The unbearable lightness of being by Milan Kundera
The unbearable lightness of being By Milan Kundera Paperback, 314 pages Fiction & Philosophy I had attempted to read this novel before and recalled that I got heady by the introductory chapter as it tackles Philosophy. I am glad that I read it through this time, and maybe it is because I was able to read it at the right period of my life. On the personal level, I think if one has suffered/ is suffering from a midlife crisis, one can really understand the philosophical elucidations of the narrator (that is Kundera the author). We live our lives only once and since it is so, we have no other lives/ decisions to compare it from. This is opposed to the Nietze's philosophy of eternal return where eveything we experience recur in infinity, and thus if life does not recur, it mean nothing. Lightness then is the idea that life is devoid of inherent meaning or significance, and individuals are free to make choices without being burdened by moral or existential weight or heaviness. If o...