Identity audiobook

To these questions he has no answer.Milan Kundera is a philosopher in the garb of novelist; but a philosopher of life lived, dreamed and yearned for; a philosopher who will not deal in abstract metaphysics and grand scheme of ideas that, in the last analysis and against the banality of the real world, bears little of its weight on who we are, what we do, and mostly importantly, why we do it.Through the story of an odd people, Jean-Marc and Chantal, who get together as a result of more oddness in their previous lives, Kundera explores the chemistry of a modern-day relationship with an acute eye over the dimensionless mass of contradictions and conflicts of the social and the personal that, in our day and age, drives people into the abyss of dissatisfaction and ennui without there being a hope for salvation, of a freeing revelation. Perhaps an abyss made by our own hands, because Jean-Marc one day decides to write anonymous love letters to his partner Chantal to see how would she respond to the anonymity of a rude intrusion into their love life.Because the gaze of love is a gaze that isolates.The consequences were catastrophic. Despite the full knowledge and clear understanding of where they're heading, basic human emotions of love, revenge, jealousy, sadness, suspicion, disbelief- all get together to play their part in a Shakespearean pantomime of Kafkaesque proportions about which even Nietzsche wouldn't have much to say except put his arms around the neck of a horse and cry in utter despair.It's a difficult book to paraphrase - something I have felt with most novels of his that I have read. And I do think it futile to give a synopsis of the plot and a sketch of its principal protagonists, for talking about this novel in any other way would amount to reducing it down to the unreliability of a reader's perception when there's so much in there to see, to perceive, to muse and deliberate over; and so I'd end this short review with a recommendation: please read it. The word 'life' is a king of words. The King-word surrounded by other grand words. The word 'adventure'! The word 'future'! And the word 'hope'! By the way, do you know the code name for the atom bomb they dropped on Hiroshima? 'Little Boy'! That's a genius, the fellow who invented that code! They couldn't have dreamed up a better name. Little boy, kid, tyke, tot - there's no word that's more tender, more touching, more loaded with future." June '16.

Whenever I'm at a loss for what to read next and don't want to take any risks, I reread either Vonnegut, Murakami, or Kundera. I've probably read this book five times, but I love him so I don't care. ***You know, maybe it's that old problem of how sometimes with really distinctive authors, all their works sort of blur together retroactively, but wow. Only the first like twenty pages seemed familiar to me, even though I am sure I've read this several times before. The whole last third, where everything gets all dreamy weird and cerebral and symbolic -- you know, during the (view spoiler)[ orgy (!) (hide spoiler)]-- that shit was insane and I didn't remember it at all. It's heady without being obtuse, advances really interesting concepts in the guise of thinly drawn characters, has an overlay of sadness even when things are fine. It's a perfect book to read and re-read, and I'm sure I'll go back to it again in a year or so.