The Farewell Party
by Milan Kundera
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In this dark farce of a novel, set in an old-fashioned Central European spa town, eight characters are swept up in an accelerating dance: a pretty nurse and her repairman boyfriend; an oddball gynecologist; a rich American (at once saint and Don Juan); a popular trumpeter and his beautiful, obsessively jealous wife; an disillusioned former political prisoner about to leave his country and his young woman ward. Perhaps the most brilliantly plotted and sheer entertaining of Milan Kundera's show more novels, Farewell Waltz poses the most serious questions with a blasphemous lightness that makes us see that the modern world has deprived us even of the right to tragedy. Written in Bohemia in 1969-70, this book was first published (in 1976) in France under the title La valse aux adieux (Farewell Waltz), and later in thirty-four other countries. This beautiful new translation, made from the French text prepared by the novelist himself, fully reflects his own tone and intentions. As such it offers an opportunity for both the discovery and the rediscovery of one of the very best of a great writer's works. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
Kundera is the master of the undersell. He tells a surface story but has something to say underneath. He clearly has mastered the technique of avoiding censors. He can't bring that message to the surface but it peeks out everywhere.
On the surface there's a simple story. A man has been a new position in another country. He is amazed that he has been given permission to leave the country. He has come to tell his friend, a doctor, who runs an institution where his ward has been living. His ward would love to move their relationship to an intimate level. He's afraid she'll take this news badly. A second plot involves a famous trumpeter who has had an affair with one of the nurses in the same institution and whose wife is convinced he's show more been cheating on her.
The man reveals that he has been given by his friend the doctor a poison pill which he has no intention of using but he enjoys having because it gives him a sense of freedom knowing he can use it if he wants to avoid going to prison. These two plots intersect. The nurse is having a meeting with the trumpeter in a public place. She's concerned about how he'll react to learning that she's pregnant and is totally opposed to having an abortion. She accidentally leaves her pills on the table. Here's comes the intersection. The man notices and picks up the pills and sees they look very much like his poison pill. To investigate the similarity he puts his pill into the tube containing her pills. At this point she reappears and pulls back what's hers before he can explain and she stalks off.
This sets up the tension. Can he retrieve the poison before she accidentally kills herself. He does not even know who she is or how to find her. If he says and does nothing no one will ever know his involvement and he will be out of the country. If he attempts to find her he may miss his opportunity to leave the country and by alerting people to the issue he may wind up accused of murder. Silence is the easy course but his conscience demands he at least do something. But his repeated attempts are thwarted. He is also distracted by his ward who is determined to fulfill her desires.
How Kundera manages to make this tale into a discussion of oppressive regimes is amazing. He shows how not wanting to acknowledge what is real can impact what actually happens. The man has managed to solve several people's problems by not rescuing the nurse in time. Events are interpreted in ways that people want to see them. Social commentary is made in an understated way.
A short book but worth the time to read. show less
On the surface there's a simple story. A man has been a new position in another country. He is amazed that he has been given permission to leave the country. He has come to tell his friend, a doctor, who runs an institution where his ward has been living. His ward would love to move their relationship to an intimate level. He's afraid she'll take this news badly. A second plot involves a famous trumpeter who has had an affair with one of the nurses in the same institution and whose wife is convinced he's show more been cheating on her.
The man reveals that he has been given by his friend the doctor a poison pill which he has no intention of using but he enjoys having because it gives him a sense of freedom knowing he can use it if he wants to avoid going to prison. These two plots intersect. The nurse is having a meeting with the trumpeter in a public place. She's concerned about how he'll react to learning that she's pregnant and is totally opposed to having an abortion. She accidentally leaves her pills on the table. Here's comes the intersection. The man notices and picks up the pills and sees they look very much like his poison pill. To investigate the similarity he puts his pill into the tube containing her pills. At this point she reappears and pulls back what's hers before he can explain and she stalks off.
This sets up the tension. Can he retrieve the poison before she accidentally kills herself. He does not even know who she is or how to find her. If he says and does nothing no one will ever know his involvement and he will be out of the country. If he attempts to find her he may miss his opportunity to leave the country and by alerting people to the issue he may wind up accused of murder. Silence is the easy course but his conscience demands he at least do something. But his repeated attempts are thwarted. He is also distracted by his ward who is determined to fulfill her desires.
How Kundera manages to make this tale into a discussion of oppressive regimes is amazing. He shows how not wanting to acknowledge what is real can impact what actually happens. The man has managed to solve several people's problems by not rescuing the nurse in time. Events are interpreted in ways that people want to see them. Social commentary is made in an understated way.
