Lavinia reviewed Immortality by Milan Kundera
Review of 'Immortality' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
Milan Kundera is one of the best novelists I have ever read. One of the most challenging too. I admire his great intellect, his use of language, his extraordinary ability to delve into the labyrinth of human behaviours.
Immortality is the last of a trilogy that includes The Book Of Laughter And Forgetting, and The Unbearable Lightness Of Being. As the two previous, Immortality is a great book, complex and intelligent, rich and mesmerizing.
Death and immortality “form an inseparable pair,” writes Kundera and both, are actively present in the novel. For a writer, is the idea of achieving fame, hence immortality, the ultimate goal in writing books? One of the most interesting parts of the book is the meeting between Goethe and Hemingway in the heaven, debating whether themselves of their books are what has brought them fame.
Despite the preoccupation with death, Immortality is not a sad novel. …
Milan Kundera is one of the best novelists I have ever read. One of the most challenging too. I admire his great intellect, his use of language, his extraordinary ability to delve into the labyrinth of human behaviours.
Immortality is the last of a trilogy that includes The Book Of Laughter And Forgetting, and The Unbearable Lightness Of Being. As the two previous, Immortality is a great book, complex and intelligent, rich and mesmerizing.
Death and immortality “form an inseparable pair,” writes Kundera and both, are actively present in the novel. For a writer, is the idea of achieving fame, hence immortality, the ultimate goal in writing books? One of the most interesting parts of the book is the meeting between Goethe and Hemingway in the heaven, debating whether themselves of their books are what has brought them fame.
Despite the preoccupation with death, Immortality is not a sad novel. In a way, it is also a political novel. By introducing the concept of ‘imagology’ Milan Kundera, explores the post-modern world of globalisation, greed and speed-worship, where clarity and truth have been replaced by sensational images and sound-bites, simplifying and distorting political discourse.
Read the full review at Athena reads
