Rating: 
Summary: Life- Changing! Read it young!
Review: This book totally blew my mind when I first read it, maybe more than any other book since. Kundera has a way of looking at the world that is totally unique and pretty enlightening, and although I didn't understand everything he said at the time, I feel like his sharing that view with readers is an incredible gift. None of his other books grasp it quite as completely (although several other people I've talked to also say that the first one of his they read was the best, whatever it was). Read it, read it young, and let its ideas float around in your mind forever- you'll be a more complex thinker, I guarantee it. (I'm not sure how much my guarantee means to you, but it means a lot to me)
Rating:
Summary: Power, freedom and forgetting.
Review: In his at first sight 'light-hearted' style, Milan Kundera tackles profound questions. In this book: why want people to forget the past? Why do people forget the past? Why want and try people that other people forget the(ir) past? His answer: to control the future. And why do people want to control the future: to rewrite the past.
For the struggle of mankind against the powerful is the struggle of the mind against forgetting.The political/social and/or religious powerful are obsessed by the political or moral past. Christianity is obsessed by the sexual past (paradisiac sexuality) of mankind. In the countries of Eastern Europe, politicians are obsessed by their collaborationist past. If they can't rewrite the past, they have no future. This book is brilliantly composed along those themes. As Milan Kundera himself states: as 'Variations on a Theme' by Beethoven: every part with different characters, situations, surroundings ... A masterpiece.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant
Review: Brilliant in its conception and execution, like McCrae's Bark of the Dogwood or perhaps Kundera's other book, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, The Book of Laughter is a tour-de-force of virtuosity. The humor is wonderful in this book and Kundera's masterful way of telling a story is unsurpassed. I originally became aquainted with the author years ago when first introduced to the Unberable Lightness (the movie version) and have since become "hooked." This is great writing and should not be missed.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful philosophical - historical - sexual meditation
Review: Like Rushdie's Satanic Verses, this book is largely about angels and devils, or good and evil. The setting is (mostly) Prague around 1970, and the basic political themes -- Czech and Russian Communists and their adversaries -- are used as a foundation for the more ethereal, philosophical themes, such as the nature of humor, the nature of history, and the differences between the genders. Kundera's frequent personal anecdotes told in the midst of the novel can be quite disconcerting -- and there's a parody of this book floating around the web that makes light of Kundera's self-indulgent practice of using his books as personal therapy sessions. But the anecdotes are still interesting, and since Prague around 1970 is such a big part of Kundera's own mental and cultural ethos, well, why not? Anyone who is familiar with the dark, fatalistic jokes whispered in Communist Eastern Europe in the Olden Days will enjoy the steady stream of such humor in this novel. Kundera is a masterful joketeller. There is also a lot of bawdy sexual humor, fairly standard, but that is not nearly as interesting as the joke about the man vomiting in Prague's central square (I don't want to spoil the joke here, so you'll just have to read it in the book). Kundera's attitudes toward women are for the most part repugnant -- but that's Kundera for ya. The contemporary American reader will wince when Kundera describes the beauty of rape, etc. This is just fair warning that some of the attitudes in this book may make you angry, as they made me angry; but we can't change Kundera. At least, unlike the other Kundera I've read, this novel is only partly -- not entirely -- about sex and seduction. Overall, this is a combination of a brilliant reflection on history and philosophy, a warm-hearted story about dissidents in Prague, and some amusing autobiographical notes on Kundera. I found it more satisfying than Unbearable Lightness of Being, and can compare it (but only distantly) to the novels of Gunter Grass, which also discuss major political-historical events and the burden of a historical conscience, but focusing on the characters' personal lives, not hitting the reader over the head with grand historico-political lessons.
