The Unbearable Lightness of Being- A 2nd Time Around

I was introduced to this book by my good friend Jackie when I was 22 years old. I bought it at Myopic Books on Milwaukee as a used book. There are very few books that I decide to keep for the long haul. My criteria for keeping books are 1) a friend will be interested in borrowing it and 2) I'll eventually read it again. Well, seven years later, I returned to The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera.
Within my circle of friends, there is a similar connection we have to this book- it was a favorite during the college years. I think the reason for this trend is that the book is both unconventional and philosophical. At an age in which we were being enlightened through school and also trying to establish our identity, perhaps this book was the perfect manner to reflect on life. There are many themes to this novel- love and lust, marriage, independence, trust, life in Eastern Europe during Soviet domination- but the main theme that prevails is the idea of light and heavy.

Kundera plays with idea of life choices and the pull of these decisions making us feel light or heavy. All of this is demonstrated through the characters he creates. Kundera toys with the idea that decisions which make us feel light are positive and decisions that make us heavy are negative. However, the author pulls in Nietzsche's idea of eternal return- that life is a burden in and of itself because of an ending cycle of eternity. As a result, lightness may actually be heavy and unbearable. Through Kundera's characters, we see their cyclical nature of light and heavy as they try to navigate through their life whether it be facing death, losing love, or questioning the worth of one's life.

The manner in which the author is able to fully discuss this heavy topic of light and heavy is shown through the story written in 3rd person. But, Kundera does not stop there to truly make the reader understand his ideas. In addition, the author rather unconventionally switches to 1st person through out the story. The author pulls away from the story to reflect on it. In one section, the author writes about the protagonist, Tomas, and his decision not to sign an anti-communist petition. In the middle of the chapter, the author writes in 1st person. Here's the excerpt:

"This is the image from which [Tomas] was born. As I have pointed out before, characters are not born like people, of woman; they are born of a situation, a sentence, a metaphor containing in a nutshell a basic human possibility that the author thinks no one else has discovered or said something essential about."

Although some might find this jarring, I find it to be refreshing. I appreciate different forms of writing. In Kundera's case, he is able to switch from 3rd person to 1st person effortlessly. Perhaps, this is the reason for the success of this book in particular in the early 1980s and the reason why I decided to keep this book on my shelf all these years.