frankly don’t care. He was a secondary character earlier, why bring him up now? For comparisons sake – how we loved compared to Tomas, how he acted nobly for what he believed in compared to Tomas – it could work. But then why not flesh him out from page one and treat him like a character.
If it has to be about anything this book becomes about love and sex with a dash of philosophy. Frankly there is nothing at all interesting about how Tomas and Teresa love – or fuck. Their relationship seemed so very typical of so much else written about the difficulty of love. Only this one has the arrogance to think it can stretch into the notion of ‘being’ without taking into consideration education, social standing, class, race identity, gender, government, history, culture, taxes, nourishment, survival, and theology just to name a monumental few of the things that comprise our being.
So some people living in this story aren’t monogamous. Big fucking deal. Monogamy is not nearly as widely accepted we would all like to think. I genuinely think that if society as a whole were not so prudish works like this would be in the dust bin.

And of the book’s Philosophy?
“Before we are forgotten, we will be turned into kitsch. Kitsch is the stopover between being and oblivion”
Sure. But you might be a century or two late to make that statement. Art is subjective, and with that in mind there can be no bad art – no Kitsch (bullshit term if I ever encountered one). And with that in mind so many rants of the end of the book simply failed. Replace the word with its synonym.
“[Bad art] has its source in the categorical agreement with being”
No it does not. That doesn’t mean anything. It’s double talk.
“Franz was obviously not a devotee of [bad art].”
Who the fuck would be? ( )