Customer Reviews

Identity: A Novel

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Although Milan Kundera's work, Identity, was a New York Times notable book, critics internationally have accused him of breaking a so-called reader-writer contract in which the completion of plot is meant to finish the presentation of character. This type of criticism does not befit a renowned writer who convinced the world years ago that the duty of a novelist, at least in his own case, was to teach readers to comprehend life as a question rather than as an answer and to understand fiction as an idea rather than a story. In his heyday people enjoyed the challenge of wading through his lengthy digressions on the evolution of the meaning of words, the way he interrupts his narrative time and time again to return to the discussion of certain themes such as "lightness" and "heaviness" in his most famous novel, The Unbearable Lightness of Being.
But just as heaviness, "which pins us to the ground but is therefore simultaneously an image of life's most intense fulfillment," is often a gift, so too is the weight of Kundera's work, even in his novel, Identity. Besides the fact Identity was originally written in French as opposed to Kundera's first language, Czech in which he wrote his previous works, there is no discrepancy in talent between this book and his earlier, more popular, one. Critics, however, are asking such questions as "has `being' grown so unbearably light that Kundera can't even write about it anymore." My answer is "No." In Identity, Kundera courageously invites his readers to weigh the notion of human identity and what it means both in a community and in one-on-one romantic relationship. This novel portrays one couple-Chantal, who has recently divorced her husband after the death of her five year-old child, and Jean-Marc. The story, or better yet, Kundera's quandary about identity begins at a hotel where the two lovers are vacationing. Half-jokingly, Chantal remarks to Jean-Marc, "Men don't turn to look at me anymore," which prompts Jean-Marc to send her anonymous letters. Although the letters at first serve to inflame their lovemaking, ultimately they backfire into what Kundera calls "a shameful objectification that is a threat to all of us in the intrusive modern era," a topic that the author returns to time and time again. In essence, Jean-Marc projects an idealized identity onto Chantal and is deflated when she contradicts it. And Chantal, in turn, is deflated when she projects an oppressor's identity onto Jean-Marc, the only man who has ever tried not to oppress her.
No summary of the plot, however, can truly express the complex philosophical question that embodies each character's paradoxical actions and feelings. One day, for instance, while Chantal is eating lunch with Jean-Marc she is suddenly overcome by "a feeling of unbearable nostalgia for him." She wonders how this could happen in his presence, and decides it can "if you glimpse a future where the beloved is no more." At this moment, she thinks of her dead child and is flooded with happiness since it is his death that has made her presence at Jean-Marc's side "absolute." She does not, however, disclose these thoughts to Jean-Marc for fear that he would view her as a monster.
"What people keep secret is the most common, the most ordinary, the most prevalent thing, the same thing everybody has," insecurity, loneliness, and anxiety, Jean-Marc muses later on. Yet, as one would come to expect, Kundera's twist on this simple thought is far more profound and open-ended. We come to see that by keeping these types of feeling to ourselves we are concealing our communality, our humanity, which conversely causes us to lose our individual identity as both Chantal and Jean-Marc eventually do within their relationship.
Given Kundera's previous works, it should come as no surprise that the end of Identity asks readers to consider the possibility that none of the previously described events in Jean-Marc's and Chantal's relationship are real. This device of forcing readers to take on the responsibility of thought is not a literary cop out, as some critics would recently have us believe. It is instead Kundera's philosophy on the function of a novel coming to life as it always has in his work. Since he has never before provided definitive endings, the real cop out would've been for Kundera to answer in absolute terms all the issues raised by his characters in the narrative. "Chantal has seized dominance and backed her author into a corner. He cannot save her, yet lacks the toughness to destroy her," complains one critic in a review that obviously overlooks Kundera's entire reason for writing. In all of Kundera's work it is our job as readers to ponder a character's fate in terms of our own understanding of the human experience.
Keeping in mind Kundera's literary consistency in the last decade, the change in the attitudes of his critics is baffling. Kundera, however, in his typically insightful way has undoubtedly hit the nail on the head as to why it may have come about when he states in an interview, "People nowadays prefer to judge rather than to understand, to answer rather than to ask, so that the voice of the novel can hardly be heard over the noise of perceived human certainties. In a world built on sacrosanct certainties the novel is dead." Hopefully readers will come to realize that by killing the importance of Kundera's unique idea of fiction we are doing ourselves a horrible disservice. Of course, literature that requires us to think not only of the book but also of our own lives drops a certain responsibility on the reader, but it is well worth the extra energy. After all, if we refuse to spend time considering how this modern era has affected our view of identity, how can we say so definitively that "light" literature, which asks no questions, is any more splendid than Kundera's form of "heavy" idea-based literature?

I think that Kundera is an amazing writer. His understanding 0f the human spirit and the human penchance for fallacy is unparalled. The Unbearable lightness of being changed the way i viewed relationships and myself- Indentity has made me momentarily relieved that I am not in a relationship. Simply written yet intricately developed, 'Identity' causes us to hold a mirror up to our face and causes us to question how we really view friendship, love and companionship. Are these inherently selfish acts and does love also breed dependency and virtual madness? The book is claustrophobic and uncomfortable in parts, bringing the reader into the discomfort and rawness of relationships, presenting the obessive side of love affairs as linear expectations rather than as disruptive anomalies. The characters of Chantal and jean Marc elicit both pity and disgust, yet at the end they remain in each others arms despite the uncertainties and misdirected acts of their association. Whether or not the relationship survives in the future because of their love for being with each other or their fear of being apart is a question that the author allows the reader to answer in his/her mind.

