Milan Kundera's sixth novel springs from a casual gesture of a woman to her swimming instructor, a gesture that creates a character in the mind of a writer named Kundera. Like Flaubert's Emma or Tolstoy's Anna, Kundera's Agnès becomes an object of fascination, of indefinable longing. From that character springs a novel, a gesture of the imagination that both embodies and articulates Milan Kundera's supreme mastery of the novel and its purpose: to explore thoroughly the great themes of existence.
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Kundera (whose novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being has sold more than 600,000 copies in paperback) offers brilliant meditations on 20th-century life as he contrasts a comic love triangle involving Goethe with a modern-day trio of fictional Parisians. This BOMC selection spent 12 weeks on PW 's hardcover bestseller list. $100,000 ad/promo.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
"Brilliantly mordant...beautifully translated...strong and mesmerizing."
-- -- New York Times
"Brilliantly mordant...beautifully translated...strong and mesmerizing."
-- New York Times
"Ingenious witty provocative and formidably intelligent, both a pleasure and a challenge to the reader." -- Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post Book World
"Inspired Kundera's most brilliantly imagined novel...A book that entrances, beguiles and charms us from first page to last." -- Susan Miron, Cleveland Plain Dealer
"Inspired Kundera's most brilliantly imagined novel...A book that entrances, beguiles and charms us from first page to last." -- Susan Miron, Cleveland Plain Dealer
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
22 of 22 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This was the first Kundera I read, as a result of a friends recomendation, and I was extremely immpressed.
Mr Kundera creates a novel of that rare species here: essentially I am unable to classify it, yet it made me think more deeply than usual and consider the entire world in an entirely different light when I managed to drag myself away from its pages.
The novel opens with Kundera himself witnessing an old woman making a gesture which he believes belies her age: quickly Kundera considers the fact that gestures themselves are immortal: many people have lived throughout history but they have utilized relatively few gestures.
Surprisingly, Kundera weaves an entire character out of this simple gesture, invents friends, relatives, thoughts and feelings for her, and eventually manages to intertwine her life with his own, projecting himself into his own novel, although so subtely do the two stories interlock that when we suddenly realise what has occured slow and joyful understanding blossoms upon our faces.
Along the way, Kundera uses the tale of the great German poet Goethe and the woman Bettina Von Arnim as a kind of historical paradigm for his modern tragedy, paints us a brief but fantastical picture of Hemingway and Goethe conversing beyond this worlds boundaries and, of course, muses upon the nature of Immortality, as well as tackling serious world issues with characteristic Kundera informality.
Kundera is witty and profound: many of the social and cultural observations included in this book made me laugh out loud. His discourse on such diverse subjects as music, world government, sex and the paths gossip take are so wonderfully woven into the primary story they seem to creep into your brain and only surface later, at which point one can nod admiringly at Kundera's wisdom.
Undoubtedly, a book I would not heitate to recommend, this novel should be read carefully and lovingly by eveyone.
Rabidly intelligent, astonishingly well written, ambitious, experimental and indispensable to the thoughtful reader.
Mr Kundera creates a novel of that rare species here: essentially I am unable to classify it, yet it made me think more deeply than usual and consider the entire world in an entirely different light when I managed to drag myself away from its pages.
The novel opens with Kundera himself witnessing an old woman making a gesture which he believes belies her age: quickly Kundera considers the fact that gestures themselves are immortal: many people have lived throughout history but they have utilized relatively few gestures.
Surprisingly, Kundera weaves an entire character out of this simple gesture, invents friends, relatives, thoughts and feelings for her, and eventually manages to intertwine her life with his own, projecting himself into his own novel, although so subtely do the two stories interlock that when we suddenly realise what has occured slow and joyful understanding blossoms upon our faces.
Along the way, Kundera uses the tale of the great German poet Goethe and the woman Bettina Von Arnim as a kind of historical paradigm for his modern tragedy, paints us a brief but fantastical picture of Hemingway and Goethe conversing beyond this worlds boundaries and, of course, muses upon the nature of Immortality, as well as tackling serious world issues with characteristic Kundera informality.
Kundera is witty and profound: many of the social and cultural observations included in this book made me laugh out loud. His discourse on such diverse subjects as music, world government, sex and the paths gossip take are so wonderfully woven into the primary story they seem to creep into your brain and only surface later, at which point one can nod admiringly at Kundera's wisdom.
Undoubtedly, a book I would not heitate to recommend, this novel should be read carefully and lovingly by eveyone.
Rabidly intelligent, astonishingly well written, ambitious, experimental and indispensable to the thoughtful reader.
35 of 39 people found the following review helpful
By Zafiro Blue
Format:Paperback
First of all - don't read this if you haven't read either "The Book of Laughter and Forgetting" or "The Unbearable Lightness of Being." "Immortality" is more difficult than both of them and should therefore be read later; but not only that, the allusions to some of Kundera's earlier ideas (the border, the unbearable lightness of being) will missed if you read this first.
Second - how much you put into will be how much you get. Don't read this as a novel; read it as a treasure buried under 350 pages of prose - you'll find many nuggets, but it will take work to grasp them and they won't combine to form a fully-formed unified slab of gold.
Third - it's not really about immortality. It's about life, existence, and so on - the essential human themes.
