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This is the story of 2 men, 2 women and a dog, during and after the 1968 Prague Spring, in what was then Czechoslovakia. It's also about challenging Friedrich Nietzsche's eternal recurrence concepts, by countering (in this story) that each of us, has but one unique life to live - i.e. the lightness of being. So note, that there is a fair bit of philosophical wanderings, especially in the second half of the book. The "unbearable lightness" also refers to Kundera's portrayal of love being transient, random and rooted in accumulated coincidences, despite how much we see it as much more.

How did the book make me feel?
I was hypnotised by Kundera's storytelling, largely focussed on his cast and getting to only see the world they saw, even when it was limited to the four walls of a room that they were in. It tells the story of the crushing of the Czech privileged, and tells that story less emotionally, just through the eyes of the cast, something that works really well and in the end feels more powerful, a lot more powerful. I knew little of the details of the Prague Spring, but reading this has now inspired to learn more about this, and the Hungarian uprising of this era.

I was almost in tears at the end. The book has shaken me with the simplicity of its story and the deepness of its message. There's also one of the greatest ever non-human dramatical scenes in this book, which also totally absorbed and consumed me. I dragged my heels reading this, because I wanted to savour each scene, immerse myself in each page. A simple story about people, a story about enshrined political oppression, a story about love? In addition I feel that this is one of those books, that I knew within the first few pages, was something special, as Kundera's quality is apparent from the first page to the last. 10 out 12, a Five Star Read.

2020 read