The great thing about Kundera novels is that they say things. This is a big problem with a lot of novelists writing today--they aren't saying anything. Plot takes a backseat to what Kudera is saying, though the plot isn't bad. It is difficult to peel back the layers of Kundera's point, but--as the title shows--he's commenting on identity: the identity we create for ourselves and the identity we create for others in our own mind. The novel raises more questions than it answers, but that's the sign of a great novel. Isn't it?

I liked this book for its intelligence and for its simplicity of structure. I didn't like that I found it, by the end, anti-climactic -- I felt no revelation about identity, lack of identity, meaning or lack of meaning with respect to identity. The book's intelligence was compelling enough to make it work for me, as was its plot. Until the final chapters. Simplicity, brevity and internal consistency turned from deft continuity to a scattered unrealism that was both at odds with the book's tenor and ultimately led not to knowing, not to not-knowing, nor to anything fully realized. However, because of its smart writing and compelling theme, I am genuinely happy to have read it. Some prose is beautiful and interesting enough to be a pleasure in itself and "Identity," for me, is an example of such prose. In that sense: if the medium is the message, as Marshall McLuhan wrote, then it did fulfill. Ironically or not, then, "Identity" itself lacks an ultimate critical identity.

I've read all of Milan Kundera's novels twice--except my least favorite, "Life is Elsewhere". The second reading of "The Joke" and "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" improved them, but the second reading of "Identity" improved "Identity" especially. Buy this book. If you aren't moved, put it aside for a year then read it again. (If the ending puzzles you, reread it slowly and carefully, remembering there is nothing to "get": Milan Kundera is always lucid and plain-spoken.)

Also recommended: PENTATONIC SCALES FOR THE JAZZ-ROCK KEYBOARDIST by Jeff Burns.

Czech-born Milan Kundera now lives in Paris and writes in French. His characters, not unnaturally, live there as well. Unlike their creator, however, they are not immigrants. Their Frenchness is total. They speak like rive gauche intellectuals and could easily be the protagonists of one of Eric Rohmer's Contes moraux.

Their behavior, however, sometimes suggests that they have lived lives elsewhere. For the characters in Identity, one of the best of Kundera's many novels, seem to echo a couple portrayed in one of his early short stories, one called "The Hitchhiking Game," and written in Czech while Kundera was still living in Brno.

In "The Hitchhiking Game," a young couple becomes engrossed in a case of lost-and-found identity while playing a flirtatious game. In the end, the girl cries out, "I am me, I am me, I am me." And the reader is left to wonder just who "me" might really be.

Chantal, the female protagonist of Identity is the above-mentioned girl's soul sister. Discomfited by blushing during adolescence, Chantal is now at an age where she is facing menopause, and the blushes have returned to haunt her, this time in the form of hot flushes. Hot flushes, however, are the least of Chantal's worries.

When she becomes fearful that men are no longing pining for her from afar, her lover, Jean-Marc begins to send her a series of unsigned love letters. This ludicrous gesture, although well-intentioned, leads to an inevitable crisis as Jean-Marc finds himself the engineer of his own undoing.

In Jean-Marc's mind, Chantal no longer makes love to him, but to that unknown other, Jean-Marc's own alter ego, his other self. For her part, Chantal does, indeed, try to conjure up, at crucial moments, that hidden admirer...until she deduces the true writer of the letters. This revelation, of course, leads to further complications as Chantal mistakenly assumes her fidelity is being tested.

Every move in Identity, as in Kundera's other novels, has ironic consequences and every ironic consequence is precisely delineated. As perceptions change, so do identities, although we are not always sure from what, to what. Jean-Marc, observing how Chantal's entire personality changes when she enters the advertising agency where she works is forced to wonder which of her masks is the real one; the public one or the private?

The ad agency itself, is run by a charismatic charlatan named Leroy, a man of no fixed principle. He preaches that the only duty of mankind is to provide flesh for the deity, therefore lovemaking is a religious duty.

The agency, with its zealous exclusivity, hints at the mindless dedication demanded by Communism (described as the laughter of angels in The Book of Laughter and Forgetting). Without meaning to do so, Jean-Marc, himself, colludes in this perilous game of amnesia, having absolutely no curiosity about Chantal's previous existence as as wife and the mother of a now-deceased child.

In Kundera's novels, people are usually crossing a boundary of some sort. In Identity the boundary is a literal one: the border between France and England. London, home of a priapic fantasy-figure called Britannicus is the omphalos of orgy. And it is in the Channel Tunnel, so cloaked in Plutonian symbolism, that Chantal comes face to face with her own identity as Jean-Marc is trapped outside.

