Kako mi komunistička Češka še'setosme nije ni malo egzotična, a ostatak knjige se svodi na kvazifilozofiranje i seks likova koji kao da su sastavljeni od koncentrovanog ega, ova knjiga me nije naročito oduševila... ( )

Years ago when this was THE book to read, I tried to plow through it. I recently found another copy and read it over the past two days.
It’s insufferable.
Interesting because of the time it describes, awful because of the people- the men, inveterate womanizers who feel entitled to their mistresses and mistresses between their mistresses. The women- one-dimensional, given to frequently staring at their breasts in the mirror (do women DO this? Honestly, don’t they have a hobby?), hopelessly bendable to their men’s wishes- save Sabine, who actually has a bit of spleen. And a sexual fantasy involving s**tting, but hey, the author is all about sh*t, filling a chapter about how God couldn’t possibly empty his bowels so our paintings of him with a mouth must be wrong (really? Who’d have thunk it?)and how they came up with the whole Jesus eating and drinking but never excreting bit which I imagine must have become uncomfortable at times (I am reminded of the angels in the movie Dogma who are given to chewing and then spitting out popcorn). Nothing was made of this at the last supper. Did Jesus spit?
Argh. Such philosophical meanderings fill much of the book and they seem sophomoric and crude and really so self-obsessed. And in between, the male characters are only interested in sex. And mistresses of the younger and younger sort. And sh*t. Meanwhile the world is falling to communism around them.
The author obviously hates women, for most of their lives are painted repulsively, from their periods to their jobs to their orgasms (which they dare to deny despite dampening the rug with oozings- silly man doesn’t know that that response does not indicate orgasm...)
Argh.
I think I must give up reading male authors for a while. If I see one other novel where the women are obsessing about their breasts in mirrors, I shall pull a Dorothy Parker and throw it off my balcony, perhaps taking out an eternally-seeking-sex pigeon at the same time.
This book has quite put me off any thought of intimacy. ( )

Good stuff: I found myself crying a bit at the end despite myself. When he drops the heavy handed philosophising and bad views and misogyny, the writing can be pretty good. Although the story is not good, it's sometimes kind of charming. That I liked bits and it affected me a bit emotionally means it deserves 2 stars I think.

edit: in retrospect I absolutely loathe this book and was being generous because so many people see it as a great book. That like 10% of it is solid doesn't excuse the rest being atrocious. 1 star for sure

Bullet point bad stuff:
- Lots of stuff I felt was misogynistic and is at least weird and kind of ridiculous writing of women and ideas about what women want, as well as awful double standards. Most of the women characters are described negatively - notably, Franz's wife is clearly supposed to be *evil* and Sabina's mum feels like she's supposed to represent everything the author hates. He talks about women's bodies hyper critically and has women judge other women just for having bodies.
- Heavy handed, constant philosophical talk that suggested depth that just wasn't there. Never tries to convince. It completely ruins any decent moments because you're hammered over the head with "the point" every single time. No chance to interpret anything. Didn't help that he was heavily inspired by Nietzsche, my least favourite philosopher. This contributes to his contempt of "people" in general I talk about later and his focus on ideas like individuality and I feel Nietzsche is responsible for his ideas about how Tomas can act (cause he's unique etc)
- He breaks the fourth wall to point out that they're just characters and intended to convey a point. Well yeah, obviously they are. It just takes you out of the story and makes him seem like he wants to be unique for no good reason.
- The main relationship of the book is horrible. Absolutely horrible. Co-dependent is probably the best word but I feel it's close to abusive. Tereza clearly *needs* monogamy but Tomas even though he apparently "loves" her absolutely refuses to compromise in any way his constant sex with other women (who all find him very attractive obviously so he has sex with lots of women on the regular). It makes me feel incredibly uncomfortable to read her desperately trying to get him to stop doing the things which absolutely tear her apart or at least let her go but he refuses to do either for 8 years. This is not healthy or loving.

