“she loved to walk down the street with a book under her arm. It had the same significance for her as an elegant cane for the dandy a century ago. It differentiated her from others.”
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being
“When we want to give expression to a dramatic situation in our lives, we tend to use metaphors of heaviness. We say that something has become a great burden to us. We either bear the burden or fail and go down with it, we struggle with it, win or lose. And Sabina - what had come over her? Nothing. She had left a man because she felt like leaving him. Had he persecuted her? Had he tried to take revenge on her? No. Her drama was a drama not of heaviness but of lightness. What fell to her lot was not the burden, but the unbearable lightness of being.”
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Just finished reading this book and it has been a while since a book spoke to me in the way this one did. The author mirrored my emotions and expressed them through his characters even though they were in very different place in their lives as compared to me. The protagonists are a husband and wife with a tumult relationship based on a desperate dependency on one another as opposed to a healthy balance of complementing personalities. The husband is incapable of monogamy and the wife is well aware. However it remains the elephant in the room through out the book as the two struggle to understand why they are so codependent, despite their obvious unhappiness.
My reaction was two fold. Firstly I related to the philosophical musings as the author highlights some pretty basic human flaws and strengths. Some of these I saw in myself, others I saw in the people around me. Secondly it highlighted how some emotional attachments can weigh down on a person when they are viewed more as an obligation rather than a choice. Over all it was a brilliant read I really recommend it as you will find little pieces of yourself all over this book.
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being
“When we want to give expression to a dramatic situation in our lives, we tend to use metaphors of heaviness. We say that something has become a great burden to us. We either bear the burden or fail and go down with it, we struggle with it, win or lose. And Sabina - what had come over her? Nothing. She had left a man because she felt like leaving him. Had he persecuted her? Had he tried to take revenge on her? No. Her drama was a drama not of heaviness but of lightness. What fell to her lot was not the burden, but the unbearable lightness of being.”
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Just finished reading this book and it has been a while since a book spoke to me in the way this one did. The author mirrored my emotions and expressed them through his characters even though they were in very different place in their lives as compared to me. The protagonists are a husband and wife with a tumult relationship based on a desperate dependency on one another as opposed to a healthy balance of complementing personalities. The husband is incapable of monogamy and the wife is well aware. However it remains the elephant in the room through out the book as the two struggle to understand why they are so codependent, despite their obvious unhappiness.
My reaction was two fold. Firstly I related to the philosophical musings as the author highlights some pretty basic human flaws and strengths. Some of these I saw in myself, others I saw in the people around me. Secondly it highlighted how some emotional attachments can weigh down on a person when they are viewed more as an obligation rather than a choice. Over all it was a brilliant read I really recommend it as you will find little pieces of yourself all over this book.