From this point on, the terrified lovers enter the world of nightmares and they hold tightly to each other in bed, afraid even to blink for fear the object of their desire (or even love) will be forever altered if the gaze of its worshiper is averted even for a nanosecond.

Identity is a short but brilliantly-conceived book and one which is a joy to read. It is definitely one of Kundera's best and will leave you guessing the answer to the phrase that best sums it up: I am who I am.

I would like to begin by saying that the only reason I gave the book four instead of five stars is because it is more appopriately a novella or short story, and I am a little resentful of Kundera's gall at passing it off as a novel. This book, published together with his previous work, Slowness, would have been the perfect size. Alone, however, they both feel rather small. It is true, though, that while there is little there, there is much to be in awe of. Kundera's style, always compact and dense, has become even more so, and his work has become sharper, more focused. This story about two individuals who are trying to be a couple manages to speak to all couples and to all individuals. The depths of thought and emotion which the book explores is dizzying, and several scenes make the reader both desire and fear the turning of the next page--a wonderful work from a wonderful author.

Kundera continues probing the well-worn territory he has investigated throughout his career; yet he seems with this most recent novel to have lost interest in telling stories, in developing characters, in reminding us why "The Joke" and "The Book of Laughter and Forgetting" were such important works. Here he is tiresomely didactic, without the heft of his far more compelling essays, repetitive for the sake of being repetitive (how many times must we be told the menopausal Chantal was "flushed" and "red"?), and discursive without the comprehensible presence of his generally roving mind. Too, I felt that Kundera was going through the motions, writing tired sex scenes without any clear purpose. Throughout the 51 chapterettes, it was nearly impossible for this reader to be unaware that Kundera was practicing what he has preached about musical variations, especially his love of Stravinsky. One gets the impression that these variations are here for no other literary reason that to fulfill his promise, to do what he told us earlier he would. Finally, Linda Asher's translation seems mostly acceptable--graceful, careful, precise--though I can't help thinking we really must be losing something in the translation. Sadly, I fear we aren't.

HOW INFREQUENT it is to understand you share a tiny portion of time in history with someone so substantial; so outstanding above all others in a the similar craft. Milan Kunera is why - in a pocketbook sense - I read; and he, his works then, this, and those to come are the very best answer I have when some lover of writing tells me that our days are too short; and world history too immense to spend any of our time reading literature.

I CAN NOT (and wouldn't if I could) tell you WHY Identity is worth of a read. If you've ever bumped-up against Kundera by choice or college coercion, this small work is part of his best; certainly the best since ULB - and that's all you will need to know. If you are part of that crowd, I can guess only that its smallness is why you've not yet read the book.

SOMEWHERE BETWEEN Pynchon's Mason & Dixon and Wolfe's Man in Full this one missed my attention. That was my fault, and that was my loss until yesterday. the Teddy Rex diptych by Edmund Morris was well-made and properly presented;--grand and loud. This tiny offering from Milan Kundera trumps it.

IF YOU HAVE NEVER read Milan Kundera, begin here and you shall begin a never affection for literature. The work is his latest; certainly one of his greatest, and there are many great works that came before it. With the shelves of fiction weighted with so much rubbish here is something so poetic in presentation, beautiful in truth, that it almost makes up for the last 50 years.

Note: Mr. & Mrs. Hollywood, please stay clear of this work.

This was the first thing I have ever read by this author and it was definitely good enough to make me interested in reading more Kundera stuff.
It is short. It moves along well, gathering speed as it goes. But the ending.... umm... well, more about this in a bit.
To simplify (greatly) I want to say that the novel speaks forcibly regarding what can happen when someone delves into the deep intimate inner spaces of another, uninvited.
What happens when certain "privacies" are violated. In a word, it can be tragic. Even in the case of two people who are enjoying a healthy relationship, in all other respects. As is the case with our two main characters in this story: Jean-Marc and Chantal.
They are a loving, mutually devoted, intellectual couple. After the death of her five-year old son, Chantal left her husband to be with Jean-Marc. They met at a ski-lodge. They enjoy a somewhat bohemian lifestyle, filled with lots of restaurant dates and two-sided philosophical conversation.
Everything is sort of tickety-boo, until Chantal reveals to Jean-Marc her specific inner angst.
"Men don't turn to look at me anymore," she says.
At first, this very much puzzles him. Why should such a thing matter?
"Is that really why you're sad?" he asks.

Jean-Marc is confused because.... well, shouldn't it be enough that he himself is enthralled with her? That he chases after her?
But Chantal has spoken what was in her mind.
And now it's... out there.
What will happen?
What will Jean-Marc do, with this information?

The story makes me ask myself: Is it possible to know too much about someone you truly love?
Should each person in the relationship be allowed their secrets?
Allowed some privacy?

The ending of the book.
A bit of a disappointment for me. Both in the structure of the ending, as well as the summation itself. A little too abrupt, inconclusive, contrived, and confusing, for me.
And I mean, an ending is darn important. Darn tootin' it is.
But for the enjoyment of the subtleties of the rest of the book, and the gorgeous language (even in translation) throughout, I would still highly recommend it.
If it was 800 or 900 pages and had the same ending? Yes, I would have kicked the nearest innocent stranger right in the shins!