Immortality (Perennial Classics)

It starts off beautifully. The narrator is poolside, watching an older woman make a playful, girlish, and even flirty gesture to her swim instructor as she is leaving. Watching her act so young, so unaware of her actual age prompts the narrator to ponder ageism and what it would mean to be truly ageless. From there the novel meanders through fact and fiction, weaving real historical figures like Goethe and Hemingway with fictional ones like the woman from the pool, Agnes. Kundera's writing breaks boundaries because the style is a conversation with the reader, a philosophical journey through topics like relationships, sex and of course, immortality.

The author is sitting by the pool of his health club when he sees a woman make a gesture that brings on a flood of speculations about her life. Mixed in with these fantasies are anecdotes that may or may not be true about the lives of Goethe, Hemingway, Rimbaud, Rubens, Beethoven, and other famous artists. Along the way, Kundera attempts to deconstruct the novel as an art form.

This book really requires a lot of concentration and thought, and I just didn’t have it in me to put the necessary amount of work into reading it. I appreciate what Kundera was trying to do with deconstructing the novel, but I didn’t enjoy it. I also disagree with a lot of what his characters said about the nature of life and humanity, so it was difficult to show more empathize with them. show less

While The Unbearable Lightness of Being is my favorite of Kundera's novels, Immortality is clearly the superior work. Here Kundera shies away from the political preoccupations that figure so heavily into his earlier works and magically weaves together so many disparate characters (his primary fictional set, the author himself, and various historical personalities) and situations (Goethe and Hemingway's discussion of their views of immortality is priceless!) into a cohesive narrative so that the result is positively dizzying and profoundly rewarding. Immortality is replete with Kundera's usual clever observations as well as his offbeat, wry humor (not the first thing that comes to mind when discussing this author!). Immortality is best show more appreciated once a reader has a couple of other Kundera works under his belt. show less

This is the third Kundera book I've read. I'd recommend The Unbearable Lightness of Being before either this or Forever Waltz. There are many characters in this book, including Kundera himself, and sometimes the narrative is lost. This is something that makes the book interesting, and threatens it strength. In a line when Kundera is speaking as himself he says that if even one sentence is missed one will not understand the book, and recognizes that he himself never reads every line of a book, and so his book will never be understood. This line is toward the second half and you wonder, "what, wait?"

There are many great passages, beautiful images, deep thoughts, tricky plays in this book. If only its continuity wasn't disrupted so often.

Whatever I did not like in the "Unbearable Lightness of Being" was developed here; whatever I liked in the mentioned book "Immortality" explained away, severed its connection with Kundera, his form and his content. To a person who wants to read Kundera and wants my opinion (which is a contradiction as it is) I would advice not to touch this book.

I had more objections to Kundera's style, narrative technique, presentation and subject, but, fortunately, I have happily forgotten most of it.

I loved this book's fictional-documentary-philosophical style, as well as Kundera's writing.

Kundera's second strongest book after ULofB, this is a natural follow-up to those under the spell of Kundera.