Rating: 
Summary: Everyone Desires Immortality
Review: Immortality is a life changing book. It's true that some people find the book pretentious and meandering... but, in a way, that's representative of life, isn't it? Kundera writes this book in order to illustrate how we all desire immortality in one form or another and we each spend our entire lives suffering to get it. When I first read this book, I was struck by the humaness of Agnes and how her thoughts and feelings mirrored my own. It helped me bring my own struggle for immortality into focus and re-evaluate my goals in life. Immortality forces the reader to question him/herself. What am I suffering for? What do I desire? And, in the end, will it all have been worth it?
Rating: 
Summary: Amusing musings
Review: As much a conversation with the reader as a novel, Kundera obeys his own maxim "A novel should not be like a bicycle race but a feast of many courses": the plot meanders at a leisurely pace and explores ideas about the nature of immortality, human love and sexuality along the way, drawing in characters historical figures such as Goethe and Bettina, Hemingway and Dali. At the same time, the distinction between story and storyteller becomes blurred, the picture frame becoming part of the picture, as the writer enters his own story, meeting up with his characters in the final scene. One of Kundera's greatest skills is to show the internal landscape of his characters, the very colours of their souls, and in so economical a fashion. A puppet master showing the strings, Kundera creates his main character from a gesture, with casual sleight of hand, and the main events for his story from half heard extracts of radio programmes. There's plenty to chew over, even after finishing the book. My mind keeps coming back to the scene where Agnes imagines a stranger visiting her and asking her (in her husband's company) whether she wants to be together with him in her next incarnation in another world. The acid test for any love. She is faced with the dilemma of telling the truth and hurting Paul, or lying to save his feelings.Hmmm ... I wonder what what would my own answer be to the same question? There are also some wonderfully quotable lines in the book and I kept finding myself reaching for a piece of paper to write down some of the best. I loved:- "Our heads are full of dreams, but our behinds drag us down like an anchor". How true! Kundera is very good company and I enjoyed the book, but feel that "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" is by far the stronger novel.
Rating:
Summary: Original and thoughtful
Review: These days, it's hard to come across a book which is really innovative, since all sorts of experiments have been conducted in literature. This is one original work. It is a beautiful novel that the reader writes along with the author. It's kind of "interactive", just like some by Machado de Assis and Calvino, extremely different authors. Starting from the gesture of a mature woman, Kundera invents fictional characters who interact with other characters, supposedly real, as well as with the author himself. These characters are the excuse Kundera uses to conduct an acute reflection on our age and, in particular, on our cult of technology and image. Besides Agnes (the spirit) and Laura (the body), other memorable characters are Rubens, Agnes's ocasional lover who is sad and melancholic, and Prof. Avenarius, for whom the world is only an object for diversion. This novel transforms all aspects of the modern world into metaphysical issues, and its form is polyphonic: the story is alternated with that of Goethe and Bettina Brentano, which serves to explain and reinforce some reflections by Kundera. There's also a digression about the emergence of "homo sentimentalis" in Europe, as well as a witty dialogue between the spirits of Goethe and Hemingway (interesting, isn't it?). The novel is extremely inspiring, it's beautiful in spite of some paternal and lecturizing passages.
Rating:
Summary: Tour de Force
Review: Who of us does not, at least for moment, wonder what people will think about us when we are gone. What kind of a legacy we leave behind seems to be important to some people.... apparently it is to Kundera. For in his mind, Goethe seemed fixated by it. Whether is "big" immortality or "little" immortality the end is the same. Agnes, Laura, paul, Bernard, Goethe, Rolland, Eluard and Rilke. Beethoven and Bettina.... Bettina. Kundera takes us from the everyday to the historical. Did this all really happen.... Who really cares? The twist and turns as well as the one thing that Kundera does best - to take on one particular aspect of the human condition - in this case Immortality. One of his most complex novels, it follows "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" in its lyrical style and the voices and narratives. There are few writers like Kundera who can take us from the one scene to the next and yet it seems to flow, like it is common and should be happening. Is there a Nobel Prize waiting in the wings? There should be. Next to "The Unbearable Lightness of Being", "Immortality" is head and shoulders above the rest in terms of complexity and breadth. Miguel Llora
Rating:
Summary: a master at his very best
Review: Quite simply, this is Kundera's meatiest, most challenging novel -- the kind of book where you can read just two pages, and chew on it for a few days. Dobrou Chut!
