The Unbearable Lightness of Being, by Milan Kundera

There are novels that are tragic or entertaining, and this one is both. There are very few that give a fresh perspective on existence, and force the reader to reassess his own life and attitudes. (Victoria Glendinning in The Sunday Times)

 Kitsch causes two tears to flow in quick succession. The first tear says: How nice to see children running on the grass! The second tear says: How nice to be moved, together with all mankind, by children running on the grass! It is the second tear that makes kitsch kitsch. The brotherhood of man on earth will be possible only on a basis of kitsch. (Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, translated by Michael Henry Heim)

My thoughts (roughly scribbled on a piece of paper):

The overriding impression of this book is: how not to write a novel, let alone a philosophical one. It deserves comparison with Harry Mulisch’s The Discovery of Heaven. Both are pretentious, only Mulisch is crassly so; yet Kundera is perhaps less readable, since the pretentiousness saturates every page. In Mulisch, there are particularly ‘bad’ sections, such as the angels in particular, and the end, but the rest of the novel is to an extent free, though not completely, of authorial rubbish. At times the story actually gets caught up in itself and tells itself for a while before the author reasserts his schema. In Kundera, on the other hand, the author is present on every page, analysing, interpreting and directing the events. In Mulisch, the author interprets; in Kundera, the author obscures. In Kundera it seems the story is written inside out: normally one reads the story on the surface and then reads between the lines for the symbolism, meaning or sentiment; here the symbolism, meaning and sentiment are the surface and one has to read between the lines to find the story. It is relatively rare that the story (as such) actually comes to the surface; I was always reading the book thinking how good the film would be (if it was made like Three Colours Blue, it could be excellent; if Three Colours Blue were written as a novel in the manner of the Kundera book, it would be terrible.)

The Unbearable Lightness of Being is a philosophical novel for the unphilosophical, for the unliterary even. The two points coincide: it is written for the person who does not know how to read between the lines, and can only read what is presented to them on the surface, as if on a plate. It is in the worst sense of the word a best-seller: written in a best-seller-style for the person who cannot read a good book but wants to feel that they have read something deeper than Jackie Collins or John Grisham. They can feel they have read something demanding, flatter themselves that they have read some ‘literature’. But literature it is not, any more than Grisham or Collins. It is all surface, both in the sense of style and of content: surface philosophy, surface intellectualism, surface literature. It is thus popularism in its basest form; or kitsch by its own definition (Part 6, Chapter 8), which we can adapt as follows:

1. What a profound thought!
2. How nice it is to be able to have profound thoughts!

It is written for someone unable to access 1. at all. Kundera's philosophy may be more substantial than Mulisch's but it is still spurious. I should read Rorty to find out why he thinks Kundera so great; but it all seems decidedly second hand to me. It is far from equal to, say, Karel Čapek's Three Novels or Thomas Mann's Death In Venice for its development of a philosophical theme. Not, again, to deny that there is a story in there, but the story is not merely tainted (as in Mulisch) but actually thwarted by the inside-out everything-on-a-platter style.

A stylistically perverse, superficial piece of best-sellerism.

Death in Venice and Other Stories, by Thomas Mann

My thoughts (hastily scribbled on a postcard):

Truly amazing. The early stories seem like sketches for longer works: Little Herr Friedermann or The Joker could be novels the length of Buddenbrooks, and it is the remaining stories which I find most successful. I read Tristan and Death in Venice twice because they warrant it. Immaculate, brilliant stories, the leitmotiv structure adds such depth. In both, perhaps, art is destruction: in Spinell it is the destruction of another, and in Aschenbach it is the destruction of himself. I am hardly able to begin to describe - especially on a postcard - the profoundly moving effect of these two stories. (Is there a parallel between Death in Venice and Heart of Darkness?)

The Secret History, by Donna Tartt

Excellent… Donna Tartt has discovered not the usual collegiate mix of sex, drugs and rock and roll, but a heart of darkness as stony and chilling as any Greek tragedian ever plumbed… she keeps the pace fast and the tension taut… a thinking person’s thriller. (Newsday)

My thoughts (hastily scribbled on a postcard):

Perhaps more than a murder story and less than a novel. Certainly, all the Greek allusions are interesting - but mostly to someone who already knows them. James (my brother), I think, likes it because it contains so many of his hopes and fears, set against a college background with which he’s more or less familiar. But for my part, the first section of the book is too short, the second too long. What takes place in the second is really only a deepening of the characterisation, which had it occurred in the first section would have made the climax more startling. I should talk to James about it, I think.

