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| Subtitle | A Novel |
| First Written | 1984 |
| Genre | Fiction |
| Origin | Czech Republic |
| Publisher | Harper Perennial Modern Classics |
| ISBN-10 | 0061148520 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-0061148521 |
| My Copy | library paperback |
| First Read | May 10, 2012 |
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
It's typical of my reading that the same topics come up in seemingly disparate books; of the 8 books on my 'reading' shelf now, 3 mention the Anna/Vronsky train meeting from Anna Karenina. Weird!
Noted on May 18, 2012
Early in the novel that Tereza clutched under her arm when she went to visit Tomas, Anna meets Vronsky in curious circumstances: they are at the railway station when someone is run over by a train. At the end of the novel, Anna throws herself under a train. This symmetrical composition - the same motif appears at the beginning and at the end - may seem quite "novelistic" to you, and I am willing to agree, but only on condition that you refrain from reading such notions as "fictive," "fabricated," and "untrue to life" into the words "novelistic." Because human lives are composed in precisely such a fashion. ... It is right to chide man for being blind to such coincidences in his daily life. For he thereby deprives his life of a dimension of beauty.
Quoted on May 18, 2012
A person who longs to leave the place where he lives is an unhappy person. That is why Tomas accepted Tereza's wish to emigrate as the culprit accepts his sentence.
Quoted on May 18, 2012
The difference between the university graduate and the autodidact lies not so much in the extent of knowledge as in the extent of vitality and self-confidence.
Quoted on May 18, 2012
She could not understand why he accentuated the obvious with the solemnity of a Columbus who had just sighted land.
Quoted on May 18, 2012