The Book of Laughter and Forgetting [Paperback]

Milan Kundera (Author), Aaron Asher (Author, Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1996

Commissioned and closely monitored by Milan Kundera himself, this new translation brings a clarity and unmatched fidelity to the author's original text. Widely held as a work of genius, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting is the novel that first brought him to the forefront of the international literary scene. Rich in stories, characters and imaginative range, it was written while Kundera was still forbidden to publish in his home country of Czechoslovakia, which was then behind the Iron Curtain. In seven wonderfully integrated parts, different aspects of modern existence from the posthumous erasure of "enemies" of communism from the historical record, to the subtle agony of the fading memory of a lost love, to the bizarre sexlessnes of modern promiscuity are explored with boldness, subversive humor and the magical power of fiction.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In one of the finer modern ironies of the life-imitates-art sort, the country that Kundera seemed to be writing about when he talked about Czechoslovakia is, thanks to the latest political redefinitions, no longer precisely there. This kind of disappearance and reappearance is, partly, what Kundera explores in The Book of Laughter and Forgetting. In this polymorphous work -- now a novel, now autobiography, now a philosophical treatise -- Kundera discusses life, music, sex, philosophy, literature and politics in ways that are rarely politically correct, never classifiable but always original, entertaining and definitely brilliant.

Review

"This book, as it bluntly calls itself, is brilliant and original, written with the purity and wit that invite us directly in." -- John Updike,New York Times Book Review

"The Book of Laughter and Forgetting calls itself a novel, although it is part fairy tale, part literary criticism, part political tract, part musicology, and part autobiography. It can call itself whatever it wants to, because the whole is genius." -- New York Times

Novel by Milan Kundera, written in Czech as Kniha smichu a zapomneni but originally published in French as Le Livre du rire et de l'oubli (1979). The political situation in Czechoslovakia, where history and memory are manipulated to suit those in power, becomes a symbol for all of contemporary European culture. The novel is written in seven parts with an interwoven structure that the author likened to polyphonic music. The repetition of incidents, characters, and themes provides The Book of Laughter and Forgetting with its formal shape. Memories, which the characters want to keep or to forget, are a recurring subject, as is laughter, which is as often ironic as joyous. -- The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Harpercollins (May 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060926082
• ISBN-13: 978-0060926083
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (62 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #804,668 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

131 of 135 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Astonishingly Wonderful; A Must-Read, April 27, 2000

By 

oh_pete (Cambridge. MA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Book of Laughter and Forgetting (Paperback)

THE BOOK OF LAUGHTER AND FORGETTING is a rare and precious jewel. In many ways this is an experimental novel, the seven different parts of the book are compared by the author to Beethoven's variations upon a musical theme. These different variations either describe, converge upon, or dance around the story of Tamina, a Czech exile who ran away from the communists with her husband only to see him die of disease soon afterward. As time passes she becomes obsessed with the mortal fear that she will forget him. She cannot go back to her homeland but she can try to get her husband's love letters back, to bring some of his laughter back into her life, to remind her that she is not alone.

Tamina's homeland meanwhile, still languishes and suffers under the boot of the Soviet Union. The intellectuals who were so excited about communism in the late 1940s can't believe how wrong it goes over the next twenty years and try to correct their mistake. But the Soviets will have none of their "stalking a lost deed" as Kundera calls it--just as the Czechs are succeeding in relaxing the strictures of totalitarianism, in storm the Soviet tanks in 1968, ending the "Prague Spring" and delaying freedom in Eastern Europe for another twenty-one years.

Published in 1978, three years after Kundera escaped the Iron Curtain and set down new roots in France, this book is also an important historical document. (I actually read it for the first time as an assignment for a 20th Century European history class in college in 1991--I'm still grateful to the professor.) It is important because it warns us of the insidious dangers of "forgetting." One of the first things the communists did after crushing the Prague Spring was to fire some one hundred forty-five Czech historians from the universities in an attempt to erase the memory of the people. It is frightening how well they might have succeeded if the Soviet economy had stayed strong for another generation or two.

THE BOOK OF LAUGHTER AND FORGETTING is touching and erotic, a moving and inspired intellectual feat. It is not humorous, but if you are open to the experience, it will inspire "serious laughter, laughter beyond joking." Kundera has a gentle, straightforward style that evokes rich and vivid images (at least as translated by Michael Henry Heim--I look forward to reading Aaron Asher's in the future). For anyone who has loved, for anyone who has a memory, for anyone who appreciates the freedom we have in this society, THE BOOK OF LAUGHTER AND FORGETTING is a must.