- The ending absolutely *stings* on the previous point. I'm blockquoting a lot behind a spoiler tag because, well, it's bad. Real bad. With analysis too. It's not really a spoiler and it sums up a lot of my problems with the misogynist angle of the book. Short version she blames herself for being too demanding of him when he clearly loved her so much. Longer:

She had always secretly reproached him for not loving her enough. Her own love she considered above reproach, while his seemed mere condescension. Now she saw that she had been unfair: If she had really loved Tomas with a great love, she would have stuck it out with him abroad! Tomas had been happy there; a new life was opening for him! And she had left him! True, at the time she had convinced herself she was being magnanimous, giving him his freedom. But hadn't her magnanimity been merely an excuse? She knew all along that he would come home to her! She had summoned him farther and farther down after her like the nymphs who lured unsuspecting villagers to the marshes and left them there to drown. She had taken advantage of a night of stomach cramps to inveigle him into moving to the country! How cunning she could be! She had summoned him to follow her as if wishing to test him again and again, to test his love for her; she had summoned him persistently, and here he was, tired and gray ... Lying in the hot water, she kept telling herself that she had set a lifetime of her weak-nesses against Tomas. We all have a tendency to consider strength the culprit and weakness the innocent victim. But now Tereza realized that in her case the opposite was true! Even her dreams, as if aware of the single weakness in a man other-wise strong, made a display of her suffering to him, thereby forcing him to retreat. Her weakness was aggressive and kept forcing him to capitulate until eventually he lost his strength

The idea of the "weak" person as the manipulator, victim as perpetrator, the woman as "nymph"/siren and destroyer, all very typical abusive and misogynist ideas. Tomas was "strong" yet his agreeing to *a single suggestion of hers* is shown as a sign of her destruction of his strength. This is after 8 years of her being emotionally destroyed every day by his refusal to discuss his other sexual relationships - while still claiming he only loves her. Here, mutual agreement to a life change is seen as a sign of weakness.

- Another spoilery thing relating to Tereza: When she has sex with someone else once, after Tomas constantly telling her there's a difference between sex and love and how it's totally ok, she gets made a fool of, made to feel like shit, scared the secret police are coming after her, made to feel ashamed if Tomas finds out. Tomas never has even the slightest consequence for his sexual relationships. The worst is that he can't remember them all. I'm not kidding. Otherwise there's a lot about how many women he gets, how he somehow attracts women for no reason, how they come onto him etc. It's creepy. He's creepy/ There's not a *lot* about sex but there's a decent amount and it always feels weird. Tomas is talked about "taking a scalpel" to women to take a sample of what makes them unique and this is presented as normal and ok! He apparently can't get what makes them unique properly anywhere outside of sex. He's literally called an "epic womaniser" - this is presented as something women have no sympathy with even though it's the "right" kind of womaniser, yet that doesn't stop him having sex with loads of women.

- There's a recurring contempt for "people" in general. Every single person at Tomas's hospital is portrayed as a sneering coward for two different reactions to the same thing when he's asked to recant his article. Tomas, of course, is presented as a morally conflicted person who does the right thing as against all the bad people. He then seems to recant on this seemingly principled stance, yet this time without any cruel commentary from the author.

- Relating to the above, he spends a while talking about "kitsch" which, to simplify drastically, comes across as people's common ideas, feelings, motivations. He attacks it. A lot. He mocks people for being happy at May Day parades. Again this is simplifying, but he basically says "if you recognise that kitsch is kitsch then it loses its power and it's all OK" but also suggests this is something very rare. He never explains why it's really *wrong* to have these common ideas, he just thinks it is. Just feels like more contempt for the masses.

- He specifically attacks leftist ideas a lot. It's understandable coming from a Soviet bloc defector, but it's a little ridiculous, especially when there's absolutely nothing against rightist ideas. He goes on at length about the "kitsch" involved and how bad it is, mocks leftist professors, does a sort of 'oh everything turns out the same' thing about how foolish communist supporters are.

- The vaguely leftist professor (Franz) is treated as a fool constantly. He says he doesn't want to use strength against a woman (Sabina) in love and the woman basically thinks this makes him an idiot - she wants to be made his "slave". (There's a lot about women wanting to submit in the book). He goes to Thailand as part of a medical mission/peace thing and gets mugged and murdered in a stupid way as some sort of come-uppance for trying to do anything to improve the world even vaguely I guess? Like he's out of the book for ages and happy doing very little but when he makes a reappearance it's purely to do this and then he gets murdered. Oh ok. His wife is treated as a horrible person - she refuses to get a divorce and plays the grieving wife when he dies and her reaction of basically kicking him out when he says he's been cheating on her for a year is presented as if it's ridiculous. Generally he seems to be presented as a kind of doormat, an example of what not to do (as compared to Tomas I guess). So you shouldn't be nice I suppose.


