Milan Kundera / The unbearable lightness of being
很早就想看这本书，但正如这本书名所述：生命中不可承受的轻。
年纪比较轻的时候，还真的没有办法消化。
因此，机缘巧合之下，同事借了这本书给我。（这里上载的图片并不是我所看的那个版本，是白色的。网上找不到图片）
花了一个星期慢慢看（因为太忙了），我还觉得如果我有全天的时间，我两天就可以杀光。但是，最近看书很情绪化。有时候，因为心情不佳，就不想再看这类“沉重”的文学类。
书是看完了，我的工作是还没有做完。所以懒惰地找了网上书评，贴在这里。我想他说的比我好。
From reading group guide
Tereza and Tomas, Tomas and Sabina, Sabina and Franz, Franz and Marie-Claude--four people, four relationships. Milan Kundera's masterful novel, The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984), tells the interlocking stories of these four relationships, with a primary focus on Tomas, a man torn between his love for Tereza, his wife, and his incorrigible "erotic adventures," particularly his long-time affair with the internationally noted painter, Sabina. The world of Kundera's novel is one in which lives are shaped by irrevocable choices and fortuitous events. It is a world in which, because everything occurs only once and then disappears into the past, existence seems to lose its substance and weight. Coping with both the consequences of their own actions and desires and the intruding demands of society and the state, Kundera's characters struggle to construct lives of individual value and lasting meaning.
A novel of ideas, a provocative look at the ways in which history impinges on individual lives, and a meditation on personal identity, The Unbearable Lightness of Being examines the imperfect possibilities of adult love and the ways in which free choice and necessity shape our lives. "What then shall we choose?" Kundera asks at the beginning of his novel. "Weight or lightness?" This international bestseller is his attempt to answer that question. And the answer is hinted at in the novel's final scene, in which Tomas and Tereza find themselves in a small country hotel after a rare evening of dancing. When Tomas turns on the light in their room, "a large nocturnal butterfly" rises from the bedside lamp and circles the room in which they are alone with their happiness and their sadness.
网页也加入了一些Thinking questions.
1. What kinds of being carry the attribute of lightness? How is the "lightness of being" of the novel's title presented? In what ways is it "unbearable"? What is the difference between "the sweet lightness of being" that Tomas enjoys in Zurich, after Tereza's return to Prague, and "the unbearable lightness of being"?
不分轻重。我们总是这样骂人。是轻好？还是重好？我还没有想清楚。
无事一身轻？身负重任？好像是重的评价比较好噢？所以，米兰昆德拉才会要解释为何“轻”也不一定好。
2. How does Nietzsche's myth of eternal return, with which Kundera opens his book, function in the novel? What does Kundera mean when he refers to "the profound moral perversity of a world that rests essentially on the nonexistence of return"? How does what he calls the unbearable burden of eternal return contrast with the "splendid lightness" of our daily lives?
我的英文不太好，有没有人要帮我解释一下。
3. How would you describe the three central relationships of the novel--Tereza and Tomas, Tomas and Sabina, Sabina and Franz? How do they embody Kundera's primary concerns and themes?
很复杂的关系。
我知道昆德拉的写作背景相当复杂。特别是政治那一块，我还未搞清楚。很多的意象，我可能都漏掉了。所以，我实在没有能力说明。
4. In what ways does Kundera explore what he calls "the irreconcilable duality of body and soul, that fundamental human experience." In what ways does he show this duality to be fundamental?
放弃。
5. Both Tereza and Tomas repeatedly think of the series of fortuitous events that brought them together. What is the rule of fortuity, chance, and coincidence in their lives and the lives of others? What does Kundera mean when he writes, "Chance and chance alone has a message for us"?
什么？
6. In what ways may Sabina's description of her dual-level paintings--"On the surface, an intelligible lie; underneath, the unintelligible truth"--apply to every aspect of the characters' lives and relationships?
不知道。
7. What meanings and importance do each of the main characters ascribe to fidelity and betrayal? In what instances, for each character, do fidelity and betrayal have either positive or negative qualities?
？？？
8. Kundera insists that "the criminal regimes were made not by criminals but by enthusiasts convinced they had discovered the only road to paradise." What visions or versions of paradise are presented in the novel? By whom? How does each vision/version of paradise affect the lives of its enthusiasts and the lives of others?
最后决定。放弃。
看书就看书嘛，搞得那么沉重干嘛。
我现在知道，我真的不适合念English Literature.
