About the unbearable lightness of life.

Basic introduction

The Unbearable Lightness of Life is Milan Kundera's most famous work, and The New York Times once rated it as the most important classic in the 20th century.

brief Introduction of the content

Thomas, the hero of the novel, is a surgeon. Because his marriage failed, he longed for and feared women, so he made an affair code to deal with his many mistresses. One day, he fell in love with Teresa, a waitress in a restaurant. His love for her violated his principles and even married her. However, Thomas's thought of the separation of soul and flesh has not changed at all, and he still lingers between mistresses, which is a kind of harm to Teresa who loves him completely. Teresa often wakes up in extremely uneasy dreams, often with suspicion and horrible imagination. At this time, the Czech Republic is in political turmoil. Under the call of an authoritative doctor in Zurich who wanted Thomas to go there for development, they decided to live there. However, in the face of the uneasiness in a strange environment and her husband still having an affair with his mistress, Teresa decided to leave and return to the motherland. But fate and choice made Thomas go back to her, and they never separated again. They realize that being together is happiness, happiness in torture and sadness, and each other is a sweet burden in life. Later, they died in a car accident. The painter sabine was once one of Thomas' mistresses and the envy of Teresa. Sabine has been choosing betrayal and irresponsible suicide all his life. She hates loyalty and any kitsch to please the public, but such betrayal makes her feel that her life exists in nothingness. Franz was one of the lovers betrayed by sabina. Because of her, he gave up his persistence and loyalty to marriage. However, due to sabina's betrayal, Franz found that his past insistence on marriage was absurd and pure fiction, and his wife was only the projection of his mother's ideal. The free and independent single life after divorce has brought new opportunities to his life. Knowing sabina is only a follow-up to his revolutionary and adventurous life. Later, he fell in love with his students. After actually taking part in a hypocritical parade, he realized that his real happiness was to stay with his students. In a sudden robbery, Flantz resisted because he wanted to show his courage, but accompanied by his wife, he was shot and died in his hospital bed.

[Edit this paragraph] Creation background

The Unbearable Lightness of Life is a work of Kundera's concentrated talents. Kundera's character plot is composed of one or two key words and basic situations. With the wisdom of a philosopher, he raised the living scene of human beings to a metaphysical level for thinking, examining and describing. Therefore, we have successfully grasped the two sensitive areas of politics and sex, and initially formed the novel styles of "humor" and "polyphony". ? Kundera pays more attention to the basic situation of characters-"Philosophy is carried out without characters and situations". The Unbearable Lightness of Life puts Thomas' problem there from the beginning: in a world without eternal robbery, life is light. Firstly, the novel puts forward the problem of setting a prescribed situation for Thomas, that is, the existence password of light and heavy; Therefore, philosophical thinking itself is a novel, and the problem itself is the philosophical thinking shown by novelists in their works. The important feature of Kundera's research is that he refuses to draw conclusions. He thinks Cervantes let people know that there is no absolute truth in the world, only many relative problems. In the book, Kundera puts forward a series of survival codes, such as lightness, heaviness, spirit, flesh, memory, weakness, dizziness, pastoral, heaven and so on. , one-to-one correspondence with the characters, supporting their respective living conditions, showing the duality of body and mind. And each keyword is a different possibility side of the character. Possibility is the most positive way to fight against one-off, so this book can be seen as the disintegration of self-righteous "absolute". Because of the lack of absolute meaning, life has no basis and support, not even as certain as feathers flying in the wind. This book describes 1968, when the Soviet Union invaded the Czech Republic, the atmosphere of democratic reform turned into a wave of arbitrary oppression. This book reveals the ruthlessness of secrets and explores the true meaning of love, covering the love of men and women, the love of friends and the love of the motherland. Under any desire, everyone has the right to choose all kinds of love machines freely, and he should bear the obligation of sincerity and persistence. The responsibility of life is a heavy burden, but it is also the most real. Without the burden, people will become younger than the mainland, and if it is true, everything will become meaningless. This book is more about the meaning of life. There should be a belief in life, which can't be given to chance and accident, or even a kitsch.

