Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

A motley assortment without any concrete sync and a lot of digressions

It was absolute awe of "the unbearable lightness of being" (The beauty of whose poetic title I will always adore) that made me pick this one up, but I gotta say, that "Immortality" was off-guard. For the most part, the plot seemed to lurk around without any concrete idea or some kind of centralized plot. It was more of a decentralized novel ( if that's the correct word to describe this situation ). No wonder, as Kundera himself mentions in the novel, "A novel shouldn’t be like a bicycle race but a feast of many courses".

But still, I know that this decentralized thing is an indispensable aspect of Kundera's novels ( paradigm example of this is "the unbearable lightness of being") and that there are a plethora of ideas present throughout the book, but in my opinion, Immortality lacks any concrete sync. There were parts, wherein I could relate the concepts but the occurrence of this was low.

On the contrary, although the unbearable lightness of being was also a motley assortment, yet the fizzing emporium of ideas seemed much more germane over there.

Having said all that, I'm still perplexed about how I feel about this book. The first two parts of this seven-part novel were better than the upcoming ones. I feel that towards the fag end, the book got downright irrelevant and just sucks the reader.

Moreover, I found the multifarious, ever-changing complexity of the world around the characters more interesting than the clever lucubrations of the self-satisfied characters themselves.

Coming to the rating, I'm a bit confused as I ain't too sure about how I feel about this book. But, owing to my love for the philosophical fiction of Kundera and a few ideas which were a banquet for the brain, I cannot resist but round my 3.35-star rating to 4. (how I wish yet again, that Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ should have a decimal rating system, which would help readers to "precisely" rate a book)