- He seems to think educated people having to work as window washers is an incredible human rights violation or something. Weird how his sympathy doesn't extend to window washers who aren't educated, it's just about educated people having to "degrade" themselves

- "Mankind's true moral test, its fundamental test (which lies deeply buried from view), consists of its attitude towards those who are at its mercy: animals." the implications of this are a bit ridiculous - it's a minor thing but it's just not true that people who treat animals well treat humans well.



Ultimately kind of reminded me of how I'd likely write a book, although from a different politics/philosophy - every allusion explained, "deepness" that's kind of illusory, very poor understanding of human relations, addressing the reader, breaking with conventions for no reason, etc.
( )

Kundera died in June of this year. I did not know that when I started reading this. Coincidence only. It’s on a list or two of mine of books that are on lists of books that people are supposed to read. And as with many of those that I have gotten to, I am left with… “why?”

Kafka thought life was absurd. Kundera writes it. Must be a Czech thing. And then there is the focus on Nietzsche and Kundera’s treatment of his “eternal return” silliness. What Kundera has sketched is clearly that lightness is vacuous unlikable characters living unsavory and certainly not admirable lives. If that is “lightness”…

Seinfeld was often described as a show about nothing. The first two thirds of this book are about nothing except introducing us to those unlikable characters. The last third is a revolt against the Communizing of Czech by the Soviets.

On, and there is a dog. The dog was not unlikeable.

Now, at least the English translations had some good turns of phrases and thoughts.

“The crew of her soul rushed up to the deck of her body.”
{Nice imagery.}

“amanuensis”
{Cool word.}

“Every country has its secret police. But a secret police that broadcasts its tapes over the radio—there’s something that could happen only in Prague, something absolutely without precedent!”

“Three hundred and twenty years later, after the Munich Conference of 1938, the entire world decided to sacrifice the Czechs’ country to Hitler.”
{I see no argument here.}

“I used to admire believers,” Tomas continued. “I thought they had an odd transcendental way of perceiving things which was closed to me. Like clairvoyants, you might say. But my son’s experience proves that faith is actually quite a simple matter. He was down and out, the Catholics took him in, and before he knew it, he had faith. So it was gratitude that decided the issue, most likely. Human decisions are terribly simple.”
{Faith is the easy way out. Takes no courage of conviction to walk away from reason.}

“Surgery was your mission,” she said.
“Missions are stupid, Tereza. I have no mission. No one has. And it’s a terrific relief to realize you’re free, free of all missions.”
{“What is your purpose in life?” To stop thinking I have to teach people there is no “purpose” (or mission). Life just is.}

“The very beginning of Genesis tells us that God created man in order to give him dominion over fish and fowl and all creatures. Of course, Genesis was written by a man, not a horse. There is no certainty that God actually did grant man dominion over other creatures. What seems more likely, in fact, is that man invented God to sanctify the dominion that he had usurped for himself over the cow and the horse. Yes, the right to kill a deer or a cow is the only thing all of mankind can agree upon, even during the bloodiest of wars.”
{Okay. This was good. Extra star for that. }

“They had never fed him sweets, but recently she had bought him a few chocolate bars. She took them out of the foil, broke them into pieces, and made a circle of them around him.”
{Here is someone who doesn’t know chocolate can be toxic to dogs.} ( )

Non potremo mai stabilire con certezza fino a che punto i nostri rapporti con gli altri sono il risultato dei nostri sentimenti, del nostro amore, del nostro non-amore, della nostra bontà o del nostro rancore e fino a che punto sono condizionati dal rapporto di forze tra gli individui. La vera bontà dell'uomo si può manifestare in tutta purezza e libertà solo nei confronti di chi non rappresenta alcuna forza. Il vero esame morale dell'umanità, l'esame fondamentale (posto così in profondità da sfuggire al nostro sguardo) è il suo rapporto con coloro che sono alla sua mercé: gli animali. E qui sta il fondamentale fallimento dell'uomo, tanto fondamentale che da esso derivano tutti gli altri. ( )