In Conversation with Milan Kundera

The world makes some of us aliens. It is always too much to ask for a relaxing meaningful yet meaningless conversation. The yearning is always there for an exchange of idyllic ideas with another enthusiastic alien. Once in a while for some lucky ones the yearning gets fulfilled too.

I am one of the lucky ones, after a long time I had the luxury of a lazy idyllic edenic conversation. Okay at least sort of conversation when I read few days back “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” by Milan Kundera. In no way it was short of a real conversation, the book is not merely a book it is the writer’s conversation about everything under the sun. And anyone would know I was totally part of the conversation if they can go through the margins of my copy. And by the way, I said “if” because no one is getting a peek into our personal conversation.

The book is a modern classic, perfection in itself and most importantly I loved the book; hence there is no scope for a review. The only scope there is talking about the most wonderful conversation I had in a while.

Kundera never pretended his characters are real and born from wombs; they were writer’s creation. His characters were his props in his conversation about politics, psychology, love, death, relationships, theology and everything else.

The main characters in the book are Tomas, Tereza, Sabina and the dog Karenin. Interestingly enough only few other characters have got names. The others are nameless. Names are not important only their beings are important. The book is set in 1960’s former Czechoslovakia, which included the communist era and the Russian invasion.

The book starts with contrasts. The contrast of bad memories and nostalgia; the contrast between positive and one negative and finally the contrast between lightness and heaviness. As the book proceeds the contrasts gradually merge into the same confusion and the same sadness called life.

People hold on to bad memories like Hitler as a familiarity and nostalgia, may be like we Indians hold on to older times when only upper cast men were in a good position. There are some people who hover over life lightly yearns for heaviness of an anchor. Then there are some other people who are too much attracted by the gravity pulling them to bottom and they yearn for the lightness to fly. Sigh, the sorrow of the unfulfilled yearnings. And there’s no way of knowing what is positive and what is negative in life because we walk into life without any prior experience or any rehearsal. What actions lead to positive consequence and what won’t, who can say? Not us definitely.

Kundera has talked about everything in the book but there were few themes which recurred more frequently.

First and foremost the unbearable lightness of being. The lightness of life being in love or being a refugee or just being helpless in the hand of fate; all lightness are unbearable.

Secondly the dreams; the erotic, violent, melancholy dreams set the mood of the events of the book. Sometimes like all the contrasts of life the lives and dreams merge.

How can an idyllic conversation be complete without books? So thirdly the books which are not merely books but a book in hand is the sign of a secret brotherhood. How many times have you talked to a stranger because she/he has one of your favourite books in their hands?

Life is light hence the lives of protagonists followed the motif of last quartet of Beethoven “Must it be? It must be! It must be!” This is the fourth theme.

The fifth one is relationship between desire and love. Unhappiness is everywhere; when one can’t separate desire and love or even when one thinks they are entirely separate entity.

Sixthly, the relation between society and individual. Society is the support system but like any other support system it judges too. It judges individuals standing against the tyrant, individuals not standing against the tyrant, even an individual’s personal love for her pet dog.

Kundera was obviously Anti-communism and against the former USSR; but this definitely don’t automatically make him pro-American.

A sizeable portion of the book deals with semantic of words. Words same old words, yet the meanings are so different for different people depending upon their journey of life. I find this section most interesting.

Another major portion was about Karenina’s sufferings. I never have a pet but I could empathise with the helplessness in seeing someone whom you love the most in the whole world suffering.

Apart from the above mentioned themes Kundera discussed about religion, the idyllic life of paradise, banishment from Eden, the laughable ways people behave whether in parties or while supposedly doing charity works and many more things.

I was like drunk with the book. When I finished the book I had the dazed feeling when one doesn’t know what to do next; because the world you lived in momentarily has ended now, your friend has stopped talking to you and you no more can exchange weird ideas with him. This was more sad than the somewhat nihilistic ending of the book.