The Discovery of Heaven, by Harry Mulisch

He can write and he can make scholarship exciting. Unless you’re exceptionally cultivated you’ll learn a lot from this novel… the final chapters are sparkling and irresistible. (Tibor Fischer in The Times)

 This masterly synthesis of idea and story makes complex concepts perfectly comprehensible and dramatic. Mulisch's bid for a masterpiece works commandingly on every level. Could be one of the best novels of the last twenty years. (Kirkus Reviews)

 Exhilarating, magnificent and dangerous. (The Times Literary Supplement)

My thoughts (roughly scribbled on a piece of paper):

What a load of tosh! This is being written on a bad day, but the last two weeks weren’t bad days, so it doesn't colour the view much. “The final chapters are sparkling and irresistible.” Bollocks, more like. The last quarter is dreadful. Hasn't he seen Raiders Of The Lost Ark? (or rather: when did he....?) Seeking out the tablets, how crass. And then whisking Quinten off in a flash of light as he ascends to heaven - you’re joking, surely. The final chapters are ridiculous, tedious, and unconvincing. I didn’t care what happened at all, because I had given up by the end.

If the final chapters are simply appalling, the rest of the book is more difficult to define. A philosophical novel it is not. An exercise in name-dropping platitudes, perhaps. Unlike Nicholas Mosley’s Hopeful Monsters, there is no insight into the way that ideas might affect a person’s life. The ideas - names - are there for a reader in the know to nod their head at, but little more. And as for ‘learning’ something from the book, nothing is treated in any depth or thought throughout - if you don’t know what is being referred to, you’re lost. The book is anything but ‘profound’ and only dangerous as a physical object.

So, its not philosophy, but is it literature? Perhaps. There is poignancy in the human relationships, there is tragedy, such as Ada’s coma, which has some excellent descriptions, and Max’s relationship with Sophia. There is, in the first three-quarters at least, some kind of novel in there. But the whole thing is cast within the framework of angels organising events, influencing people, even killing them, and the whole effect is that it is stripped of everything relating to emotion or poignancy. For a book which spends so much time talking about the absurdity of life and how that is in a sense meaningful, it is infuriating: the absurdity is only within the human world and it is perfectly meaningful from outside. Helga gets her throat cut, and dies trying to use a vandalised telephone box. But we know that she has only had her throat cut and that the telephone box has only been vandalised because angels decided that it should happen, which as a literary device is suicide. Every action, every thought has been implanted - so how is a reader supposed to sympathise? Answer: you don’t. All the characters, all the events are tainted by artificiality and contrivance, explicitly by the angels and implicitly by the author.

It isn’t just a pretentious novel, philosophically, but an abomination, since in literary terms it is an exercise in how not to write a novel. If you want to read a similar - but far superior - book, read Mosley; if you want to read a philosophical novel, read Stiller by Max Frisch; if you have to read this, skip the intermezzos etc. and the last quarter. But otherwise, don’t touch it with a barge-pole.

(The title, I suppose, is ironic: the book is ‘about’ the loss of heaven - we are deserted - and when Max discovered it, he was hit by a well-aimed meteor. And why have we been abandoned? Because of technology! Technology is evil and leads us away from religion, until we abandon God and He abandons us. Big Deal. Yawn)

Wayfarers, by Knut Hamsun

Not even Thomas Hardy could wring such tragedy from a handful of ordinary characters, closely observed in their rural surroundings. (Now!)

My thoughts (hastily scribbled on a postcard):

A good book. A bit Buddenbrooks, a bit of a drama, with a great amount of insight. The ‘wayfarers’ are threefold: Edevart and August, wandering around Norway; all those who head for America and the new world; and the whole advance towards progress. In the inevitability and then both the benefits and problems of progress, the book has a lot to say. But it isn’t Mysteries, which leaves you with an enigma still demanding to be solved. You’re left instead with a good, romantic story.

Group Portrait with Lady, by Heinrich Böll

A work of considerable distinction. (The Times Literary Supplement)

Leni (the central character) is seen through a series of interviews with witnesses who make up this huge ‘group portrait’. This works brilliantly as a parody of fashionable documentary; then by making the story resonant with overlapping echoes; and finally by counter-pointing these voices of the imagination with the terrible dead language of real documents of Nazi bureaucracy. (The Guardian)

My thoughts (hastily scribbled on a postcard):

As the review says, a work of considerable distinction, one that demands re-reading, if only because what is not said, more than most novels, is what is important. The Au. is perhaps the greatest literary creation, in the sense that the book is about the author’s fleshing out a character through research, etc., only finally confronting her face-to-face at the end. The style is perhaps at once its strength and weakness, and its ‘politics’ may be distracting - ‘another book about the war.’ But it isn't really about the war…

War with the Newts, by Karel Čapek

A great writer of the past who speaks to the present in a voice brilliant, clear, honourable, blackly funny and prophetic. (Kurt Vonnegut)

My thoughts (hastily scribbled on a postcard):

A fascinating tale, wittily and well told. One feels part of the new history being created, what with all the newspapers and so on. The satire is immaculate. A thoroughly good read.