[Edit this paragraph] Author introduction

Milan Kundera, Czech novelist, was born in Brno, Czech Republic. My father is a pianist and a professor at the Conservatory of Music. Growing up in a small country is really an advantage for him, because in a small country, "you can either be a poor and narrow-minded person" or become a well-informed cosmopolitan. In his childhood, he learned to compose music and received a good musical edification and education. When I was a teenager, I began to read world literary masterpieces extensively. When I was young, I wrote poems, plays, paintings, music and film teaching. In short, in his own words, "I groped around in the field of art, trying to find my own direction." In the early 1950s, he appeared in the literary world as a poet, and published poems such as Man, Broad Garden (1953), Monologue (1957) and The Last May. But poetry creation is obviously not his long-term pursuit. Finally, when he wrote his first short story around the age of 30, he was sure that he had found his own direction and embarked on the road of novel creation. 1967, his first novel, Joke, was published in the Czech Republic and was a great success. Three editions were published in succession, with an astonishing number of prints, and each time they were sold out within a few days. The author's important position in the Czech contemporary literary world is thus determined. But it didn't last long. 1968, after the Soviet Union invaded the Czech Republic, jokes were banned. Kundera lost his position at the Film Academy. His literary creation is very difficult. In this case, he and his wife left the Czech Republic for France on 1975. After moving to France, he soon became one of the favorite foreign writers of French readers. Most of his works, such as Laughing and Forgetting Records (1978), Unbearable Lightness of Life (1984) and Immortality (1990), were first popular in France, and then attracted the attention of the world literary world. He won many international literary awards and was nominated as a candidate for Nobel Prize in Literature many times. In addition to novels, Kundera also published three collections of works about the art of novels, among which The Art of Novels (1936) and The Betrayed Will (1993) are widely distributed all over the world. Kundera used to write in Czech. But in recent years, he began to write in French, and has published two novels, Slow (1995) and Identity (1997).

[Edit this paragraph] Preface to this book

The heaviest burden oppresses us, makes us succumb to it and knocks us to the ground. But in the love poems of past dynasties, women are always eager to bear the weight of a man's body. As a result, the heaviest burden has become the image with the strongest vitality. The heavier the burden, the closer our life is to the earth and the more real it is. On the contrary, when the burden is completely absent, people will become lighter than air, will float, will be far away from the earth and life on the ground, people will only exist in a semi-reality, and people's sports will become free and meaningless.

[Edit this paragraph] Book Catalogue

The first light and heavy, the second spirit and flesh, the third incomprehensible word, the fourth spirit and flesh, the fifth light and heavy, the sixth great March, and the seventh karenin smile.

[Edit this paragraph] Content excerpt

She curled up in the corner of the carriage, with the heavy suitcase over her head, and karenin crouched at her feet. She remembered the chef in the small hotel where she worked when she lived with her mother. That guy never misses any possible opportunity, always slaps her ass, and more than once proposes to sleep with her in front of everyone. It is strange that she should think of him. To her, he represents everything she hates. But now, she only has one thought, find him, and then say to him, "You said you wanted to sleep with me, okay?"! I am coming. " She is eager to do something to avoid going back. She can't wait to suddenly erase the past seven years. This is dizziness, a feeling of dizziness, an irresistible desire to fall. I can say that dizziness is indulging my weakness. I realized my weakness, but instead of fighting, I gave up on myself. Once people are fascinated by their own weakness, they will be weak, and they will fall on the street, fall on the ground and fall lower than the ground under the gaze of everyone. She persuaded herself not to stay in Prague and stop taking pictures. She wants to go back to that small town. At first, it was Thomas' voice that made her leave town. But after I returned to Prague, I had to spend some time dealing with some practical chores. To this end, her trip was pushed again and again. Until five days later, Thomas suddenly appeared in the room, and karenin danced on him for a long time, which saved them the embarrassment of having to speak. They stood face to face in the middle of the snowfield, shivering with cold. Then, they leaned together, like a couple who haven't kissed yet. "Is everything all right?" He asked. "yes." "Have you ever been to a newspaper?" "I called." "How about it?" "Nothing. I am waiting. " "Wait for what?" She didn't answer. She can't tell him that she has been waiting for him.

film

1988, this book was adapted into the film Love in Prague, directed by philip kaufman and starring Daniel Day Lewis, Juliet Binoche and lena olin. It has achieved good results in North America and achieved great success in Europe. The film also won awards from 65438 to 0988, such as Best Film and Best Director Award of the American Film Critics Association, Best Screenplay Award of the British Academy Award, and was nominated for the American Academy Award and the American Golden Globe Award.

