The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera

Posted on by marjorieseidenfeld

 

unbearable lightness

This is the whimsical, weird, and sometimes wieldy love story of Tomas and Tereza, set mostly in Prague during the Russian invasion.  They meet while Tomas is visiting the small town where Tereza is working at a small inn, when she serves him his dinner.  After a bit of flirting, and circumstances that Tereza interprets as prescient, Tereza appears with her large suitcase at Tomas’s door and so they begin their lives together.

What is sometimes the charm of this story and sometimes the bane of the story is the perpetual tangent.  Most authors will backtrack to fill in context and background about the characters, and we see that here as well.  Occasionally, Kundera manages to create a lyrical lightness when he does this in this story.  Alternatively, while many authors will thread in an occasional plot line that seems disconnected but then ties in later unexpectedly, this book is plagued with so many tangents that do not tie in anywhere.  I feel as though this makes the book unnecessarily harder to read.

I will say that each of the characters is unique and colorfully drawn.  In choosing a third person narrator, Kundera provides almost a side door entrance into the minds of each of the characters and lets us know what each is thinking in his own, idiosyncratic way.  One fascinating character is Sabina, who is Tomas’s mistress.  She is an artist, very independent, and has her own lovers.  Through her, Kundera waxes very philosophical on what is light and what is heavy in life.   Through her we also see some of the consequences of the Communist regime changes, and she is the one character who manages to be free in her life choices and be free of the Communists ultimately.

I think this is another of those books I would have liked to read in an English class, during which I might’ve digested more of the symbolism with others who were smarter than I and who were more familiar with the historical context than I.  I might’ve benefitted from that and appreciated the book more.  As it was, I did enjoy some of the writing, the creativity, and philosophical musings of the author, even while I found it occasionally onerous and hard to get through.

 

We are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler

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completely beside ourselves

As Rosemary is looking back and recounting the story of her childhood, she tells of her sister being taken away and her brother later running away of his own accord – and we feel the trauma in her heart right from the start.  What we don’t hear until later, however, is that Rosemary’s “sister” is a chimpanzee named Fern, and her brother has been traumatized by the way in which he perceived Fern has been treated by their parents.  Rosemary and Fern have been the subjects of psychological studies, conducted by Rosemary’s father and a team of graduate students, who have examined the learning capabilities of chimps in terms of language and behavior compared to humans.  What they fail to study and to take into account, is the long-term consequences that this will have on Rosemary, Fern and on Rosemary’s brother, Lowell, that last the rest of their complicated lives.

This story is extremely interesting, but it is told in an unfortunately fragmented way, starting “in the middle” as the author says more than once, which may have not been the best strategy, as it happens.  There are many skips and recalls, many memories and pieces.  Often this works in books, but here it feels like only that – like skips and pieces.  The whole picture becomes sacrificed in some way, and the story line is somewhat blurred.

On the whole, however, it is a unique idea for a novel and it does hold one’s attention.  It is fascinating to contemplate the idea of a girl and a chimp growing up as twins, but there are innumerable and predictable obstacles that would clearly preclude anyone in their right mind from actually doing this to a real child – one would at least hope!

I’d love to hear what others think about this one!

Life’s Work by Dr. Willie Parker

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life's work

This is a modest but monumental work by one of my newest heroes, Dr. Willie Parker.  Dr. Parker was born and raised in the South, by his single, very poor black mother who instilled in him a strong value system, prioritizing family, love and God above all else.  He managed to find additional role models and mentors who encouraged him to climb to heights even he never imagined he’d achieve, cultivating his thirst for understanding science, even in the face of his religious fervor.  He found his calling in the field of medicine and further in the speciality of OB/GYN and practiced in many areas of the country, ultimately ending up in a beautiful area of Hawaii.  While he did find himself advocating for women in some areas, his religious convictions still held him back from performing abortions.  He was not against referring his patients to others to perform them, but he himself felt he could not do them.

Then he suddenly found the way to reconciling this within himself.  He suddenly recognized that, just as the Good Samaritan in the Bible helped the injured traveler out of concern about what would happen to the traveler (ignoring what would happen to himself), that he, Dr. Parker, should also be concerned with what would happen to his patients if he did not do abortions and not what would happen to him (or how he would be judged).  Taking this further, Dr. Parker saw in this a moral, – no a religious! – imperative to carry out his patients’ wishes, whether they be to carry a pregnancy to term or to terminate that pregnancy.  Furthermore, denying patients the choice of what to do with their bodies, denying them access to safe, healthy choices, denying them the right to choose to continue their educations or their jobs or whatever they needed to do without interruption to have a baby – he realized, went against everything his religion and God stood for.  Really, the “anti’s” as he calls them, had it backwards.

He is extremely articulate about a lot of the arguments that the anti’s give about why abortion might be perceived as being wrong – and they’re all mostly devious.  They are mostly about controlling women, and usually about controlling women of color and/or who are poor.  Women, and particularly women in the south and the midwest, now have such minimal access to safe, healthy abortions,  and it is being chipped away –  mostly by white men – day after day after day.  It is merely a power play.