年纪比较轻的时候，还真的没有办法消化。
因此，机缘巧合之下，同事借了这本书给我。（这里上载的图片并不是我所看的那个版本，是白色的。网上找不到图片）
花了一个星期慢慢看（因为太忙了），我还觉得如果我有全天的时间，我两天就可以杀光。但是，最近看书很情绪化。有时候，因为心情不佳，就不想再看这类“沉重”的文学类。
书是看完了，我的工作是还没有做完。所以懒惰地找了网上书评，贴在这里。我想他说的比我好。
From reading group guide
Tereza and Tomas, Tomas and Sabina, Sabina and Franz, Franz and Marie-Claude--four people, four relationships. Milan Kundera's masterful novel, The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984), tells the interlocking stories of these four relationships, with a primary focus on Tomas, a man torn between his love for Tereza, his wife, and his incorrigible "erotic adventures," particularly his long-time affair with the internationally noted painter, Sabina. The world of Kundera's novel is one in which lives are shaped by irrevocable choices and fortuitous events. It is a world in which, because everything occurs only once and then disappears into the past, existence seems to lose its substance and weight. Coping with both the consequences of their own actions and desires and the intruding demands of society and the state, Kundera's characters struggle to construct lives of individual value and lasting meaning.
A novel of ideas, a provocative look at the ways in which history impinges on individual lives, and a meditation on personal identity, The Unbearable Lightness of Being examines the imperfect possibilities of adult love and the ways in which free choice and necessity shape our lives. "What then shall we choose?" Kundera asks at the beginning of his novel. "Weight or lightness?" This international bestseller is his attempt to answer that question. And the answer is hinted at in the novel's final scene, in which Tomas and Tereza find themselves in a small country hotel after a rare evening of dancing. When Tomas turns on the light in their room, "a large nocturnal butterfly" rises from the bedside lamp and circles the room in which they are alone with their happiness and their sadness.
网页也加入了一些Thinking questions.
1. What kinds of being carry the attribute of lightness? How is the "lightness of being" of the novel's title presented? In what ways is it "unbearable"? What is the difference between "the sweet lightness of being" that Tomas enjoys in Zurich, after Tereza's return to Prague, and "the unbearable lightness of being"?
不分轻重。我们总是这样骂人。是轻好？还是重好？我还没有想清楚。
无事一身轻？身负重任？好像是重的评价比较好噢？所以，米兰昆德拉才会要解释为何“轻”也不一定好。
2. How does Nietzsche's myth of eternal return, with which Kundera opens his book, function in the novel? What does Kundera mean when he refers to "the profound moral perversity of a world that rests essentially on the nonexistence of return"? How does what he calls the unbearable burden of eternal return contrast with the "splendid lightness" of our daily lives?
我的英文不太好，有没有人要帮我解释一下。
3. How would you describe the three central relationships of the novel--Tereza and Tomas, Tomas and Sabina, Sabina and Franz? How do they embody Kundera's primary concerns and themes?
很复杂的关系。
我知道昆德拉的写作背景相当复杂。特别是政治那一块，我还未搞清楚。很多的意象，我可能都漏掉了。所以，我实在没有能力说明。
4. In what ways does Kundera explore what he calls "the irreconcilable duality of body and soul, that fundamental human experience." In what ways does he show this duality to be fundamental?
放弃。
5. Both Tereza and Tomas repeatedly think of the series of fortuitous events that brought them together. What is the rule of fortuity, chance, and coincidence in their lives and the lives of others? What does Kundera mean when he writes, "Chance and chance alone has a message for us"?
什么？
6. In what ways may Sabina's description of her dual-level paintings--"On the surface, an intelligible lie; underneath, the unintelligible truth"--apply to every aspect of the characters' lives and relationships?
不知道。
7. What meanings and importance do each of the main characters ascribe to fidelity and betrayal? In what instances, for each character, do fidelity and betrayal have either positive or negative qualities?
？？？
8. Kundera insists that "the criminal regimes were made not by criminals but by enthusiasts convinced they had discovered the only road to paradise." What visions or versions of paradise are presented in the novel? By whom? How does each vision/version of paradise affect the lives of its enthusiasts and the lives of others?
最后决定。放弃。
看书就看书嘛，搞得那么沉重干嘛。
我现在知道，我真的不适合念English Literature.
posted by J|nGLeZz at 12:21 PM
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