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I found Unbearable Lightness of Being to be pseudo-philosophical trash. Posting my review from goodreads below. Don't think we have anything else in common on our read list from 2024.
I think I would have appreciated this book more if I had visited Prague/Czechia in general, but as it is, my feelings about the book were very mixed. The Unbearable Lightness of Being is a book primarily about four people: Tomas, his wife Tereza, his Mistress Sabina, and her lover Franz in the middle years of the communist regime in Czechoslovakia, after the attempt revolution in 1968. There isn't really a central plot per se, but most of the book revolves around the conflict between Tomas and Tereza about Tomas's repeated infidelity, and a contrast between the "lightness" with which he seems to live his life and the "heaviness" that she seems to be unable to escape in hers. There's also some classic Kafka-esque living-under-Communism subplots that revolve around an article Tomas publishes in 1968 right before the revolution, but these honestly felt like a distraction from the main aspect of the novel.
For the first 2/3 of the book, this was almost certainly a 1/5 star read. The supposed difference between the lightness of Parmenides and the heaviness in Nietzsche's eternal recurrence seemed like a bunch of pseudo-profound bullshit to me. The supposed lightness of being is just an adolescent refusal to take responsibility for one's own decisions and the life one inhabits. Each of the four title character's also seemed incredibly narcissistic, and the singular focus on sex and desire above all the other things that were going on in Czechia at the time seem to highlight this fact. The detached way in Kundera wrote this didn't help either, the characters really did feel like characters he made up rather than real people, and the plethora of sex scenes bordered on inhuman and frankly disturbing.
There's also the anti-communism. This seems to be something pretty common among Czech authors in particular (perhaps something to do with the Ayn Rand "I'm better than the proles") attitude that they seem to have as an entire country, but there was little acknowledgement about the kinds of things communism did right, and a demonization of Russia as the land of evil-totalitarianism equivalent to Nazi Germany. Kundera couldn't even recognize the happiness and beauty of the socialist May Day celebrations, rather using them as a jumping off point to discuss the concept of Kitsche. The whole thing just reeks of sore loserdom: like we have here in the Old Confederacy. I'm not denying that the Czech communist state (and the Soviets) did horrible things, but we also have to remember who is writing here.
However the last third of the book, after Tomas and Tereza move to the countryside redeemed the book for me quite a bit. We get some wonderful reflections on the role of their dog Karenin in bringing joy to both their lives, and some pro-vegan philosophical musings. We also get to see Tomas and Tereza actually happy. I'm still not quite sure what Kundera's message is: I would likely have to reread this book to figure it out more completely, and I'm pretty sure I don't care to do that, but the beauty of the last part of the book cannot be denied.
Weird given how Soviet Communists raped their country in 1968...
Ah, the good old "Hitler got trains running on time" thing (which he didn't btw)
Ah yes, and we do not appreciate the brilliant whiteness of KKK hoods and the beauty of Nazi torch marches. Maybe I should rewatch The Birth of a Nation and Triumph of Will to get inspired.
Like that, except when the Confederacy won and he's the slave. Sore loser indeed.
It kinda looks like you do. Or at least you are denying Kundera the right to be horrified and disgusted by those horrible things.
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How do you define the term pseudo-philosophical?
An argument/piece of media that tries to make a profound philosophical point, but the point ends up being a tautology, or an unreal distinction of some kind. For example, in this book, I think "lightness" of being is just an excuse to not engage with one's life, not an actual philosophical state.
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Ought there to have been?
Is that characterisation unfair?
Yes. Communism actually provided most people with decent lives and didn't rely on looting the treasuries of other countries to do so.
No. A lot of people managed to live decent lives under communism, but not because of it but despite it. A lot of people - millions of them - did not survive it though, and that was definitely without doubt because of it.
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So does capitalism. One difference is that communism in Czechoslovakia came about due to a Soviet supported coup followed by a military invasion 20 years later to crush a popular uprising.
Right, I'm not saying the Czech regime was good or just. I'm just saying the comparisons of the Soviet Union (or even the Czech puppet government) to the Nazis is not a fair comparison. And that's what it felt like Kundera was doing in this book.
Why not? Both murdered millions of people in service of their ideology which was supposed to make the world better but actually led to absolutely unprecedented horrible suffering and mass deaths. Both dehumanized large groups of people and invented mechanistic means of mass murder. Both started aggressive wars and conquered and subjugated neighboring countries. Both adopted totalitarian ideology that had no place for freedom of thought or discussion. I think there's a lot of fair comparison there. And yes, both had joyous parades on special occasion (try not to go there or not be joyous, and you'll find out what happens to you). Strangely, most people do not appreciate that joy too much.
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The death toll in the Holodomor was in the same ballpark (i.e. seven figures) to the death toll in the Holocaust. Compare how many political prisoners were imprisoned in concentration camps vs. gulags (over a million people died in the latter). As expected in dictatorships of all kinds there was the usual suppression of the free press, assassination of political opponents, military expansionism and so on.
Comparisons between X and Nazi Germany are a dime a dozen, but I think that the comparison is much more warranted in the case of the Soviet Union than in most cases it's trotted out.
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I feel like a few citations are needed.
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