Dr. Parker is one of those rare brave souls who do perform abortions in the south, making safe, healthy procedures available to those who need them.  Thank God for Dr. Parker.

In sum, here is a gorgeously articulated argument for all of you who feel that just because you are religious, you cannot support abortion.  On the contrary, if you are religious – in this light, you are morally obligated to honor the choice and the freedom of the already living, as Dr. Parker does.

Bed and Breakfast by Lois Battle

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bed and breakfast

This was a sweet story about Josie, the owner of a bed and breakfast, whose Christmas holiday is off to a crazy start with her friend having a heart attack in the middle a bridge game in her home.  This reminder of the vulnerability of life triggers her to invite her estranged daughters to come home for Christmas, much to their surprise, and it invites a lot of nostalgia mixed with emotional eruptions.

I think I’d describe this book as benign;  it’s a decent read, quick, keeps one’s interest, the characters are likable, the writing is passable – but there is nothing imaginative about it.  I did not learn anything new from it.  There was nothing culturally unusual about it.

I do find stories about relationships interesting – mother/daughter, wife/husband, generational conflicts, etc.  This touches on some of this.  But I found that some of this is left undone, or kept at the surface.  There is never a deep unpacking of the deeper relationship or feelings.  There is never the huge explosion that there should be when emotions run so high.

I was left wanting just a little bit more.  And in this case, that was not a good thing…

 

The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen

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the sympathizer

This is yet another one of those extraordinarily-well-written, even Pulitzer-Prize-winning books that I did not enjoy reading at all.  The writing is clever, with wit and imagery and drama; but sadly, the main character, who narrates the story, is remarkably unlikeable.  He gleans a bit of sympathy as he begins his story about his violent exodus from Vietnam to the U.S. at the end of the war, and as he recounts stories from his youth, having been bullied because of his being of mixed race.  But, at least for me, that is where my sympathy for him ends.  As he continues to recount his prior experience in the U.S. as a student there and as he continues to track his workings as a double agent for North Vietnam during his experience in California in the 1970’s, it feels at least to me, like a story with a great deal of pain with little to be gained for it – for both the main character and the reader.

I was hoping to learn a little more about the backstory of Vietnam – and there was some of that here.  There was some sympathy for the idealism of the Communist North Vietnamese and the disillusionment of the South Vietnamese who felt used and then abandoned by the US.  The most powerful part of the story, for me, was when the protagonist is hired to be a guide to a director about a movie about the Vietnam war.  He is miserable, because he is unable to convince the director to give more than minimal, stereotypical, awful roles to the Vietnamese actors in the movie, when he was hoping to bring some real humanity to their roles.  This theme is recurrent throughout the story – that is, prejudice against Asians – and our main character is treated with even more disdain than most, because he is not even pure bred Asian.

Again, the writing in the book is absolutely impressive and I can understand the Pulitzer Prize.  But what is missing here is heart, and that is what I look for in a book as well.  Academically fancy without empathy does not carry me with you!

 

Journey to Munich by Jacqueline Winspear

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journey to munich

In this installment of the adventures of Maisey Dobbs, psychologist and detective, we find Maisey back in London in 1938, still reeling from the loss of her husband but trying to get back into her life.  Feeling like she needs to do something to help someone else – and possibly that she has nothing to lose – she accepts an assignment to go undercover as the daughter of a British businessman held prisoner by the Germans and now being released to her only.  To complicate her mission, she is also asked to bring back from Germany the one young woman Maisie holds most responsible for her husband’s death.  How will she accomplish both of these feats, especially under the careful watch of the Nazi government?

This book series is part detective novel/part historical fiction, with lots of human sensibility to warm up the mix.  Especially in this book, the kindness and forgiveness that Maisie shows, whether toward the man she is asked to bring home or toward the young woman who she is asked to find, shines so particularly bright compared to the darkness of the Nazi regime.  It is interesting that the timing of the story is actually just prior to the German invasion of Austria – really at the beginning of everything – but still she describes the feeling of foreboding, the pall of darkness that pervades the otherwise lively city.  The hope that Maisie clings to is in stark contrast to the evil that is lurking, that has been set into motion.

This is really not a “Holocaust” book per se, and while it is set in the time and place of the Holocaust it does not take the same emotional toll as those books do.  So if you’re planning your reading based on this, don’t worry that you’ll be taken through the same emotional rigors of that.  There is suspense and sadness, but not to the same extent as you would with other books from this period.

I do recommend this book heartily!  Happy reading!

 

 

Hillbilly Elegy by JD Vance

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hillbilly elegy

This memoir from JD Vance is an eye-opening, articulate depiction of the “hillbilly” culture of the Appalachian region.  As Vance shares with the reader about his upbringing – bouncing between Kentucky and Ohio – he opens our hearts to the plight of the poor, often uneducated, white population in this region.  As we learn about his experience with his traumatized and drug-addicted mom and his angry, foul-mouthed, sometimes violent, but unendingly loving and devoted grandparents, we see how entrenched the culture is and how difficult it is to dream in this world.  Fortunately, for him, he was able to find love and support enough to find his way to success – but his journey was complicated and chaotic and he never forgot from where he came.