[Edit this paragraph] Translation version

The translator of the 1985 edition is Han Shaogong, and the translator of the new edition is Xu Jun. Many people think that the title of the old edition is more appropriate and more appropriate.

[Edit this paragraph] Multiple meanings

The most puzzling question in the novel is, what does "light" mean? Habitually, empirically and imaginatively, we all think that "weight" is unbearable and makes people breathless. When I arrived in Kundera, I suddenly heard that it was "light". How can it not arouse people's doubts and incomprehension? If you speed up your reading because you are eager to find the answer to the question, you will never expect to get the answer. This is my experience from reading this book. It is said that pearls have many effects on human body, but a prerequisite for swallowing pearls is to grind them into powder. The interpretation of this book must be the same. When I asked the unbearable question of "lightness", I suddenly remembered a story. The central idea of the story is this: the king let his ministers compete to see who is the Hercules. The way of competition is to let ministers throw chicken feathers all over the high wall. Almost all the ministers failed. Only one minister is very clever. He grabbed a chicken next to him and threw it over the high wall. Then he said to the king, I can throw the whole chicken over the high wall, not to mention a feather. He won. Rely on his wisdom. Lightness, lightness, lightness, lightness, lightness, lightness and so on will definitely make people feel happy. But what if it is frivolous, frivolous, frivolous, frivolous, frivolous, frivolous and so on? Science reveals that gravity is an important factor to keep the balance of the universe. Here, the most direct experience we can feel is the gravity brought by the earth, which makes us unable to leave the earth and enter a terrible state of detachment. The biggest problem facing astronauts is weightlessness. "Light" is unbearable, and the answer is as simple as that. It seems that my previous confusion completely stems from my indifference to common sense and deep-rooted prejudice against "lightness" and "heaviness". Sometimes, the light is really unbearable. Like a chicken feather, it is difficult to throw it over a high wall with your strength. This story helps us to reveal the meaning of "lightness", that is, the individual is freed from the whole to which it is attached. This separation leads to the loss of a sense of belonging, which is unbearable. P6 1 There is a psychological description about Teresa: "Living in a strange country means walking a tightrope high above the ground, without the support of the net of one's own country: family, friends and colleagues. There are also languages that are familiar from an early age, which can help him easily say what he wants to say. " It is this sense of insecurity (life is as light as chicken feathers) that makes Teresa resolutely leave Switzerland, leaving without saying goodbye to her beloved Thomas, and returning to the motherland in the disaster. In Prague, she only relies on Thomas when she has psychological needs. In Switzerland, because of the loss of roots, everything depends on Thomas, and the nightmare in the middle of the night will be repeated all my life. Perhaps, what I just said is just a scratch, and it is by no means the significance of "light" that Kundera wants to discuss with us. This is just a by-product of my reading novels. Let's go back to the beginning of the novel. "It's terrible." Junichi Watanabe takes this sentence as the beginning of Paradise Lost to attract readers to participate in the core part of the novel. And Kundera? "Nietzsche is often entangled with philosophers with a mysterious concept" eternal robbery and return "."As soon as he came up, he discussed with readers a headache philosophical problem. Are you trying to scare people? Not afraid to scare his readers away? Is there no better start? No, such a beginning must be considered by Kundera. Readers want to run, but they don't understand Kundera's ingenuity. Kundera took pains to introduce readers to the core of the novel at once, that is, the discussion of "lightness and heaviness". Here, he wants to pry open a gap in the interpretation of the novel for us and let us see Kundera's suffering soul through a ray of light. Kundera talked about the war between African tribes in the14th century, the French Revolution, the dissolution of people's hatred for Hitler, and the guillotine. The core sentence is: "Life that once disappeared, like a shadow, has no weight and will disappear forever and never return. Whether it is horrible, beautiful