This is the kind of book review which starts with “hm, where do I start?” The plot? Characters? Story line? Or all of them mixed, shaped and projected into a cinema room with several movies screened in parallel? That was my impression of the book.

I loved the merciless writing style. At times it was as if Kundera worked with a scalpel on the human mind. You cannot but wonder how deep can the human mind’s illusions and delusions go. Kundera shows us quite some shades of these: “The old duality of body and soul has become shrouded in scientific terminology, and we can laugh at it as merely an obsolete prejudice. But just make someone who has fallen in love listen to his stomach rumble, and the unity of body and soul, that lyrical illusion of the age of science, instantly fades away.”

Those interested in the history of the Soviet invasion of the Czech land in 1968 might find some eye opening perspectives in the book. The novel was after all prohibited in his home country until 1989. Probably, these lines would have sufficed to ban it: « Anyone who thinks that the Communist regimes of Central Europe are exclusively the work of criminals is overlooking a basic truth: the criminal regimes were made not by criminals but by enthusiasts convinced they had discovered the only road to paradise. »