44 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful philosophical - historical - sexual meditation, August 23, 2001

By 

"pierce_inverarity" - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Book of Laughter and Forgetting (Paperback)

Like Rushdie's Satanic Verses, this book is largely about angels and devils, or good and evil. The setting is (mostly) Prague around 1970, and the basic political themes -- Czech and Russian Communists and their adversaries -- are used as a foundation for the more ethereal, philosophical themes, such as the nature of humor, the nature of history, and the differences between the genders.

Kundera's frequent personal anecdotes told in the midst of the novel can be quite disconcerting -- and there's a parody of this book floating around the web that makes light of Kundera's self-indulgent practice of using his books as personal therapy sessions. But the anecdotes are still interesting, and since Prague around 1970 is such a big part of Kundera's own mental and cultural ethos, well, why not?

Anyone who is familiar with the dark, fatalistic jokes whispered in Communist Eastern Europe in the Olden Days will enjoy the steady stream of such humor in this novel. Kundera is a masterful joketeller. There is also a lot of bawdy sexual humor, fairly standard, but that is not nearly as interesting as the joke about the man vomiting in Prague's central square (I don't want to spoil the joke here, so you'll just have to read it in the book).

Kundera's attitudes toward women are for the most part repugnant -- but that's Kundera for ya. The contemporary American reader will wince when Kundera describes the beauty of rape, etc. This is just fair warning that some of the attitudes in this book may make you angry, as they made me angry; but we can't change Kundera. At least, unlike the other Kundera I've read, this novel is only partly -- not entirely -- about sex and seduction.

Overall, this is a combination of a brilliant reflection on history and philosophy, a warm-hearted story about dissidents in Prague, and some amusing autobiographical notes on Kundera. I found it more satisfying than Unbearable Lightness of Being, and can compare it (but only distantly) to the novels of Gunter Grass, which also discuss major political-historical events and the burden of a historical conscience, but focusing on the characters' personal lives, not hitting the reader over the head with grand historico-political lessons.

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Depression and Remembering, November 6, 2005

By 

RBradbury451 - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Book of Laughter and Forgetting (Paperback)

Kundera could not write Laughter and Forgetting without discussing, at some length, their opposites. This overall sad "novel" has elements that are unforgettable. The novel was set in the backdrop of Prague Spring in 1968, when disaffected teachers, writers, and historians, believing that freedom from communism's bone-crushing anti-intellectualism was within reach, were seduced into tipping their hands, only to be crushed by the Russian invasion that followed in August. Tens of thousands emigrated, while hundreds of thousands were banished from their positions of power and influence. Many went to jail.

Similarities between Kundera's characters and my friends during the heady "flower power" days of the late 60's here in the USA made the novel ring sadly true and "universal" on a personal level. We were disaffected with the establishment, we felt empowered by our energy, ideals, and our sense of intellectual, political, and sexual freedom. But . . . things didn't turn out for us the way we had planned them. While the napalm was flowing in Vietnam, the tanks were rolling in Prague, and the National Guard was firing on the students at Kent state, the mistakes that affected us most severely were those that happened in our relationships with friends and lovers. It is quite true that the state will squash -"like a flea between its fingers"- the individual that steps out of its circle of preferred actors and thinkers. But it's not the state that we have to worry about. The bankruptcy in our lives is usually of our own making, a point which, despite it's railings against the establishment, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting eloquently makes.

While Kundera repeats the sins of the state several times, even opening two chapters with identical accounts of a man erased by the state, his characters fumble with sins of their own. The men, compelled to act out sexual and ego games, lead hollow lives. Ultimately, they must deal with an overwhelming sense of their own failure. The women characters do not fare much better. They get the little joy in life available to them only by forgetting the men they love.

Throughout the book, Kundera maintains that it is only by remembering that we can live and make progress. Kundera says we don't do this very well -- as nations or individuals. We try to re-write history - condemning ourselves to repetitive failure. Sound about right?

The book is as disturbing as it is wise. Laughter and Forgetting is a good introduction to the rich and complex work of Milos Kundera.