This was a book which chimed with my difficult emotions at the moment, as I stuggle with leaving a counttry where I'm happy, to return to one that is quite simply, 'home'. Kundera explores the complex yet changing feelings surrounding 'nostalgie du pays', which doesn't feel to me quite the same as homesickness. He refers to Ulysses long odysssey and to many others who've been willingly or unwillingly away from 'home'. His story centres round Irena and Josef, both voluntary exiles from their native Czech Republic, each of whom briefly returns after many years absence. Absence, memory, nostalgia all form part of the surge of feelings each experiences. But do their feelings match each other's, or what they thought they'd feel?

A subtle, intelligent and absorbing short novel. ( )

Kundera is a master of many languages. He's a Czech who writes in French. He's also an émigré. This book explores the feelings that emigres have for the land and people they left behind. A subject of which he has firsthand knowledge. I had read Thomas Wolfe's "You Can't Go Home Again" and came away very disappointed as Wolfe doesn't do justice to a very interesting question. Kundera goes there. He pulls it apart from many perspectives. Skip the Wolfe, Read Kundera.

Kundera explores the meaning of nostalgia. He compares how it is used in various languages with emphasis on different aspects of the apparently similar phenomenon. I'm astounded at how different people focused on different aspects. Kundera also uses The Odyssey to illustrate how the hero Odysseus was impacted by nostalgia.

Communism had a lot to do with Kundera's leaving Czechoslovakia. And with the fall of the Soviet Union, he was under great pressure to return. Many assumed he would want to get back "home" as soon as it was possible. But Kundera sees Paris as his home now and has no interest in returning to Prague. In "Ignorance", Kundera shows many reasons why emigres don't return when they can.

On returning, they, like the main character, Irena, may be faced with an unpleasant situation like becoming the daughter of the dominating or at least unsympathetic mother. In Paris, she was at least her own person who didn't need to defend her position all the time. Or, like Joseph, whose family suffered because of his emigrating, he had his own life. Some regimes looked very negatively on the rejection inherent in emigrating. And families who were left behind let the émigré that the émigré was the cause of their problems with guilt tripping of various forms. And then there's the property and or rights the émigré abandoned. Returning means facing what happened while they were gone. While some issues can be rectified when parties can agree, many fester and leave enduring resentment.

Needless to say, returning is not as pleasant as many imagine. Yet those around them, in their new "home", expect the émigré to look longingly upon their chance to return. They don't understand the situation and all that it entails.

And then there's the one they fell in love with before they knew anything about life. They were cruel, and even though we want to think of them differently, as if they changed, we are faced with their cruelty once again. Kundera finally lets us know where the title comes from. He tells us that we were ignorant when we were young, but that was the time when we chose our first mate, our career, and where we went to escape. ( )

I guess nostalgia is my theme this month. ( )

Ignorance
by Milan Kundera

#books #reviews #1001books

My Rating: 5/5

Awesome. An eye-opener of sorts. Are Memories permanent? Two people meet after a long time and while one remembers their past in bits and pieces .. the other remembers naught. They fill in the blanks with what imagination could provide for each other. Leaving the past behind, how can one say whether the present is good or bad without referring to the future? And how can anyone be anything but ignorant about the future?
Lovely. Lovely book. Very small and quick novella. ( )

I was thinking while reading this book about the rating I'll give it… I was going to give it a 4-star rating wishing it could it be 4.5 stars. But while reading the last 50 pages, I definitely knew I was going to give it a 5, and quite easily, too. The ideas represented about art, history, music, writing, and philosophy in this book are probably more worthy of attention and reading than the main story. And the main story got amazingly better near the end which made me wish the story would go on; nevertheless, the ending was perfect even though it doesn't give closure. I LOVED reading the book and at a point, I wished it was longer. Yes. That almost never happens.
The story is about two people - separate stories at first - who decide to return to their home, Prague after living abroad for about two decades during the Russian invasion, and then they meet by coincidence on their way home. I loved LOVED loved how the author reworked bits of Homer's Odyssey in the story with astute comparisons to ponder upon even though I hadn't had the slightest idea what the Odyssey was about (but now I do, thanks to Kundera's brilliant writing and story-telling.)

Really beautifully written. And a recommended read. Note that this is not a popular novel of his but it is the latest one. Therefore, it might be a better idea to start with something known and lovable, such as The Unbearable Lightness of Being or The Joke (I haven't ready any yet.)

I added quotes I found interesting to this page from the book: http://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/3424606

Now, excuse me while I go buy the rest of Kundera's books.
( )