My Selection — Identity
Novel by Milan Kundera
This novel offers food for thought on the identity. We live with two faces, one for our private life and other for social life. Much is talked about our dual identities. In a love relationship, you must know the identity of your beloved. Once doubt is there, love becomes pain. Love crumbles in this novel and the lover starts fearing of his own identity. This novel is an honest, passionate, and amazing observation of love. In spite of our deep love, we are only able to know about the other person, only what he/she allows us to know. It will make you contemplate on: nature of love and changes in it with time, taboos in your own thoughts, and the nature of being wanted. Here I’m quoting an excerpt to prove my take on this novel.
“Anyhow, he asks himself, what is an intimate secret? Is that where we hide what’s most mysterious, most singular, most original about a human being? Are her intimate secrets what make Chantal the unique being he loves? No. What people keep secret is the most common, the most ordinary, the most prevalent thing, the same thing everybody has: the body and its needs, it maladies, its manias — constipation, for instance, or menstruation. We ashamedly conceal these intimate matters not because they are so personal but because, on the contrary, they are so lamentably impersonal. How can he resent Chantal, for belonging to…
