There was a very interesting look into Sabina’s life after her decision to leave Franz, and we can see how perception is tangential to our choices of course or path. Kundera leaves Sabina after making a stunning announcement about Tomas and Tereza, and returns us to their lives.
Tereza is still dealing with Tomas’ definition of love and has learned a way of acceptance without full admittance of her feelings towards his wandering. She still seems to direct her focus internally, feeling it is because of something she lacks, perhaps, that cannot bring Tomas totally into alignment with her own definition of love. Her concept of body and soul may be one way of rationalizing the difference.
Then what was the relationship between Tereza and her body? Had her body the right to call itself Tereza? And if not, then what did the name refer to? Merely something incorporeal, intangible?
(These are questions that had been going through Tereza’s head since she was a child. Indeed, the only truly serious questions are ones that even a child can formulate. Only the most naive of questions are truly serious. They are the questions with no answers. A question with no answer is a barrier that cannot be breached. In other words, it is questions with no answers that set the limits of human possibilities, describe the boundaries of human existence.) (p. 139)
Who has not at some point in his life, perhaps on a day grey with rain and boredom, looked at his hand, splayed his fingers, completely in awe as he makes them respond to secret commands of his mind? Has not wondered that he is looking at his "outside" from somewhere within his "inside."
"Only the most naive of questions are truly serious. They are the questions with no answers." Yes, these are the only ones that are important to consider; all the others are mere riddles, I would think, in comparison. "(…) it is questions with no answers that set the limits of human possibilities," Kundera tells us. Yes, for that is how we go beyond the known into the arena where the unexplored is open to discovery and interpretation.
I do like the way Kundera has his characters think.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology