All right people. It's time.

And by people, obviously, I mean John.

I finished the Kundera a while ago, but I keep avoiding the post because I'm really, really lazy. So here goes:

I really loved it, despite my early reservations about how Tomas is disgustingly selfish and misogynistic and about how the early philosophizing on how lives are meaningless unless they are repeated contributed to an obsessive, meditative fear of death I was experiencing at the time. I thought Kundera's writing, albeit translated, was beautiful and deeply affecting.

The aspect of the book I ended up appreciating the most was an aspect that initially bothered me. Kundera's narration does not always maintain a strict barrier between the reality in which we are reading the book and the fiction in which the book is actually happening. At times he begins to speak of Tomas and Teresa as the fictional characters that they are, explaining why he did not manipulate his or her fate in a certain way. This threw me greatly, as I've always wanted my belief to stay suspended and the characters to stay as real as possible. A reason, perhaps, that I have never cottoned as greatly to philosophy (though this is not why I didn't like the damn "N") is that reading for me is really just a way of accessing stories. Generally a more fulfilling and complex way than others, but otherwise quite the same. I was never as interested in literary theory as I was in discussing how the characters interacted within the fictional world. This is something you may have noticed me struggling with in academia, since I have an aversion to being one of those "I thought Tomas was hott" type English majors. I can now handle analyzing a novel from a theoretical standpoint, but having the author do so is a bit disconcerting.

However, I think it was brilliant. What it really illuminated for me was the overwhelming theme of dissection, of cutting away the surface to reveal the raw truth beneath. Sabina attempted to do this through her art; Tomas attempted it through his surgery and through his conquests of women; Kundera does it through his analysis of his own art, his own story. He makes us aware that his story is just a cobwebby veil for a solid truth, forcing us to consider the novel as something beyond just an amusing narrative. As he persuades us to consider the depths of his writing process, he also teaches us to look beyond the easy answers of "kitsch" and propaganda - and it's all so gracefully done that one never feel he is preaching.


On another note: has anyone started Invisible Man? I know you guys are still on Nietzsche. This is just as well, because I'm finding Invisible Man positively harrowing, and I imagine it will go quite slowly.