Rating: 
Summary: the unbearable lightness of Kundera
Review: For a long time I had been somewhat interested in Kundera, had noticed his books displayed prominently at my favorite bookstores, had noted that he seemed to be a well-regarding author, albeit a little off-kilter. So I picked up "Immortality," which seemed by far to be the most interesting of his novels. I avoided "Unbearable Lightness" because I had heard that, much like the title, there was no substance to it. I sat down with Immortality the other night at 1:30 AM and read through the entire night. Enraptured? Perhaps, but only morbidly so. The opening was entrancing, but from there the book lost it. I read and read hoping it might redeem itself...to no avail. I finshed reading the book in about 18 hours, but only cuz I was dying to put it back on the shelf where mostly likely I will never touch it again. So many of the ideas could have worked well -- the structure, the subplots, the authors existence in his own novel, the idea that something was going to be revealed to the reader...but it never came together. In many ways it reminded me of the recent film "Magnolia." (And I love Magnolia, I think it's one of the best films to have been released in a long long time). Many plots, characters, ideas, interestingly told -- "Freeze. Look at this. Look at the characters. How they're standing. What they're doing. What they're saying. I'm about to tell you what this all means." This is how many parts of Kundera's novel are narrated. But it never coalesces. The author sets up something great, but the payoff never quite makes sense, and the overall aftertaste is of something contrived, shallow, pretentious, and ultimately a failure. .... An old english teacher of mine one said that Kundera was "topical and plot-driven." Not the best combination of words to describe a book about Immortality. I expected much more. Actually, I just expected something. [In this novel,] [t]here is no artistic form, no art to this novel. .... It is the worst book that I have read as far back as I can remember, since I have started "seriously reading". Who knows how much an Amazon review can affect you, but hopefully you'll save yourself some time by heeding this one. If you really have a love for literature and the ideas that a great author can discuss and are hoping for something enlightening to come out of this novel, then avoid it at all costs. If you like to sit at sleek, commercial coffeehouses drinking your reincarnation of tea, perhaps smoking a cigarette cuz it makes you look sexy, and reading the most recent, "cutting edge" books by New York Times Bestsellers and Oprah's Book Club, then you've found yourself a winner.
Rating:
Summary: The forefather to 'Being John Malcovich'
Review: (What I write about Immortality in this review is true, to a lesser degree, of all the Kundera I have read) I'm afraid to recommend this book with words. For one thing, I cannot do it justice. If I could, I'd be writing novels myself, not chintzy reviews on Amazon. I also fear that this book will only appeal to a small portion of the population and that for most of those in the residuum, I disserve them by encouraging them to read it when they simply will not enjoy it. Unfortunately, reaching only those who share the proper... outlook?... disposition?..., is a difficult task. This book is great in much the same way that Being John Malcovich was great. It's a challenging book, but it is playful. It is often tangential, but ultimately well constructed. If you were shocked at how truly outstanding Being John Malcovich, then I feel completely confident in recommending this book to you. If you weren't shocked, or you never saw the film, read another review.
Rating:
Summary: Kundera's best
Review: This review is for the new reader who is trying out Kundera. I am sure the other reviews must have, by now, given a pretty good idea of his subjects. My only advice to a Kundera-novice is - Dont let this be your first book to read. This is, in my opinion, the pinnacle of Kundera's work (or at least, his translations). It becomes a bit difficult to appreciate his other works once you have gone through "Immortality". Enjoy.
Rating:
Summary: A Postmodern Classic
Review: Sometimes the idea of writing a review for a novel seems a quite futile exercise. No amount of accurate insight or description on my behalf would do justice this work. This isn't a straightforward linear novel, but neither is it a random freeform journey into the outer hemisphere. What it is however is a frequently moving, often funny account of what the nature of life (and the afterlife) means to all of us. Answers to meaning of life won't be found here, just more questions, but presented to us in away that prompts the reader to rediscover epiphanies long since forgotten. Personally I would place 'Immortality' right up at the very top of 'Post-Modern Literature' in such exalted company as Paul Austers 'New York trilogy', Thomas Pynchons 'V' and Robert Coovers 'Geralds Party. Heady company, but deserved......
