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Milan Kundera

Laughable Loves Paperback – May 1, 1999

by Milan Kundera (Author)

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Milan Kundera is a master of graceful illusion and illuminating surprise. In one of these stories a young man and his girlfriend pretend that she is a stranger he picked up on the road-only to become strangers to each other in reality as their game proceeds. In another a teacher fakes piety in order to seduce a devout girl, then jilts her and yearns for God. In yet another girls wait in bars, on beaches, and on station platforms for the same lover, a middle-aged Don Juan who has gone home to his wife. Games, fantasies, and schemes abound in all the stories while different characters react in varying ways to the sudden release of erotic impulses.

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"An intellectual heavyweight and a pure literary virtuoso, Milan Kundera takes some of Freud's most cherished complexes and irreverently whirls them about in acts of legerdemain that capture our darkest, deepest human passions?The tales in "Laughable Loves" surprise and illuminate?Kundera's world is complex, full of mockeries and paradoxes. Life is often brutal and humiliating; it is often blasphemous, funny, irritating."-- Abe Ravitz, "Cleveland Plain Dealer""Milan Kundera offers a very special blend of sympathy and cynicism, irony and affability, that is unmatched in our literature." -- Thomas Joyce, " Chicago Sun-Times" "Light, wry, and wise."-- John Skow, "Time""Buoyantly energetic and virtuosic."-- Walter Clemons, "Newsweek"

From the Back Cover

Milan Kundera is a master of graceful illusion and illuminating surprise. In one of these stories a young man and his girlfriend pretend that she is a stranger he picked up on the road -- only to become strangers to each other in reality as their game proceeds. In another a teacher fakes piety in order to seduce a devout girl, then jilts her and yearns for God. In yet another girls wait in bars, on beaches, and on station platforms for the same lover, a middle-aged Don Juan who has gone home to his wife. Games, fantasies, and schemes abound in all the stories while different characters react in varying ways to the sudden release of erotic impulses.

Item Weight : 9.1 ounces
Paperback : 304 pages
ISBN-10 : 9780060997038
ISBN-13 : 978-0060997038
Dimensions : 5.31 x 0.68 x 8 inches
Publisher : Harper Perennial (May 1, 1999)
Language: : English
ASIN : 0060997036

Best Sellers Rank: #788,548 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #11,559 in Short Stories (Books)
- #17,743 in Contemporary Literature & Fiction
- #40,385 in Literary Fiction (Books)

Customer Reviews:
56 ratings

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4 star		18%
3 star		8%
2 star		2%
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Bob Wachholder

Four Stars

Reviewed in the United States on September 5, 2017

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Character you're just going to want to cringe over, and perhaps relate to.

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Samuel L. Carter Jr.

Nice book

Reviewed in the United States on May 23, 2017

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Nice book

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Elena Barbulescu

Laughables Loves Review

Reviewed in the United States on April 12, 2012

This book is definitely a quick read yet very thought-provoking. It sort of makes you confront things you might otherwise think about, as well. He very much takes something, a topic, and expands on it very eloquently. What he does with the topics in the book really makes it a real emotional experience. If you have read The Unbearable Lightness of Being, like me, or any other book by Milan Kundera you really have to read this one.

Milan Kundera is fairly good at writing about emotional entanglements, just as well as writing about characters who favor mind-games. Most of the stories in Laughable Loves deal with these types of characters. Milan Kundera is very crafty with his writing. This one probably fell short just a little bit in comparison with The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Regardless, it's still a book worth reading if you have extra time around.

I have yet to understand what has gone through Kundera's mind when he's written these book. With what purpose did he create such novels that are so focused on erotic impulses, lust, love and passion along with destruction. He just amazing me in how raw he is. How much he burrows through the human depth and reasoning in all that we are and do. I wonder if what he writes is hypothetical, or whether he took examples from real accounts of life.

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mypointofview

Honesty, cynicism and melancholy shrouded in undescribable tenderness

Reviewed in the United States on December 21, 2006

I just came across this collection of short stories, and as a devoted Kundera fan, I quickly devoured it amidst Christmas preparations, letter writings and other more dreary readings. And what a delight! This is early Bohemian Kundera, written while he still lived in then Czechoslovakia, and it is quite evident that he has not yet matured into the thoroughly seasoned writer that produced masterpieces such as "Life is Elsewhere", "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" and "Immortality". However, this is unmistakenly literary genius in the making, and the mood throughout is simply captivating.

The themes all deal with aspects of human sexuality - mostly from a Man's view. The stories have a raw sense of humanity to them - sometimes it can be uncomfortable reading; however, it has an undeniably tender undercurrent. Even when a character behaves despicably, I remained sympathtic with the human behind the actions. It just feels irresistably honest, and it is quite easy to get seduced by such well-portrayed human complexities.

Among my favorite stories were "The Old Dead Must Make Room for the New Dead", which portrays the dilemma of whether to preserve a diffuse, but beautiful sensual memory or replace it with a graphic, but uglier version that will ultimately erase the former. "Edward and God" is another gem that deals with sexual longing and the fickleness of Religion (Atheism is cleverly presented just as irrational in its dogmatisms as Christianity).
Finally "The Hitchhiking Game" is a classic portrayal of how easily perceptions can be irreversibly altered.