Rating: 
Summary: Let this grand storyteller carry you
Review: This book is the first by Milan Kundera I have read. It was loaned to me by a friend after I expressed my interest in reading The Unbearable Lightness of Being, to which I was drawn simply by its title. She handed Laughter and Forgetting to me, saying off-handedly that it wasn't that great. Slightly disappointed, I kept it on a shelf. One morning, I woke up later than usual and as the sun shone through my window. It was one of those nothing-to-do sunny days, but too cold to leave home. I perused the titles on my shelves and because nothing else grabbed my attention, I opened Laughter and Forgetting and let my eyes half-wittingly latch onto the trails of words as Kundera unleashes his multi-faceted "novel". Admittedly, despite my resistance (because of the loaner's negative remark), I inhaled the first part. The feeling I acquired was one of enchantment, and marvel. My eyes wandered to the window, to where to late morning sun warmed the snowy landscape. I took a deep breath and returned to the book. By the end of the second part, I was not merely hopelessly hooked on the book, but as well, an ardent devotee of Kundera. The novel's artful and philosophical prose meanders through a flurry of 1970's contemporary ideas including democracy, fear, sexual roles, and are intertwined by Kundera's poetical portrayal of memory in the varying degrees of propoganda through personal interpretation of past experiences. Additionally, as the title suggests, laughter plays a part, suggested by the author first as the devilish opposition of order, and as the natural feminine influence.
Kundera recognizes his themes contained in the vignettes that makeup the novel, and exploits them by assimilating them into a single body of work. I've heard some people say about the book that they felt they didn't pay close enough attention, and that they couldn't tightly tie the fragments of this novel, but I disagree. Yes, Kundera attempts to distort the linear art of prose into the multi-dimension of the mind. The novel sometimes creates a feeling of deja-vu, sometimes a more obvious trick than others. This is skill of Kundera's that he might have mastered in his later work, Immortality. But here it is experimental and ambitious, albeit a confident delivery... it's a pleasant and stimulating discourse. So my advice is, get this book and relax ...let this grand storyteller carry you.
Rating:
Summary: WOW
Review: This novel is easily worthy of more than 5 stars. It is the most unique and intellectually stimulating book I have encountered in all my history of reading. The way Kundera weaves so many seperate stories, anecdotes and historical facts along with some pretty heavy philosophical theory into the novel to make his views come alive is amazing. The section Litost (about the poets) was mesmerizing. This book has changed my view on life, love, laughter and history.
Rating:
Summary: Delightful, just delightful
Review: I loved this book! His philosphy on laughter is absolutely novel! What a nice surprise. Very few books make me laugh out loud, but this was one of them.
Rating:
Summary: Milan Kundera's Brilliant Literary Debut
Review: "The Book Of Laughter and Forgetting" was Kundera's phenomenal literary debut, earning considerable praise from Western literary critics when it was first published. It is a fascinating look at memory, sexuality and personal relationships as told through a series of seven distinct vignettes, each with a separate cast of characters (though two are directly interwoven.). His splendid, terse, yet lyrical, prose seemingly weaves these different sections into a coherent work of fiction. Part memoir, part political tract, and as well as fiction, Kundera looks at the human condition as seen through predominantly Czech eyes during the bleak aftermath of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, yet his themes remain universal and of interest to all.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful and insightful experimental novel
Review: In The Angels, the third part of The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, Milan Kundera criss-crosses the tale of two American girls attempting to impress their teacher by putting a spin on a class presentation with an account of his brief career as an astrologist during his last days in his homeland of Czechoslovakia, two anecdotes that have no relevance to one another, or do they? The goal of this lucid, experimental novel (described as "a meditation on existence as seen through the medium of imaginary characters") seems to be identifying the hidden coincidences and thematic unities of life itself. To accomplish this task, Mr. Kundera has disregarded the traditional definition of the novel and has composed a narrative that is unified in spirit and themes, rather than in time and place. A new cast of characters is drawn-up for each of the seven parts (with only one who populates two sections) but the same subject matter (laughter, understanding, remembrance, forgetting, spiritual and emotional transcendence) unifies the opus. Meanwhile small dashes of historical anecdotes, personal accounts and philosophical musings are added to further explore the themes. The resulting work is absolutely unique, wholly engaging and remarkably insightful.
Rating:
Summary: A Truly Great Book
Review: This work by Franco-Czech writer (not a combination one sees everyday) is best if read quickly before or after his other great work, The Unbearable Lightness of Being. All of Kundera's works take a post-modern approach to the novel's themes and style, liberally sprinkling philosophical and metaphysical questions throughout the text; this one is no exception. It's constant and enduring image is that of the Circle Dance, as shown on the cover, and its power to allow the human spirit to rise into the clouds. The classical opinion of what a novel should be must be abandoned, or at least silenced, in order to thoroughly enjoy this work, but it makes any trouble well worth it. HIghest recommendation.
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