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Bypassing the question of whether you can ever go home again, Milan Kundera's Ignorance tackles instead what happens when you actually get there. Ignorance is the story of two Czechs who meet by chance while traveling back to their homeland after 20 years in exile. Irena, who fled the country in 1968 with her now-deceased husband Martin, returns to Prague only to find coldness and indifference on the part of her former friends. Josef, who emigrated after the Russian invasion, is back in Prague to fulfill a wish of his beloved late wife. As fate would have it, the two have met before in their former lives, and the before-skirted passionate encounter is now destined to transpire. However, as in the story of Odysseus, which this novel so deliberately parallels, every homecoming brings with it a conflicting set of emotions so powerful that one has to question whether the voyage is really worth the pain. Expertly tackling the philosophical and emotional themes of nostalgia, memory, love, loss, and endurance, Kundera continues to astound readers with his masterful ability to understand and articulate issues so central to the human condition. --Gisele Toueg
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
"Would an Odyssey even be conceivable today? Is the epic of return pertinent to our own time? When Odysseus woke on Ithaca's shore that morning, could he have listened in ecstasy to the music of the Great Return if the old olive trees had been felled and he recognized nothing around him?" Kundera (The Unbearable Lightness of Being) continues to perfect his amalgam of Nietzschean aphorism and erotic tale-telling in this story of disappointing homecomings. The time is 1989 and the Communists have fallen in Prague. In the Paris airport, Irena, a Czech emigre, recognizes an ex-compatriot, Josef. More than 20 years ago, Josef almost seduced Irena in a Prague bar; the two chat and agree to meet again in Prague. Each is returning for a different reason. Irena, in 1968, fled the country with Martin, her husband, to escape the political pressure he was under. Martin is long dead, their children are grown and Irena is now being pressured to return to Prague by her Swedish lover, Gustaf, who has set up an office in the city. Josef, a veterinarian, also left the country after the Russian invasion, out of disgust. He is returning to the Czech Republic to fulfill a request from his recently deceased wife. Both discover new and annoying aspects of Prague (such as Kafka T-shirts) as well as old bitterness. When they meet, Josef neglects to tell Irena one fact: he doesn't really remember her. With elegant detachment and measured passion, Kundera once again shows himself the master of both the erudite and the carnal in this Mozartian interlude.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
"What are you still doing here?" Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
"What are you still doing here?" Read the first page
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Concordance
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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Return of the exile,,
By Dr Martin Price (Dinas Powys, Vale of Glamorgan United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Ignorance: A Novel (Paperback)
I had forgotten how good Kundera is. I read his early novels years ago and loved them, but I somehow forgot what a master he is. This book speaks to all exiles, and I mean by that all who have moved away from their roots to somewhere else for whatever reason. Those who stay behind have less and less in common with the person who returns. I can feel resonances despite living only sixty miles from where I grew up. He is particularly good on the selectivity of memory. Did I leave because I wanted to escape or because of some other reason I now mis-remember ?
3.0 out of 5 stars
The Joke,
By A Customer
This review is from: Ignorance (Hardcover)
Ignorance is well crafted much like Unbearable Ligthness of Being. However I still recommend everyone to pick up The Joke, one of Kundera's earlier and controversial works.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Intelligent and unique but probably not for a wide audience,
By A Customer
This review is from: Ignorance (Hardcover)
I read this book at the recommendation of my father, who immigrated to the U.S. from Hungary in the 1960s. He told me that it expressed what he felt when he paid his old home a visit a few years ago. I appreciated the author's words regarding the returning Czech immigrants in the book. They return home to a country that is much changed from what they remember. At least one of them realizes that he's been missing a country that no longer exists. Even his native language has come to sound strange to his ears. The reactions of other people in the book were interesting too - no one in the home country asks their returning friends or relatives about their lives in their adopted countries. I remember that same kind of strange silence when I visited Hungary with my family. The author's words ring extremely true. This isn't the type of book I normally read and I appreciated learning from the author's point of view. I had trouble distinguishing between his characters, though. They are not fleshed out, and the plot is slight. It's a book more about the feelings and observations of an emigrant/immigrant. That's very valuable, but I suspect the audience for the work is small. I definitely recommend the book.
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