The Land of Green Plums, by Herta Müller

A novel of graphically observed detail in which the author seeks to create a sort of poetry out of the spiritual and material ugliness of life in Communist Romania. (New York Book Review)

My thoughts (hastily scribbled on a postcard):

A good book. Beautifully orchestrated. It should be read again, I think, in order to appreciate its symbols… But what I find interesting is that in the end it seems so easy to emigrate, and the guards can do nothing about it. So why didn't they emigrate before? But that's part of the point, I suppose.

Children of Darkness and Light, by Nicholas Mosley

In Children of Darkness and Light, Mosley's fiction reaches a stunning, final maturity that raises the game of the novel itself. (Independent on Sunday)

My thoughts (hastily scribbled on a postcard):

A strange book - one that demands a second reading. Perhaps it says too much, perhaps too little - the overall message seems much the same as Hopeful Monsters, only less developed. And more confusing - I’m not quite sure what happened in the end.

The Cement Garden, by Ian McEwan

A disturbing book, beautiful but bothersome, full of raw animal instinct and passion. (Boston Globe)

My thoughts (hastily scribbled on a postcard):

An enigmatic book. The author seems to stand back and take Wilde’s advice, that art should reflect the audience and not the artist… Does it pass judgements on the events within, such as incest? I don’t think so: one thing seems naturally to lead to another. But do we end up with the reasonableness of, say, incest, or the corruption of reason which leads to it seeming natural?

Or is it about me, who just can't make up his mind?

A Mind to Murder, by P.D. James

One reads a P.D. James novel in something like the same spirit that one reads a novel by Zola, Balzac, Thackeray or Dickens. (Christian Science Monitor)

My thoughts (hastily scribbled on a postcard):

Well quite. Not exactly the most stunning book I’ve ever read. Tedious, more like. The only redeeming feature is the twist at the end where the crime was simple, but the detective was being over-subtle. But a single redeeming feature does not a good book make. Too formulaic, too clichéd; what writer of any quality would think that a hero can be made three-dimensional just by having them write poetry? The book verges on being crass in the extreme in terms of characterisation, development, and so on. Or is she merely a post-modernist? Am I supposed to read the book ironically?

The Master And Margarita, by Mikhail Bulgakov

Bulgakov's most daring work. Its publication for the first time in Russia is part of a literary rebellion that is sweeping through soviet letters. (Time)

My thoughts (hastily scribbled on a postcard):

What can I say? A magical book. Will repay another reading in order to grasp more clearly the logic of Woland’s actions - if there is a logic.

Midnight’s Children, by Salman Rushdie

An extraordinary novel… one of the most important to come out of he English-speaking in this generation. (Robert Towers in The New York Review of Books)

My thoughts (hastily scribbled on a postcard):

A good book, definitely; it seems to try and find a place for man in society, regardless of whether magical or not, or whether you ‘believe or not.’ Its dilemmas. focused on children born in one hour in one country, and exaggerations of the universal. Comparisons with The Tin Drum are too obvious: the style is perhaps too similar, and is in a way a dissatisfying element. But perhaps it’s the first person's inability to even find a style for himself - always someone else’s. Perhaps he is truly mediocre.

Buddenbrooks, by Thomas Mann

A remarkable achievement… In Mr. Woods's sparkling new translation, the reader now encounters a work that is closer in style, vocabulary, idiom and tone to the original. (The New York Times Book Review)

My thoughts (hastily scribbled on a postcard):

A youthful masterpiece. Definitely a masterpiece; but I feel it has a youthful, undeveloped feel, too. Sesame, for instance, who only ever says, ‘You good child’ - leitmotif or 2D? But the fact that there is no single, monumental event that contributes to the decline of the family, but rather a myriad of failures, individualities and self-perceptions, all of which contribute to the somehow inevitable decline of the family, makes the story and its family engagingly 3D.

The History of Danish Dreams, by Peter Høeg

This witty family saga replete with love and folly is proof enough that this young Dane belongs to a great family of Scandinavian narrators. In exploring the past of a country whose ideas have sometimes veered towards the nightmarish, he reminds us that dreams my also stir the conscience. (Télérama)

My thoughts (hastily scribbled on a postcard):

Beautiful, elegant, thoughtful - even if there is a loss of momentum in the last pages. A fine example of attempting to understand history and oneself by writing (examining) it, no matter - in a sense - what you write.