Customer Reviews

Immortality

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

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 gold bar.

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. It desereves four and a half. I think I hold Kundera to a higher standard - he has such talent; he could use it better.

First introduced to Milan Kundera many years ago when seeing the film "The Unberable Lightness of Being," I was struck by the author's powers of perception. Of course I wanted to know if this was something the movie director had done, or if it was the doing of a brilliant author. I found the latter. Still, wondering if this powerful perception had been just a fluke, I travelled on to Kundera's other books. None disappointed. "Immortality" is for me, one of the authors best efforts, right up there with "The Unbearable." I've only ever come across one other author that so connects with his audience the way Kundera does, and that is Jackson McCrae, particularly in his novel, The Bark of the Dogwood. Other than that, Kundera stands alone. "Immortality" is a remarkable read, full of insight and warmth, perhaps not with the same "drive" as "Unbearable Lightness" but with all the craftsmanship and heart. I highly recommend this wonderful tale.

im sixteen yrs old, and though i know many adults who read this book and disliked it greatly, I found it very interesting. Most people would consider me a person who isn't fond of reading many books, but this one I particularly liked. It touches many ideas that gets you thinking. It most definetley gives you different perspectives at things. Probably my favorite book!

Like other Milan Kundera novels, Immortality is no straightforward reading... Filled with insights and thought-provoking ideas, kundera yet again uses the vehicle of the novel to reveal the musings of a sad, erudite philosopher...
I never knew i could learn that much about myself from reading a novel... GQ's Nicholas Lezard says that "it will make you cleverer, maybe even a better lover", very true... Sometimes however, it can be overly scholarly, and assumes the reader is classics-savvy... Still, immortality taught me that i'm an "homosentimentalis" with a "hypertrophied" soul... to my surprise, these two hardly understandable words taught me a lot about myself and about why i have such a troubled and restless soul..not all novels do that to me

The chief pleasure of reading Kundera comes from the music of his writing (in this case, translated by Peter Kussi). His sentences are like melodies and, like Nabokov, it is easy to simply get carried along by their flow. He does not write "novels" in the classic sense - he writes "pieces" which have just as much to do with philosophy as creative writing. The journey is all about little insights, philosophical ideas, and musings on history.

I must warn the newcomer, however - this is NOT a straightforward novel. This is a classic example of "metafiction" - that is, writing about writing. The book begins with Kundera seeing a woman's wave which inspires him to write a story. Immortality is that story, PLUS Kundera's writing that story, PLUS random digressions about Goethe and Rubens. I have to impress upon the reader that THERE IS NO PLOT in this book. That is Kundera's point, and yet the absence of a plot does not encourage the reader to keep going back to it (as it is not headed anywhere).

If you are looking for a book that is out of the ordinary, with very poetic philosophical digressions, than this is the novel for you.

Okay, So I'm about halfway through this book and though it is very, very good, I don't think it is as good as Unbearable Lightness, so I can't give it five stars.

The writing style is, of course, uniquely Kundera. It is high brow, yet matter of fact, and full of sardonic wit. This seems to be a philosophical dissertation, in which he identifies beliefs and philosophies while relating his story.

The story itself deals with Agnes, an elderly woman that is in fact a product of Kundera's (who is also a character) mind. She is born of a gesture that Kundera observed at a health club. She is actually the embodiment of immortality in this respect. In an imagined conversation between Goethe and Hemingway, Kundera hammers out immortality in the physical sense, or the legacy that we leave behind when we pass on. In creating Agnes as a character, she is an immortal legacy of a gesture. Since there are so many faces and so few gestures, one that can make a gesture that is commonplace seem original is desrving of immortality. At least this is the impression that I have at this point in the novel.

I'd suggest this for people already familiar with Kundera. I don't really think that its a good novel if you're just getting familiar with him. Otherwise, I've enjoyed it immensely.

I typically wish to write reviews of some profundity. here i will just gush my feelings. never in a long long time have i enjoyed every single page in a book. never in a long long time did the last page of a book made me sad this experience is over. this book had to be read to be believed. thank you Milan Kundera. oh, did you gain a fan.

In this amazing book, Kundera reveals the human condition of his characters and the forms it can take. It makes you see all humanity in a different way and while Kundera, himself, steps on stage he challenges the reader and his emotions. But more than anything it is a novel about Agnes, the main character; even when Agnes is off stage it is a novel for her. What Kundera says in the first two pages will stay with you forever and will mark the tone of voice the novel will have: it will be philosophical, historical, ironic and tragic. Throughout the book, he will combine the sense of loss, of memory, of forgetting, of immortality, and of love. If you like books that challenge your intellect, your emotions and the way you see the world, then this book will not disappoint you and will definitely change the way you see life and yourself.

This book not only touches on some of the purest philosophical issues, but is playfully written in classic Kundera style. I truly enjoyed reading it; while I usually read quickly, I took my time and absorbed not only the words but the bigger picture Kundera was trying to depict. The historical figures of Beethoven and Goethe flow seamlessly with original characters and take you inside their minds, not just outside watching their actions. The priorities of life or death vie for superiority as Kundera addresses not only the how of relationships and success, but the why. I'd definately recommend Immortality to anyone who has ever thought about where their life is going and how people will remember them once they die. (and if you haven't done that, you should!)

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.