The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Milan Kundera · 1984
Kundera interrogates whether lightness or weight is the appropriate response to the human condition, using the 1968 Prague Spring as backdrop for love, freedom, and betrayal. Published in 1984, it became the most passionately discussed philosophical novel of the late 20th century. Readers still argue about whether Tereza or Sabina represents the better life.
The case against
Kundera interrupts his own novel to explain it, essay after essay, as if the characters were slides in his lecture. Tomas's compulsive womanizing is dressed up as philosophy, and the women exist mainly as positions in the argument. For a book so alert to kitsch, its aphorisms can sound suspiciously like the thing itself.
Literary Fiction · the Pro canon
The case for it and the rest of the canon open with Pro.
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