A short book but worth the time to read. show less
Rõ ràng là các nhân vật của Kundera không sống. Tính cách, số phận, suy nghĩ của họ chỉ là những mảnh minh họa 2D, là những con rối để vị Chúa Kundera thể hiện quan điểm, tư tưởng của mình. Nhưng không vì thế mà câu chuyện của họ không hấp dẫn. Chính vì điều đó mà dõi theo câu chuyện của họ mới hấp dẫn.
Đây có thể coi là lời giã từ của Kundera với tổ quốc của ông chăng? Là sự hạ mình để trở thành một phần trong đất nước mà bấy lâu ông/Jakub khinh ghét, vào thời khắc cuối cùng mới nhận ra đó là nơi chốn duy nhất của thân phận mình?
Đây có thể coi là lời giã từ của Kundera với tổ quốc của ông chăng? Là sự hạ mình để trở thành một phần trong đất nước mà bấy lâu ông/Jakub khinh ghét, vào thời khắc cuối cùng mới nhận ra đó là nơi chốn duy nhất của thân phận mình?
Reading this thirty years on, I can't help wondering why we were all so bowled over by Kundera back in the eighties. It's a flimsy black comedy without very much to say, and reads more like a film script than a novel. What cleverness there is comes over as movie-cleverness: rapid scene changes, parallel stories, throwaway lines.
The whole mood is profoundly sexist, and there's no evidence to suggest that Kundera intended any irony by setting the story in a fertility spa: this is still the old world where men sit around discussing life, the universe and everything, whilst women fulfil themselves by having babies. If their husbands can't manage it, there's the good doctor to cure them with his magic syringe.
As so often with translations, show more the (UK) English title seems to have been thought up by someone who hasn't read the book. There is neither a party nor any dancing in the book, but Farewell Waltz (corresponding to La valse aux adieux, the title of the original French edition) makes sense in a way that The Farewell Party doesn't: you can have a metaphorical waltz, but who ever heard of a metaphorical party? show less
The whole mood is profoundly sexist, and there's no evidence to suggest that Kundera intended any irony by setting the story in a fertility spa: this is still the old world where men sit around discussing life, the universe and everything, whilst women fulfil themselves by having babies. If their husbands can't manage it, there's the good doctor to cure them with his magic syringe.
As so often with translations, show more the (UK) English title seems to have been thought up by someone who hasn't read the book. There is neither a party nor any dancing in the book, but Farewell Waltz (corresponding to La valse aux adieux, the title of the original French edition) makes sense in a way that The Farewell Party doesn't: you can have a metaphorical waltz, but who ever heard of a metaphorical party? show less
In typical Kundera fashion, you aren't sure whether to laugh or cry while reading this novel. Kundera likes to teeter on the edge of blasphemy, always pulling the reader back with the sheer humanness of his characters. While this Aaron Asher translation was released here in the states in 1998, it was originally written in 1969-70, and in that context, becomes a far more controversial and provocative novel. It is a good read, and full of poetic and prosaic gems. Kundera hands the reader the truths of life on a platter, accompanied by the Dom Pérignon of his prose.
Të hedhësh dritë mbi problemet më serioze dhe në të njëjtën kohë të mos shqiptosh asnjë fjali të vetme serioze, të magjepsesh nga realiteti i botës bashkëkohore dhe në të njëjtën kohë të shmangësh çdo realizëm - ja, kjo është Festa e kotësisë.
This was the first Kundera book I ever read. It's perhaps, the most freewheeling farcical book of his oeuvre. More plot driven, less narrative digressions. It was a good place to start. Still pretty good, though not precisely top shelf Kundera. Enjoyed it considerably more than "Life Is Elsewhere" which preceded it.
