Immortality

Milan Kundera

Rating 4/5

I have hardly ever related this much to a book. And by that, I do not mean the storyline. The plot is, oddly, a very secondary aspect of this book. More importantly, through the thoughts and actions of the characters, the reader gets an insight into the machinations of the mind of Milan Kundera. The author brings out novel aspects of how one can look at love. And what it could mean to different people.

Through the vagaries of the life of the characters (real folk like Goethe, his amorous interests, and even the likes of Hemingway), the book paints a very vivid picture of the human mind — right from its most inane activities to its deepest and darkest desires.

One of the most fascinating elements in the book are the situations in which the characters actually talk about being part of a book, and how the author is manipulating them to act in a certain way.

This is not your train journey read. It does not have a happy ending. Rather, it has no ending or closure at all really. But it’s a remarkable journey in itself where the beauty lies not in the whole but in some of the brilliant nuggets it holds in its pages.