or sublime, its horror, sublimity and beauty have all died ahead of time, which is meaningless. " (P 1) The first meaning of "lightness" is revealed here: individual life is despised and individual will is ignored. As Mr. Mu Xin said, the first advantage of political dogma is to affirm good and evil, make them absolute immediately, and erase the middle level. Under the banner of totalitarian politics, cruelty is everywhere. There is no reason and space for the existence of individual life and individual will. "It's like a war between African tribes in the 14th century, a war that failed to change the fate of the world. Even if/kloc-0.00 million blacks are extinct in cruel suffering, we don't have to care too much. " Who can stand this kind of "contempt" for life, this kind of life that only belongs to everyone once, so indifferent? Therefore, the novel not only reflects Kundera's concern for the fate of the motherland, but also reflects his sympathy for individuals who have suffered greatly in human history. Yes, in the first chapter of the novel, it is the word that haunts Thomas repeatedly: sympathy. He constantly imagined that Teresa was a "child drifting downstream in a resin-coated grass basket", which was the deepest sympathy from the heart. The word "sympathy" makes some readers mistakenly think that Thomas's feelings for Teresa are not love, but a gift to the poor. If you carefully read the explanation of the word sympathy in P 15- 16, you will understand that sympathy is "the strongest emotional imagination and telepathy, and it is supreme on the emotional level". Another meaning of lightness is "forgetting". Please pay attention to what Kundera said when talking about the French Revolution: "It is precisely because those things they participated in will not return, so the bloody era of the revolution has become words, theories and discussions, which are as light as a feather and can't scare anyone." (P 1) This is the first time that the author directly mentioned the word "light" at the beginning of the novel. Later, someone said that "the hatred for Hitler finally faded, which exposed the profound moral degeneration of a world ... everything was forgiven in advance and everything was ridiculously allowed." (P2) This part of the text reminds us that another meaning of "light" is "forgetting". There is a saying that "forgetting history means betrayal." "lightness" with the meaning of "forgetting (betrayal)" certainly makes life unbearable. "People can only recognize everything, including the guillotine, through vague memories." "I have been thinking about Thomas for years. It seems that only under the refraction of memories can I see him clearly. " Kundera not only recalls himself, but also recalls with his readers, so that people can remember, remember history, and remember how people used to eat and how to eat diligently in history. Thomas was at a loss when faced with the choice of "which is lighter or which is more important". "Because human life is only once, we can neither compare it with the previous life nor make it perfect before we spend it." Kundera asked people to remember and cherish Thomas with him. His purpose is to make the later people stop being at a loss and indecisive like Thomas when facing the choice of "which is more important" and "spirit and flesh", so that the wonderful moments he experienced have lost their meaning-one of the importance of history is to provide experience for people. "What happens only once is something that has never happened (because of forgetting). Czech history will not repeat itself, nor will European history repeat itself. The two sketches of Czech and European history were written by people who were doomed to be inexperienced. Like personal life, history is too light to bear, as light as a feather, as light as dust, involved in space, and will never come again tomorrow. Kundera reveals the unbearable lightness of human life, but he, like us, is unable to solve this problem. Because it is impossible to "never return". "National history and personal life are only one-off. Without preliminary arrangements and drafts, the choice becomes meaningless. We don't choose kitsch, what else can we choose? Isn't Anzhi's determination and courage to fight against kitsch another kind of kitsch? How can a person living on the earth avoid kitsch? If kitsch is inevitable, aren't all "difficult resolutions" as light as a feather? This is another unbearable lightness in life. Kundera thus expressed doubts about the ultimate meaning of life, which our predecessors took for granted and firmly believed. We have no choice but to choose. We have always opposed kitsch and kitsch.