La despedida
Milan Kundera
Publicado: 1973 | 244 páginas
Novela Drama Humor
En un balneario algo trasnochado convergen temporalmente ocho personas cuyas circustancias se van entretejiendo paulatinamente hasta formar, con la precisión de una telaraña, una trama en la que todos, directa o indirectamente, acaban viéndose atrapados: el músico célebre y la hermosa enfermera que quiere quedarse embarazada; la celosísima esposa del músico y el joven mecánico enamorado de la enfermera; el ex convicto, víctima de las purgas de su país, que va a despedirse de la muy cerebral Olga; el ginecólogo, con sus fanfarrones proyectos demográficos; el rico excéntrico, una versión de santo moderno. La despedida tiene la ligereza y la magia de show more un vals, de «un sueño de una noche de verano». Pero, tras esta forma intencionadamente frívola, se oculta la pregunta más grave: ¿merece el hombre vivir en esta tierra ? ¿Acaso no hay que «liberar el planeta de la garras del hombre»? En este sentido, cuesta imaginar algo más glacial y más profundo que la aparente ligereza de Kundera. show less
Milan Kundera
Publicado: 1973 | 244 páginas
Novela Drama Humor
En un balneario algo trasnochado convergen temporalmente ocho personas cuyas circustancias se van entretejiendo paulatinamente hasta formar, con la precisión de una telaraña, una trama en la que todos, directa o indirectamente, acaban viéndose atrapados: el músico célebre y la hermosa enfermera que quiere quedarse embarazada; la celosísima esposa del músico y el joven mecánico enamorado de la enfermera; el ex convicto, víctima de las purgas de su país, que va a despedirse de la muy cerebral Olga; el ginecólogo, con sus fanfarrones proyectos demográficos; el rico excéntrico, una versión de santo moderno. La despedida tiene la ligereza y la magia de show more un vals, de «un sueño de una noche de verano». Pero, tras esta forma intencionadamente frívola, se oculta la pregunta más grave: ¿merece el hombre vivir en esta tierra ? ¿Acaso no hay que «liberar el planeta de la garras del hombre»? En este sentido, cuesta imaginar algo más glacial y más profundo que la aparente ligereza de Kundera. show less
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One of the foremost contemporary Czech writers, Kundera is a novelist, poet, and playwright. His play The Keeper of the Keys, produced in Czechoslovakia in 1962, has long been performed in a dozen countries. His first novel, The Joke (1967), is a biting satire on the political atmosphere in Czechoslovakia in the 1950s. It tells the story of a show more young Communist whose life is ruined because of a minor indiscretion: writing a postcard to his girlfriend in which he mocks her political fervor.The Joke has been translated into a dozen languages and was made into a film, which Kundera wrote and directed. His novel Life Is Elsewhere won the 1973 Prix de Medicis for the best foreign novel. Kundera has been living in France since 1975. His books, for a long time suppressed in his native country, are once again published.The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984), won him international fame and was a successful English-language film. In this work Kundera moves toward more universal and philosophically tinged themes, thus transforming himself from a political dissident into a writer of international significance. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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L'àncora [Destino] (17)
Bibliotheca stylorum (2002)
suhrkamp taschenbuch (1815)
Gallimard, Folio (1043)
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- The Farewell Party
- Original title
- Valčík na rozloučenou
- Alternate titles
- Farewell Waltz
- Original publication date
- 1972 (Tsjechisch, manuscript) (Tsjechisch, manuscript); 1982 (Nederlands) (Nederlands)
- Important places
- Czechoslovakia
- Dedication*
- A François Kérel
- First words
- Autumn has arrived and the trees are turning yellow, red, brown; the small spa town in its pretty valley seems to be surrounded by flames.
- Quotations
- In this country people don't appreciate mornings. They wake up abruptly with an alarm clock which breaks up their sleep like the blow of an ax, and they immediately propel themselves into a joyless bustle of activity. Tell me... (show all), how can a decent day possibly start in such an unseemly, violent manner! What happens to people who start life each morning with a small shock of alarm from their so aptly named alarm clock? Everyday they become a little more conditioned to violence, and a little less accustomed to delight. Believe me, people's characters are decided by the mornings.....
I love those morning hours of inactivity, which are like a beautiful sculpture lined bridge between across which I scroll from night into day, from dream into reality. During those hours how I long for a miracle! A small miracle, an unexpected encounter which would convince me that my nocturnal dreams do not end with the dawn, and there is no chasm between adventures of sleep and adventures of the waking day.
Aesthetic racism is almost always a manifestation of inexperience. People who haven't delved very deeply into the world of amorous delights judge women strictly on the basis of surface appearance. But those who really know wo... (show all)men realize that our eyes can reveal to us only a tiny fragment of the treasures which a woman can bestow.
The modern age has unmasked all myths. Childhood has long ceased to be an age of innocence. Freud discovered infant sexuality and told us all about Oedipus. Only Jocasta still remains shrouded, and nobody dares to take off he... (show all)r veil. Motherhood is the last and greatest taboo, and it is there that the greatest curse is concealed as well. There is no bondage more oppressive than that between mother and child. It cripples the child forever, and a maturing son causes his mother the most cruel erotic suffering. I repeat that motherhood is a curse and I don't wish to propagate it. - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)Then the four of them walked off under the platform lights and away from the railroad station.
- Original language*
- Tsjechisch
- Disambiguation notice
- Please note: Farewall Party was the 1976 English version. The 1998 new English-language version is Farewell Waltz, translated from the French by Aaron Asher.
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
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- General Fiction, Fiction and Literature
- DDC/MDS
- 891.86354 — Literature & rhetoric Literatures of other languages East Indo-European and Celtic literatures West and South Slavic languages (Bulgarian, Slovene, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Serbo-Croatian, and Macedonian) Czech Czech fiction 1900–1989 Late 20th century 1945–1989
- LCC
- PG5039.21 .U6 .V313 — Language and Literature Slavic languages and literatures. Baltic languages. Albanian language Slavic. Baltic. Albanian Slavic Czech
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