Slowness

สำนวนการเขียนร้ายกาจ เสียดสีทุกอย่างรอบตัว และเจ็บแสบยิ่งขึ้นไปอีกเมื่อตระหนักได้ว่าอ้ายคนที่น่าหมั่นไส้เล่านี้นี้ดำรงอยู่รอบ ๆ ตัวเราอย่างแยกไม่ออก และบางทีเราก็อาจจะเป็นเช่นนั้นด้วย

Kundera wonders why we are always in a hurry. Don't we know that real pleasure is achieved only slowly. He explores our need to rush and our belief that the faster we reach ecstasy the better. As far as he is concerned nothing could be farther from the truth. He makes this point eloquently by exploring Les Liaisons dangereuses. His central character suddenly is in that time and place, Seventeenth century France, and wandering through a chateau with Madame de T as they slowly proceed through stages eventually spending the night together. But we are brought back to modern France and see Czech emigrees as they attend to a conference of entomologists. As they explore dancers who want everyone's attention and seek alternatives such as show more throwing off their clothes and swimming naked in a pool with lots of onlookers some of whom choose to jump in with other intentions. By this point Kundera's thoughts and imaginations are on full display as he takes us through erotic adventures. What is lost in the process is the original focus, slowness. Eventually characters from the Seventeenth show up in the present. We're not sure if the central character is dreaming or perhaps we are. Pure Kundera. Written in French with passages where we wonder whether Kundera is slowing this down to find just the right word in what is not his native tongue show less

My initial reading was couched in rain. I spent an afternoon in Indianapolis after dropping off a client and I ingested six shots of espresso and marvelled at the philosophical origami that Kundera constructs on nearly every page.

I reread this in the last year or so, largely to see if it had become dated. It hadn't. I still marvelled at this spare masterpiece.

Okay, cards on the table time... I'd read the three books for which Milan Kundera is best known - 'The Joke', 'The Book of Laughter and Forgetting' and 'The Unbearable Lightness of Being' - and I loved them all. In fact, I'd just re-read TULOB again and was as impressed and immersed as last time, the simplistic, anti-leftist rants with which it concludes aside (strangely, I didn't remember those from my previous reading). So much did I enjoy it that I decided to read one of his later works that I hadn't tried before. And so I picked up 'Slowness'...

I'm going to re-title it 'Slightness' (unbearable, but there it is...). Is that due to the philosophical slights of hand that the author performs? No. To me, it really did feel rather show more insubstantial. The novella comprises two romances staged across a single night, one set in current times and the other in the eighteenth century. I think that the modern day episodes were supposed to be funny. I just found them rather silly. The philosophical elements felt bolted on. None of the characters were believable. I wanted to like it. Although it pains me to say it, if I'd come to this book first, I might never have read the others. Perhaps I've missed the point. Please, someone persuade me that I have... show less

I would read this book while taking a train, flight, or while sitting in a small coffee shop near my apartment. It stayed with me, because of it's beauty & brevity. Mr. Kundera makes observations that are accurate, especially in our busy world. Thoughtful are the comments on speed and forgetting, and the frailty of individual(s) as they fail to appreciate--time, aging, and our selective memory of what has occurred in our past lives (plural emphasis).

Two seductions, 200 years apart in the same venue, serve as the engine of a meditation on memory and slowness, on how our current lives move too fast to leave us anything to remember, and how the need to be seen can destroy the ability to feel and create a genuine life.

One might say Kundera is a modern day philosopher. Through the characters in his novels, he analyzes the actions and emotions of people as they relate to his various philosophical theories.

This particular novel revolves around his thoughts on pain and pleasure, slowness versus speed, fame and glory (it’s risks, rewards, and everyone’s inner desire to achieve it on some level), and the art of conversation. Using a handful of characters whose only connection is their presence one fateful night at the same hotel in France, Kundera demonstrates his theories.

I absolutely loved Milan Kundera’s novels "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" and "The Book of Laughter and Forgetting". But he lost me on this novel. The plot was a little too show more abstract, the characters abstruse, and the writing dis-jointed. The author jumps abruptly from character to character, scene to scene… traveling through time with a bit of magical realism.

Perhaps the ultimate message of the parable is that the world is moving too fast, with modern man totally missing the true pleasures of life. As one of the primary characters was rushing through experiences- trying to convince himself he feels enjoyment- creating a disturbing crude public sex-scene to seek attention- so focused on the impression he is making on others that he fails to achieve pleasure. One wonders whether he was merely trying to block out pain. Does he even know what pleasure is?

Juxtaposed to this scene is time-travel to an eighteenth century love tryst. One private, mysterious and secretive, long, slow night of intense passion, anticipation, and devoted absorption focused totally on the beauty of the moment. When compared to the modern day hasty, impulsive, random determination to fulfill a showy attention-seeking exhibitionist’s sexual fantasy that results in an embarrassing failure- Kundera certainly makes his point.

Several memorable quotes:
On conversation: “Conversation is not a pastime; on the contrary, conversation is what organizes time, governs it, and imposes it’s own laws, which must be respected.”

On slowness and speed: “There is a secret bond between slowness and memory, between speed and forgetting… the degree of slowness is directly proportional to the intensity of memory; the degree of speed is directly proportional to the intensity of forgetting.”

On modern day fame and glory: “… showing off not for you or for me but for the whole world. And what is the whole world? An infinity with no faces! An abstraction.”

"Slowness" is not an easy book to read, but Milan Kundera has many intriguing ideas along with a unique way of getting his message across. If you are a fan of Kundera, you may what to give it a try. If not, I suggest starting with one of his other novels. show less