[Edit this paragraph] Classic Book Review

The Fate of Kundera —— Interpretation of The Unbearable Lightness of Life Almost every sentence has metaphors, every argument has traps, every detail has hidden organs, and every turning point in conversation is a dark tunnel. You just think the future is bright, and suddenly the mountains are heavy. In this way, a heavy landscape attracts your trudging steps. Confused, surprised, confused, suddenly enlightened. Every detail of every chapter can't be ignored, or you will get lost in that novel, as airtight as plants in the primitive jungle, and you can't find an exit. It is also possible that you can't get into the "dense jungle" at all, but you just wander around the grass on its edge for a long time, and you can't see a tree that you have to look up to get a panoramic view. With luck, you may be able to hit one or two rabbits with a shotgun, but don't fantasize about meeting a deer with nine colors. If you are unlucky, you will only see a mess of weeds growing at random. If you are lucky enough to enter the "jungle" by chance, then you must carefully leave marks everywhere you pass, and often look back at those marks to remember every turn and every ups and downs in the process. Otherwise, you will be lost in the depths of the jungle, like lost in the thick fog, and you will never find your way. If, after enjoying the most beautiful scenery, you can carefully follow the road where you came and then walk out of the jungle, you will be extremely happy and marvel at the beautiful scenery in the jungle. When I studied Kundera's Unbearable Lightness in Life for the third time, I had such a profound feeling. Walking through that jungle, I was terrified and distracted. The attitude towards Thomas' every choice of action is Kundera's torture of the reader's soul. He let Thomas wander between "light and heavy" and "spirit and flesh" again and again, and he tortured the readers' souls again and again. He crucified his readers like a cruel Roman ruler crucified Jesus. I can almost see the huge cross in front of me. I can almost hear the sound of his hammer driving nails into my hands and feet. Of course, I can feel the pain inside. "Well, you can stay on it! Think for yourself, which is more important? Do you choose spirit or meat? " A ferocious voice growled in a low voice ... It is hard to imagine what kind of wit Kundera needs, and how to stand at a height overlooking the overall situation in order to pose such a huge maze and seamlessly build those metaphors, traps, secret passages and organs together. Every step is frightening, walking on thin ice. "The reason why I like you is that you have no kitsch. In the kitsch kingdom, you are a devil. " (P9) This is not so much sabina's appreciation of Thomas as Kundera's firm and clear self-expression (I will mention later that Thomas, the hero of the novel, is actually the incarnation of the author Kundera). Can write such a great book, that Kundera itself is a different kind. As strange as his compatriot Kafka. The Unbearable Lightness of Life is as puzzling as Kafka's castle. Such a novel is not only difficult to understand, but also mental torture to read. Don't open it unless you are prepared to suffer. There is no point in opening it. It is better to save time to read some popular popular novels, and perhaps you can see some flowers and plants from them. Otherwise, reading a poem like "Facing the sea, spring blossoms" can also make you full of beautiful imagination about life. Otherwise, read some essays written by petty bourgeoisie women, full of coffee aroma, and enjoy sitting in an elegant coffee shop and treating the day as night with writers. If you are not careful, you may accidentally receive 99 roses from people you don't know. Imagine the romance of rose color! Heavy floating life and lively love Author: Xia Tang "Unbearable Lightness in Life" I read slowly, but I never stopped. From the winter of 2007 to last May. It has been more than half a year, during which I have experienced many things. Some experiences have strengthened my understanding of the novel, some have overturned my previous speculation on the story, and then piled up into an impulsive and dazzling persistent sigh. I have never regarded this novel as a (or several) love story, but I don't want to tear love out of the book. Indeed, "Light" is "a satire and questioning of any lyric form, and a thorough criticism of innocence". But what about Milan? Kundera's ridicule from the perspective of "another world" did not make him just fall into ink, but saw his ironic questioning and thorough criticism, crushed and melted, and re-infused into a new thing. The treatment of the hero's love in the book is the last quenching in this process. Fortunately, it prevents the novel from becoming a metaphysical one. If "Joke" is the agitation of intellectuals in Prague Spring, Kundera's immature resistance and thawing. Then The Unbearable Lightness of Life is to obliterate this resistance and this thawing. Although Kundera said that his works are not autobiographical records, it is undeniable that Thomas who lost his job because of Oedipus and the author who was fired because of jokes have the same loneliness in an indescribable cycle. So is there anything that can live in this loneliness and provide a footnote for the author's memory? Yes, it is the insignificant love that China people may not fully understand