The honesty and self-reflection with which this story is told brings the reader right into the author’s life.  We are right there with him when his mother takes him on a death-defying car ride.  We are right there when his older sister cares for him as a devoted mother would.  The love and appreciation that he feels for his grandparents who were his constants in a very tumultuous childhood is palpable.  And we can understand when he reflects on how to improve the lot of his fellow hillbilly peers and come up short.  The poverty, the distrust, and the violence that pervades this culture are so entrenched that it feels impossible to overcome.

I think this is an important book for people who are not from the South to read.  It really provides an understanding of a whole sub-culture of people that comprise  part of the fabric of our United States.

A very, very worthwhile read!

 

THE WHITE QUEEN BY PHILIPPA GREGORY

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white queen

Elizabeth, a stunning beauty, attracts the eye of the rising King Edward and sparks both romance and controversy.  For while Edward wages war for his kingdom, Elizabeth mounts her battles at home in order to keep her family together and financially stable.  Allegiances seem to collide like balls on a pool table as brothers turn on each other and cousins desert their family ties.  As distrust and jealousies rise, so does the danger, but Elizabeth perseveres and when pushed too far, she utilizes the magical powers that her ancestors have passed on to her in order to save who she can save and avenge those who she cannot.

I have loved many of Gregory’s books – they are historical fiction books about the kingdom of England and have taught me much about how hard-won each kingdom has been.  This book I found both beautiful and confusing; beautiful in the characters, who valued love and honor and loyalty to family, but confusing in that everyone had the same name!  So many Henry’s and Georges and Edwards that it was hard to keep track of who was who.  This of course not the fault of the author, but the fault of the royalty that the author was depicting – but confusing nonetheless.

It is still striking to me how unique democracy is and how we are fortunate to have routinely peaceful transition of power.  There is not a bloody war every time a new ruler comes to power.  And although I am horrified and mortified by our current administration – and I do doubt that our last election was won by honest means and not because of covert dealings and technological hacking by foreign powers – we do have to respect the power of the vote by the people of our country.

If you are a fan of Philippa Gregory – this book is for you!

The Baker’s Daughter by Sarah McCoy

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bakers-daugher

This is the tender story of 2 women – Reba, a journalist living in El Paso, assigned to interview a German baker for a Christmas story, and Elsie, the baker during her youth in Germany in 1944.  As Reba is battling her ghosts, trying to sort out her own difficult childhood with an alcoholic father, we learn also of Elsie’s trauma of coming of age in Hitler’s failing war and the bravery she demonstrates silently at that time.  As the two characters get to know each other, they develop a friendship that goes beyond friendship and Elsie and and her daughter Jane become Reba’s second family.

I like the unfolding of the story, as it ping pongs back and forth between the two time periods.  This technique is not uncommon, but it never fails to elevate the suspense.  The tension in the story reaches a crescendo, and then – bam! – switch to the other time period.  A sure-fire way to keep the reader turning those pages.

And as many World War II stories as I’ve read – and there have been many, even just in this blog alone! – I still learn new things.  The new and ugly detail that I had not learned of before was about the Lebensborn Program.  This program was Himmler’s attempt at genetic programming.  There were houses set up in Germany to essentially breed the idealized, blond-haired, blue-eyed Aryans.  Women were kept in these houses for chosen men – married or not – to come and “mate” with them.  The attraction was that the children were given privileges others didn’t have – food, education, other benefits.  However, when babies were born to these women with undesirable characteristics, these babies were done away with, in whatever fashion was easiest.  Evidently, there were other programs tied to this, where children (often Polish) were kidnapped to be dedicated and trained to serve the Third Reich, if they had these characteristics as well.

Evidently, when you think you’ve learned about all the cruelty that could exist, there is still more to discover.

I would not count this book among the “MUST READ’S,” however.  I think that the writing in some spots is excellent and in some spots is quite ordinary.  Somehow, the parts that describe Elsie are tender, rich, and colorful – as Elsie’s character is.  The parts that describe Reba, though, feel flat.  It may be that we don’t have as deep a window into her character as we do to Elsie’s.

I do recommend this, though, as it is still an interesting read, with suspense and feeling and important historical context.

Before the Fall by Noah Hawley

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before-the-fall

This was one of those easy reads that have a little suspense, a little drama, a little heartbreak – but that you don’t have to take too seriously.  And in this moment of political unrest with enough daily drama and anxiety in real life, it was fun to sneak away to this bit of fiction.

It begins with the crash of a private plane going from Martha’s Vineyard to New York – right up front – with a very dramatic story of 2 survivors.  The rest of the story is a combination of the aftermath – trying to untangle the mystery of the crash – as well as the personal story of each of the characters leading up to the fateful flight.  As each of the personal stories unfold, the story comes to a fulminant crescendo, with the revelation of the cause of the crash.

While there are some inconsistencies and a few loose ends, the story is entertaining and actually travels in many divergent directions because of the various characters.  Each character has his or her unique story and each intertwines somewhat with the others.  In the telling of each story, though, the author manages to build up the suspense and create many more possible explanations for the crash.

If you’re looking for a distraction in these troubled times, this is a good place to hide!