. Spinning .

As with Marquez, Kundera is focusing on human nature and interaction in this novel of love and betrayal. Even the war in the background is a part of the theme, as battle is the cause or reaction to action borne of love or betrayal of allegiance. The characters are living by their need to be loved, and all are betrayed by their own misinterpretations.

Prior to reading the book, I pondered the title: The Unbearable Lightness of Being.  What could it mean? Several thoughts came to mind but this seemed most likely: the ultimate freedom from grounding, from responsibility, from attachments both mental and emotional that made life ‘light’ and yet empty.

Tomas, learning from a marriage and divorce, feels he is a man who needs to be free of the ties of love, to never spend a night in bed with a woman, and yet he makes changes to admit Tereza into his life.  He cannot give up his mistresses, for that would be a betrayal of self; to avoid a betrayal of Tereza he must believe in the clear separation of love and sex.  Sabina is of similar mind, needing only enough of a stable love force that is under her control. With her single status, she chooses men who like Tomas want no more from her than she’s willing to give, or who like Franz and later Tomas, are married and thus not a threat.  Her need to betray, something tied to her father, is done second-hand, by her partners’ betrayal of their marriage vows.

Franz does well after his divorce from Marie Claude, revved up for a life with Sabina. When Sabina dumps him, he still believes himself better off with a small apartment and a young female student as a lover. But there is something wistful about his return to his ex-wife’s home to realize that she has not missed him at all. He is feeling a bit of that weight of weightlessness.

Tereza has put up with Tomas’ infidelity for many years, followed or led him through many countries to remain by his side.  She comes with baggage of insecurity bred into her by her mother, and her love for Tomas is genuine and forgiving, though she likely betrays herself by accepting his lifestyle because she truly has never accepted it.  In her depression, she feels that she should accept his lifestyle as her own and makes the move by visiting and having sex with a man she has met at the diner.

But then, while she is not betraying Tomas, or believes she is not because she is simply adopting his attitude, isn’t she still betraying herself?

Just as Sabrina’s decision to leave Franz brought her a freedom and lightness that proved a burden more unbearable than the weight of a relationship, Tereza’s attitude towards infidelity changes her dreams and her perception of freedom.

The man raised his rifle.
Tereza felt her courage slipping away. Her weakness drove her to despair, but she could do nothing to counteract it. "But it wasn’t my choice," she said.
He immediately lowered the barrel of his rifle and said in a gentle voice, "If it wasn’t your choice, we can’t do it.  We haven’t the right."  (p. 150)

Early in their relationship, Tereza’s dreams reflected her despair over Tomas’ infidelities; indeed, the man who aimed the weapon was Tomas, and the others with her were all women and naked. In this dream, years later into their relationship, Tereza is the only female among four victims, there are three more men who are the executioners, and Tomas is left at the bottom of a hill she has ascended to get to this place–where, oh yeah, she gets to remain dressed.

But the important change is this: "But it wasn’t my choice," she said.

In the dream, Tereza originally claims that it is her choice to be executed, though it appears more out of letting down Tomas than her own clear choice. And when it comes down to the moment before her own execution–after the other three male victims have been shot–she stands up for herself. This is a switch in control of the relationship; Tereza daring to defy Tomas’ wishes.  But even as she returns home to him (in the dream), she is afraid to face him.

It is the control of the relationship that is the lightness or weightiness that is at question here for Tereza. The burden she claims to carry which weighs on her, that is, the knowledge of his infidelity and attitude towards love and lovemaking, may in fact be the opposite; the freedom of not having to make that decision. Yet she is about to test that theory as she flirts with the notion of indiscretions of her own.

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.

For some reason I find myself misplacing Tomas, Franz, and Sabina in time. While it’s approximately taking place in the late 60s, I get the feeling from the emotional state of the characters that it takes place in an earlier era, perhaps decades prior.

Kundera’s writing reminds me a bit of Marquez in the focus of relationships in conflict against a background of a more major conflict of war.  As Marquez, he makes the war a defining force and yet it does not become an active part of the story aside from how it affects the characters and their physical place just beyond it.

But what gets me more out of touch with the characters is that while they are of my own era, I do not relate to them at all, particularly in their relationships of love.  Perhaps it’s the European versus American lifestyle and setting.  Perhaps it is Kundera’s choice of words.

That night, she made love to him with greater frenzy than ever before, aroused by the realization that this was the last time.  Making love, she was far, far away.  Once more she heard the golden horn of betrayal beckoning her in the distance, and she knew she would not hold out.  She sensed an expanse of freedom before her, and the boundlessness of it excited her.  She made mad, unrestrained love to Franz as she never had before.  (p. 116)

Sabina’s response to Franz’s leaving of his wife represents a burden to her that she is unwilling to carry. In her decision to betray him, she may indeed be betraying herself, making sure that she does not attain that state of contentment and stability she seems to both want and despise. 

But Kundera has set up his characters to clearly show that their experience and needs give them very different views of their time together.  This, then, is not too surprising:

Franz sobbed as he lay on top of her; he was certain he understood: Sabina had been quiet all through dinner and said not a word about his decision, but this was her answer.  She had made a clear show of her joy, her passion, her consent, her desire to live with him forever. (p. 117)

This seems to be the complicated love affair of an era in which people were not as honest in their feelings as the 60s seemed to have encouraged. It is the silent admiration, the steady pursuit of Marquez’s lovers that I see in the affair of Franz and Sabina.  I picture Franz with a goatee; Sabina with the off-shouldered blouse and bare feet. The name Sabina has ties for me that are buried in the long ago past. 

Perhaps it is me, as reader, writing a different story.

As Kundera brings us into the heads of Sabina and Franz to show us how experience brought to a new scenario affects the perception of the viewer, we come to an interesting philosophical question on truth:

What does it mean to live in truth? Putting it negatively is easy enough: it means not lying, not hiding, and not dissimulating.  (p. 112)

But Franz is enjoying the lies and hiding that comes along with his affair with Sabina.  For Sabina, the idea of truth comes only when alone; the secrecy of the affair keeps it "truthful" because it is not given nor hidden from the public.

Franz, on the other hand, was certain that the division of life into private and public spheres is the source of all lies: a person is one thing in private and something quite different in public.  For Franz, living in truth meant breaking down the barriers between the private and the public.  (p. 112)

Despite this, Franz finds that he can no longer hide his love of Sabina, and tells his wife about his affair.