I highly recommend this short-story collection; however, if you are reading Milan Kundera for the first time, I am tempted to recommened one of his more famous works...

4 people found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

Light read but not light

Reviewed in the United States on September 5, 2001

I say the entire book is a light read because it is composed of several short stories, of which 1 or 2 could be read in one seating. Light, because at a glance, the tales seemed shallow & the stories dealt on eroticism.
But despite the humor, the comicness & the absurdity in which each character is cloaked in, one will realize that the author was leading the readers to a man's real state of mind --- his obsession with sex & self worth, self satisfaction & contentment, all intertwined. Yes, man's ego - at his best or worst - which can then lead to either his downfall or redemption.
At a glance, this may be mistaken by the feminist groups to be glorifying men's sexual conquests --- at the expense of the hapless female characters. But at a closer look, one would also recognize the author's equal ability to draw out truthfully a woman's bing & state of mind through his excellent narration.
Of the 7 short stories, I found 3 very relevant & touching. Yes, the humor & the light-mannered narration were still present but they reeked too much of reality --- too close for comfort. If I were to rate my choices in order, I would rank "The Hitchiker's Game" as #1, "Edward & God" as #2 & "Let the Old Dead make froom for the Young Dead" as #3.
In an industry where commercialism (what with all these movie tie-ins)& plot predictability, Milan Kundea & his books are a welcome change. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has been searching for something new, something different, soemthing meaningful & something intellectual.

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Top reviews from other countries

Cassandra

Seven stories about laughter, love, randomness and nostalgia

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 9, 2013

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I've re-discovered Kundera's charming books many years after my first introduction to (and immersion in) them; I had originally read some of his books when I was still an adolescent. It's interesting with Kundera; I think if someone reads his books, as is often the case, in their teens and early twenties, they leave the reader with a completely different impression than when read later in life. What seemed, in my teens, charming sophistry about faraway stages of life- interesting but basically irrelevant to me- now becomes much more resonant, bitter and true to my current experience. All those philosophical, whimsical, laugh out loud funny but (at heart) tragic thoughts that Kundera is a master of become more painful, true to life and ironic, but also much more deeply enjoyable, when read in middle life. At least that's been my experience of re-reading Kundera recently.

`Laughable loves' is a collection of 7 love stories written in (the then) Czechoslovakia, in the 60s. Differently to `The Joke' (which I read a few weeks ago), here Kundera allows politics to remain in the background, although it's interesting to read through the lines and imagine the authoritarian background against which the love stories Kundera describes play themselves out.

There's a thread running through all seven love stories, and I suppose it's evident in the title: they're all laughable! Each of them is an expression of the randomness of life and the illusion that we control our stories, including our love stories: `it had only been my illusion', says the protagonist of one story, `that we ourselves saddle events and control their course; the truth is that they aren't our stories at all, that they are foisted on us from somewhere outside; that in no way do they represent us; that we are not to blame for the strange paths they follow; that they are themselves directed from who knows where by who knows what strange forces'.

Some of the stories, for example `Nobody will laugh', are linked to `The Joke' as they involve the development of an innocent, random joke into a series of serious events: `we pass through the present with our eyes blindfolded. We are permitted merely to sense and guess at what we are actually experiencing. Only later when the cloth is untied can we glance at the past and find out what we have experienced and what meaning it has'.

Other stories, e.g. `The golden apple of eternal desire' or `dr Havel after 20 years', involve games that are continued because of nostalgia and because of the love of youth even when they have long lost their original meaning. `The hitchhiking game' involves a game which has gradually become a trap for the lovers involved, without their conscious knowledge or understanding of how this transformation came about.

My personal favourite was `Eduard and God', the final story in the book, which brought tears of laughter to my eyes; this is yet another story about randomness, lies, games, jokes- all in the context of how people deal with love, how it comes about, how it dies out, how it's avoided and how it's embraced.

As funny and light as these stories are- and they make for thoroughly enjoyable, easy reading- they're equally painful, bitter and tragic, very much about the passing of time and the longing for youth; but there's also a whimsical quality to Kundera's writing, a `what the hell' element. Kundera, as always, writes starkly and elegantly, offering insight into love through quite bare, straightforward words. A delight to read if Kundera is your cup of tea: I truly love him but of course he's not for everyone.

2 people found this helpful

SabinaKhan

🤔🤔🤔

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 14, 2020

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Book is great

Sayontön Vöttacharjo

Waited for so Long!

Reviewed in India on July 1, 2020

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Not yet started reading! The outlook is so cool!

Shefali Deshpande

Four Stars

Reviewed in India on May 12, 2015

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kundera, as always, does wonders with this one.
looooved it

One person found this helpful

animesh chattopdhyay

Love in modern world

Reviewed in India on December 10, 2013

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Love is one of the most difficult subject to be handled by any writer.It is being overused for the last 3000 years. Kundera excellent and superb to give it new angle.

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