Or at least what one character, Alain, feels is the eroticization of the navel in the 21st century. The Festival of Insignificance purportedly is that book, and it begins with a discussion of the navel. “You’ve often told me you meant to write a book one day that would have not a single serious word in it. The flap of the book jacket cites a passage from an earlier novel, Slowness, in which the wife of the main character tells her husband: It is a slim volume, a mere 115 pages in the American edition, and it features much of what is admirable in Kundera: Characters who “live examined lives” and are notable for their philosophic wonderings and reflective attitudes, a narrator who periodically pops into the story to discuss the workings of the novel itself, and a level of global political awareness that is not often present in American novels. That my friend was from East Germany underscored the connection with this Eastern European novel.Īnd so, I finally got the newest, The Festival of Insignificance, out of the public library, and began reading it the moment I finished the earlier work. And at the luncheon that followed, I sat next to a woman who has always reminded me of the actress, Juliette Binoche, which of course reminded me of Binoche’s role in the film version of The Unbearable Lightness of Being. At least, that’s what happened to me.Īnd of course, there is the quirky, sometimes humorous interruptions by the narrator and the self-aware, redoubling rhythms of the narration.ĭuring the course of my reading, I also had to attend a funeral. What draws the reader into the novel are the characters’ personalities, both heroic and damaged the politics, both sexual and global and the self-knowledge with which each of the three characters, Tomas, Teresa, and Sabina, work at achieving and which causes readers to reflect inward themselves. It was the sixth or seventh time I had read it. Having no immediate access to Kurenda’s latest, I pulled down from the shelf my worn copy of The Unbearable Lightness of Being and began reading it myself. (Although, out of compassion, she did not read him the passages where Karenin the dog is in his final stages of cancer and must be euthanized.) The cat stayed attentive through all of it. It was the second time that week that that novel had come to my attention.Ī friend on mine was in semi-seclusion and had begun reading the novel aloud to her cat. In the review, however, the critic spent much time on Kundera’s earlier work, particularly The Unbearable Lightness of Being. The review was warm, discussing the narrative quirks and the philosophic resonances. (recreation of book cover art)A few weeks back I read a review of Milan Kundera’s newest novel, The Festival of Insignificance.
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