in the novel. In our culture, although "Wang Baochuan bitter cold kiln" and "Pan Jinlian make a scene on the grape trellis", we are used to the "conflict-free" collocation. However, in the book, Thomas and Teresa have strong and weak conflicts, and the incomprehensible words between Flantz and Sabine are undoubtedly contrary to us. This kind of love that ignores contradictions is even inconsistent with the western ideology that "the pursuit of that kind of complete hope is the so-called love". It can only belong to Czechs. For a long time, Czechs could not talk about anything unrelated to politics. So we can say that the marriage between Thomas and Teresa was based on 1968 when the Soviet Union invaded the Czech Republic. If there were no Soviet tanks invading Prague and no suburb of Zurich named in Russian, love would not exist. The marching soldiers stepped out of the river bed, and then Teresa was carried down the river in a basket. Finally, Thomas accepted her. The heavier the situation in Bohemia, the lighter their love. So, "helplessly looking at the yard; I heard my stomach creak in the excitement of love: I don't know how to stop on the road of betrayal; Raise your fist in the Great March, and so on. In fact, they all gave birth to Khrushchev-style brutal military strikes, and they were all red roses sprouting in white terror. Why does the author handle it this way? Francois? Ricard once again stated in "Capitalized Pastoral and Lowercase Pastoral" that "this work really constitutes a central myth, so it also constitutes a way to understand human existence and the world we live in." Kundera tried to look at the world with a deep feeling of Central Europe, and even used this way to bridge the reality and kitsch. What is kitsch? Flantz died for his faith in Sabine, his wife completed her identity because of his death, and Sabine ran on the road of betrayal; Thomas drove to recover Teresa from Esmusein, but suddenly found that the girl had come from six funny accidents. Novelists use this to illustrate that when life is entangled in a repetition, it is a kitsch (like a snake in a mythical symbol). This view has also appeared in Kundera's other works. For example, confused by the sound of utopia, they desperately squeezed into the door of heaven, but when the door slammed behind them, they found themselves in hell. This moment makes me feel that history always likes to laugh. Of course, it has not deviated from the eternal theme in Kundera's works: contradiction and struggle. The love in the novel is amplified in this contradiction and struggle. Teresa said, "I want you to grow old, ten years older than you are now, and twenty years older than you are now!" " "She has been uneasy about Thomas's strength. Finally, in Teresa's dream, Thomas became weaker and weaker, and finally became "a small animal that belongs to her and can be held in her arms." However, in reality, Teresa made Thomas yield with a more weak attitude. She suddenly realized that she had always blamed Thomas for not loving her enough. She thinks her love is beyond reproach, and Thomas' love is like a gift ... She always tells herself that she uses her life's weaknesses to oppose Thomas. We all tend to think that strength is a criminal and weakness is an innocent victim. But now Teresa realizes that the truth is just the opposite. Even her dreams, which are only weak but not strong in men's feelings, show her harm to Thomas and force him to retreat. Her weakness and aggressiveness forced him to surrender until he completely lost his strength and became a rabbit in her arms. She can't get rid of that dream. Teresa's insight itself is contradictory, and she denies all past persistence in her insight. In fact, the biggest contradiction in the book is that the protagonists who survived the encirclement and suppression of the Soviet Union, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria and East Germany were all killed by kitsch that was not heavy but light as a feather. Milan? Kundera is not a pessimistic spell, but how to explain the delirium and confusion in this book? Duras said that writing is a dark suicide. Kundera stood in death, constantly looking forward to that day and seeing life. Tragedy lingers, with his cool color. There must be a prayer for life in his coat. Read the whole book with your heart, and it is not the atmosphere outside the master cymbals that infects you, but the delicacy of the trickle that lingers in love. Hemingway wrote on the first page of The Flowing Feast: "If you were lucky enough to have lived in Paris when you were young, she will stay with you wherever you go for the rest of your life, because Paris is a flowing feast. "I think this book will be like Paris, and the light of humanity will shine on karenin's smile and this secular love. When writing this book review, I asked Beethoven to listen to it. It is not the (very important) QuartetNo. 133 mentioned in the book, but the piano sonata No.14 in C minor. This piano piece, more often called moonlight, gives me a floating image and dilutes the disillusionment of the novel. Sonata 200 years ago, novels 20 years ago. I close my eyes. As the novel ends, "A huge butterfly was startled by the light, flew away from the lampshade and circled around the room. "There was a faint sound of piano and violin from below." How long will it take to understand that flying is actually a myth of dazzling dreams.