Review of The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera

"The novel is not the author's confession; it is an investigation of human life in the trap the world has become." -TULOB @KunderaQuotes

1988 film adaption (not as good as the book, naturally)

The Unbearable Lightness of Being explores the lives of four characters trapped by the totalitarian Soviet regime in 1960s Prague. 
Tomas is a Czech surgeon, who seems to view women as a hobby, and is later demoted to a career as a window washer after publishing a though-provoking, although abbreviated, article on the connections between the story of Oedipus and the oppression of Communism.
Tereza, Tomas's shy wife,  protests the Soviet occupation by taking evocative photographs. She is forever trapped by her jealousy of Tomas's continuous affairs with other women.
Sabina, Tomas's lover and best friend, an open-minded painter who symbolizes the artist figure under totalitarian Soviet rule.She eventually relocates to Switzerland, then New York, and finally California. She best embodies "lightness" in the novel as she learns to embrace "beauty by mistake" after accidentally dripping red paint on one of her best paintings.
 Franz, Sabina's naive lover,  is completely isolated by his life in academia as a professor in Geneva, but  his break with Sabina prompts him to leave his comfort zone and travel to Cambodia and Bangkok, where he is fatally wounded.
And lastly, but not least, there is Karenin, Tomas and Tereza's dog, who symbolizes man's enduring yet rare ability to love unconditionally in an otherwise corrupt and cruel world.

What I liked best about this novel was how it revealed its characters' thoughts and actions in slivers and traces. Kundera does not bog down his readers with a lot of pointless background information or history; in fact, Kundera barely explains enough for us to understand why characters act in certain ways. Why is Tomas a womanizer? Why is Sabina a painter? What draws and keeps Tomas and Tereza together? Perhaps these unanswered motivations act as a testimony to the randomness that sculpts each and every one of us.

Another unique aspect of this novel which mirrors our current world is the novel's discussion of many philosophical and intellectual theories, which are braided throughout the narrative.  Kundera examines Nietzsche, existentialism, and the impact of totalitarianism on self-expression. In fact,  I even learned a new word: kitsch, which is a word describing the style of artwork meant to glorify and serve the aims of an authoritarian government. The picture to the left is kitsch because it is meant to show the bounty and health of North Korea's Communist regime. Kundera describes the spirit of kitsch in the novel, “everything that infringes on kitsch must be banished for life: every display of individualism … every doubt … all irony (because in the realm of kitsch everything must be taken quite seriously)”. Thus, the style of kitsch is unironic. Kitsch is propaganda and therefore restricts all creativity. 

While Kundera's novel takes place in 1968 occupied Prague, I couldn't help but make connections to my world today.  In what ways do we restrict our own personal freedoms? How often do we allow societal restrictions and expectations to define beauty and art for us, instead of exploring and creating art on our own? These expectations (mirrored by kitsch, propaganda, stereotype or sentiment) are the "weight" the novel's title symbolizes. Perhaps we self-impose such stiffing restrictions on ourselves because the randomness and "beauty by mistake" of our world is just too overwhelming to navigate.