Author Love - Literary Hop

I have a few favorite authors. Granted, it doesn't take a lot for me to go on an "Author Marathon" (I tend to read books by the same author back to back to back till I find a flop) but only a few of these marathon authors have earned a spot on my coveted favorites list. I say coveted, I am pretty sure Milan Kundera doesn't care that I a 21 year old American girl is singing his praises, but I can pretend.

It's Thursday. A Literary Hop Thursday to be exact.

As always, thanks to the ladies at the Blue Bookcase for hosting this fantastic event. 

This week's prompt is:

Talk about one author that you love and why his or her writing is unique. Please be specific

As I was babbling about before, I love quite a few authors but if I have to pick one for this post I'm going to go with Milan Kundera. It was a tough choice but my one of my best friends just started reading The Unbearable Lightness of Being at my request and Kundera is now fresh in my mind. Back in the summer of 09 I was looking for some really fantastic books to sink my teeth into. This was a time before I'd started this blog and the best resource I knew of on the internet was a very nice, but someone limited community on livejournal that compiled reviews and recommendations. I came across some girl talking about The Unbearable Lightness of Being and I went straight to Barnes and Noble to pick it up.  I tore through Unbearable Lightness that day and spent the rest of the summer devouring the likes of The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, Immortality, Slowness, The Farewell Waltz and Ignorance.  In the end I didn't end up liking everything Kundera wrote, but I did love his consistency. 

As a writer Kundera focuses on Philosophy in his fiction. I've always found this adds an extra level to his novels. There is the story, then there is the theory he is seeding throughout.  It's not always effective, and it's easy for readers to find his work pretensions, but there are some true gems in his work.  Some of my favorite quotes are from Kundera novels, and if just for that he can remain in my top three.

"People are always shouting they want to create a better future. It's not true. The future is an apathetic void of no interest to anyone. The past is full of life, eager to irritate us, provoke and insult us, tempt us to destroy or repaint it. The only reason people want to be masters of the future is to change the past."

"You can't measure the mutual affection of two human beings by the number of words they exchange." 

"Love is the longing for the half of ourselves we have lost." 

Hope everyone is staying dry and safe in this crazy weather!

  

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Milan Kundera


I'm finding it hard to write impartially, or even intelligently about this book. The Unbearable Lightness of Being is one of my favorite books, and I find it hard to separate myself from Kundera's amazing prose long enough to write a coherent summary. In short, my first 'review' and believe me, I'm using to word review loosely, of Kundera's masterpiece is the best I'm going to come to giving anyone a general understand of the story, oh, and there are spoilers. Sorry.


Part of what makes Unbearable Lightness so amazing is the amazingly worded philosophy that Kundera expertly threats throughout his story. Really, that's what drew me into the novel, lines like "There is an infinite difference between a Robespierre who occurs only once in history and a Robespierre who eternally returns, chopping off French Heads" - which really sums up the point Kundera is trying to make on heaviness - evokes something in me, and pulls me right in. 


Overall there isn't much I don't enjoy in this novel. I could take or leave Franz as a character, but even he's tolerable until he goes to Cambodia. Sometimes Kundera does get carried away with his philosophic ramblings, and what's more he picks really plot heavy times to do so. Right when your wondering what's going on back in Prague we take a detour into Kundera's mind. 


Sorry for the slightly nonsensical review!