Rating:
Summary: Important Things Hidden From the Eyes
Review: In Immortality, Kundera creates characters with highly contrasting religious beliefs in immortality. Agnes and Laura are the most noticeable examples. The first religious reference is in regard to Agnes's relationship with her father. She is very close to him and so adopts his belief in a "Divine computer," interpreting it as a kind of deism in which traditional prayer becomes obsolete. Kundera's creation of "the Creator's Divine computer" is a masterful juxtaposition of the tangible and the intangible, joined together to create a new, ambiguous meaning. Although the mechanization of life by a deity is not a new idea, in Kundera's hands it takes on a more modern and original meaning as he describes life as a program in which specific events happen according to "a play of permutations and combinations." Human experiences are differentiated by the uniqueness of the face--the "serial number"--that determines one's fate. Kundera's notion of fate is intimately connected with another value he associates with modernity: imagology over ideology. The conception of fate and its implication of faith as dispensable to the self are running themes in Immortality. Kundera clearly perceives modern times, with its emphasis on the secular, as lacking in the more natural, abstract notions of God which characterized the past. Agnes's belief that "God's eye has been replaced by a camera," is key to the concept of imagology as well as Kundera's anti-religious stance on the world. Kundera, however, while longing for systems and mechanisms to explain the mystery of life, ultimately seems to find them unfulfilling. Agnes's struggle to escape life is symbolic of Kundera and "Everyman's" struggle to survive. Agnes is the prime example that totally rational views do not lead to inner peace. Laura, who lives by mystical means, is better able to survive than is Agnes. Upon meeting Paul for the first time she hears "an invisible someone saying to her, 'There is a man! A real man. The only man. No other exists.'" This passage ties into Kundera's conception of fate. For Laura, this fate is determined by some mysterious, foreboding power. Kundera later affirms his belief in fate in the resolution of Laura's story. Interestingly, Laura is more connected with her body than with her soul. She, like her historical counterpart, Bettina, strives to attain immortality. Kundera clearly identifies "immortality" as independent of the religious ideas of an "immortal soul." Instead, it is a "different, quite earthly immortality of those who after their death remain in the memory of posterity." This kind of immortality serves as a distraction from death, giving humans the illusion that they can control something not only in their lives, but beyond it. Bettina's desire for immortality in intimately tied with history as it is "an incarnation of God." Kundera assigns her mystical qualities and gestures in her quest to "enter into direct, personal contact," with this God. He describes her feelings for Goethe as being "planted in her heart" by "somebody above both Goethe and herself; if not God, then at least one of those angels...a divine hand." The veneration of the soul is an enduring Kunderian motif. In the rational systems he creates throughout this novel, he seems to be fighting emotions with reason and logic. The battle between Laura and Brigitte (an ardent adherent to logic, herself, as evidenced by her distaste for arbitrary German grammar) over music (Laura's emotional Mahler versus Brigitte's loud and soulless rock) symbolizes the age-old struggle between emotion and reason. To Kundera, music is "a pump for inflating the soul," capable of achieving "time out of time." Kundera openly acknowledges this human struggle through Goethe, when he tells Hemingway, "To be mortal is the most basic human experience, and yet man has never been able to accept it, grasp it, and behave accordingly." The inadequacy of logical systems to depict human life culminates in the chapter regarding Rubens. Having abandoned his former linear view of time in The Joke, Kundera now opts for a circular view represented by the "Dial of Life." The culminating phase in the systematic story of physical love of Rubens life, like the relationship between humans and immortality, is a "mystical period." It is during this mystical period that Rubens is most content and that his relationship with Agnes becomes an enduring one. This is, perhaps, Kundera's strongest hidden statement: Agnes, in opposing the arbitrary fate imposed on her, is unable to survive in the earthly world that Laura, her polar opposite, thrives in; yet, through her deeper contact with spirituality, she represents a much more enduring truth, the culmination of Kundera's mystical thread. Through the delicate craft of Immortality, Kundera has shown that "the really important things are those which are hidden from the eyes."
|
