author of the unbearable lightness of being

We are witness to the lightness that Tomas feels, only to be bound by the weight of his love for Tereza. “What then shall we choose? Weight or lightness?” In the first sentence it brings up Nietzsche’s notion of eternal return and then posits that against the idea that there is but one life, one chance. Then 1968 arrives with the Prague Spring and their lives are uprooted.īut the novel is so much more than that. He lets her stay with him, then they marry. Then Tomas meets a waitress named Tereza, who eventually follows him back to Prague. They both believe in the separation of sex and relationships. Tomas, a doctor in Prague, has a sexual relationship with Sabina. I had one co-worker, at Borders, who recommended it to every single customer that he possibly could. The Novel: I have never met someone who has read this novel and not loved it.

Last Line: “The strains of the piano and violin rose up weakly from below.”.

First Lines: “The idea of eternal return is a mysterious one, and Nietzsche has often perplexed other philosophers with it: to think that everything recurs as we once experienced it, and that the recurrence itself recurs ad infinitum! What does this mad myth signify?”.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being ( Nesnesitelná lehkost bytí).

Milan Kundera's literary triumph: The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Author of the unbearable lightness of being