In this novel
- a story of irreconcilable loves & infidelities
- Milan Kundera addresses himself to the nature of twentieth-century ' Being' In a world in which lives are shaped by irrevocable choices & by fortuitous events a world in which everything occurs but once existence seems to lose its substance its weight We feel says the novelist 'the unbearable lightness of being'
- not only as the consequence of our private acts but also in the public sphere & the two inevitably intertwine Juxtaposing Prague Geneva Thailand & the United States this masterly novel encompasses the extremes of comedy & tragedy & embraces it seems all aspects of human existence It offers a wide range of brilliant & amusing philosophical speculations & it descants on a variety of styles In this classic novel Kundera draws together the Czechoslovakia of the Prague Spring & the Russian invasion the philosophy of Nietzsche & the love affairs of a number of heartbreakingly familiar characters