The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera

From anyone who's read this book, I've only heard praises. But I suppose I must have started out in too Vonnegut a mood to truly appreciate its value. Words I can think of to describe the story include: intelligent, dramatic, daring. While it was realistic and plausible I found very little to relate to as the reader. None of the characters showed true honesty, or simplicity, or were generally relatable to me. Even though as the reader you witness incredibly intimate moments and thoughts of the characters, there was still a vast separation between character and audience. I don't think of myself particularly as a prude of any sort, but I just couldn't find any one value to hook myself to a character with so that I could understand the point of the story better. Hardly a shred of decency was available to find, but at every corner there were graphic sex scenes or descriptions all too personal. I can appreciate graphic levels of story from time to time; they can add a sense of intimacy. But good lord, at a certain point you just begin to wonder if he's showing off all of the dirty situations he can come up with. They're sexual beings, I get it.

I also didn't like that in the beginning middle of the book there was a huge tangeant on the life of Sabina with Franz. The main characters are Thomas and Thereza, with Sabina being a frequent mistress to Thomas. However, I didn't want to go so in depth into her story right in the middle of that of Thomas and Thereza. It was slow, and why did I need to know about Franz in the first place? Or even that much about Sabina? It seemed to me a distracting additional story flourish.

Sometimes a story about people from a foreign place in a foreign life can be romantic and captivating, or strange and interesting. Mostly I just felt disgusted and continuously distanced by their neverending promiscuity and avoidance of truth. The overarching list of events seemed to be as follows: they're miserable, they have sex, they're happy, they have sex, they're confused, they're searching, they're wandering, they have sex, they do things they can't explain, they have sex, they have bad dreams, they have sex, they deal with their lives, they have sex, and so on.

Maybe there's something about it that other people have picked up on and I didn't. Maybe I just didn't understand the point of it all. It pretty much just made me feel like I needed a shower. Or, better yet, it made me want to move on to another book quickly so I can have this one out of mind! Onto the next!