Fourth - it suffers from Kundera's fatal flaw, his refusal to use the literary technique of a book's climax to make the sharpest point. The effect on the reader (and the point of literature, in my opinion, is to make the largest possible effect on the reader) would be much greater if the ending of part five ended the actual novel. I have nothing against Kundera briefly giving away the end in the middle of the novel, which he does in "Being" as well. It's a technique that he uses very well. But how much more so if the characters' ending came at the *book's* ending!
Finally - I'm not sure which rating to give to "Immortality." I first put 4 stars, as it has serious flaws (namely, it doesn't truly form exactly one work and the experimentalism does not always work - put at the climax where it belongs!). But I'd be kidding myself if 20% percent of the books I read are better than "Immortality," I think. I'll end up giving it five, but with caution. The more I reread it, which I have done recently, the more I like it. Five it is, barely. However, I think I hold Kundera to a higher standard - he has such talent; he could use it better.
Second - how much you put into will be how much you get. Don't read this as a novel; read it as a treasure buried under 350 pages of prose - you'll find many nuggets, but it will take work to grasp them and they won't combine to form a fully-formed unified slab of gold.
Third - it's not really about immortality. It's about life, existence, and so on - the essential human themes.
Fourth - it suffers from Kundera's fatal flaw, his refusal to use the literary technique of a book's climax to make the sharpest point. The effect on the reader (and the point of literature, in my opinion, is to make the largest possible effect on the reader) would be much greater if the ending of part five ended the actual novel. I have nothing against Kundera briefly giving away the end in the middle of the novel, which he does in "Being" as well. It's a technique that he uses very well. But how much more so if the characters' ending came at the *book's* ending!
Finally - I'm not sure which rating to give to "Immortality." I first put 4 stars, as it has serious flaws (namely, it doesn't truly form exactly one work and the experimentalism does not always work - put at the climax where it belongs!). But I'd be kidding myself if 20% percent of the books I read are better than "Immortality," I think. I'll end up giving it five, but with caution. The more I reread it, which I have done recently, the more I like it. Five it is, barely. However, I think I hold Kundera to a higher standard - he has such talent; he could use it better.
40 of 49 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
If you like straightforward books with straightforward plots, straightforward characters and straightforward beginnings, storylines and conclusions, this book may not for you.
The novel takes place in the present, in the past, in the afterlife & in the surreal world of Kundera's imagination. The work has several different seemingly separate stories that Kundera somehow weaves into a coherent whole. We meet people that we are led to believe actually exist who talk with the author during "intermissions" of the novel. Later, we learn that Kundera was discussing topics with the characters in his novel.
The book has sundry marvelous sections which brood over just about every intellectual topic associated with immortality. We see an eloborate (although fictionalized) glimpse of Goethe's historical meeting with Napoleon. We get an impression of how many great artists look upon their craft as mementos of their immortality. We even get an answer to the $60,000 question: WHAT would happen if Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Earnest Hemingway met up in the afterlife? (Wow! What a thought!)
As I mentioned earlier, this book does not have the standard structure of most other novels. That said, however, it was quite enjoyable to read. It did not go off the deep end of Faulkneresque stream-of-consciousness psycho-babble. An excellent and entertaining postmodern effort.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Kundera's Immortality.
Kundera is a tremendously original writer. His narrative style is very unique and the appeal of his novels lie not on the plots, which are simple and mundane, but on the... Read more
Published 5 months ago by Hugo Melo
4.0 out of 5 stars
Playing with Narrative
This is an intriguing a fascinating book. Kundera is playing with narrative and the relations among the author, his creation, and the reader. Read more
Published 12 months ago by Dirk van Nouhuys
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wonderful
That was amazing and affected me. I strongly recommend it to people who are interested in Kundera's writing style
It's like "unbearable lightness of being"
It's like "unbearable lightness of being"
Published 16 months ago by Haminjori
5.0 out of 5 stars
Awesome and witty -- wonderfully entertaining and insightful
Milan Kundera is the best novelist I have ever read. His power lies in his great intellect, keen and unerring observations of human behaviors, and his immaculate control of... Read more
Published on July 9, 2010 by Skylark Scribe
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Cerebral Expedition
Which idiot came up with the idea that a novel has to have a straightforward plot? It must have been an imagologist or homo-hystericus! Read more
Published on March 6, 2010 by Zihan Kassam
4.0 out of 5 stars
A delight for writers, lovers of writing, and introspective persons
Kundera's books are the only kind of book I can re-read without losing the enjoyment of the first time. Why is it so? Read more
Published on February 19, 2010 by qwff
5.0 out of 5 stars
Twisted, thought provoking and fun!
I came upon this book off of a list of existentialist novels and I can say, I was rather pleased with this book. Read more
Published on April 27, 2009 by Gregory O. Schnurr
5.0 out of 5 stars
My favorite Kundera creation
Kundera has a way of being funny, philosophical, simple, and profound all at once. I love his metawriting which brings the reader back down to earth occasionally. Read more
Published on January 8, 2009 by K.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good book
Immortality is probably the last novel by Kundera that shows him at his best. This book, translated by Peter Kussi, released in 1990, is the last of a trilogy that includes the... Read more
Published on October 9, 2008 by Cosmoetica
5.0 out of 5 stars
Kundera... the best writer in novels
This book is one of my favorites written by Kundera (check out Unbearable Lightness of Being, Farewell Waltz, and The Book of Laughter and Forgetting as well). Read more
Published on July 13, 2008 by Katherine A. Wright
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