The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera

 -The reconciliation reveals the profound moral perversity of a world that rests essentially on the non-existence of return, for in this world, everything is pardoned and therefore, everything cynically permitted.
-Milan Kundera, Unbearable Lightness of Being.*

 The unbearable lightness of being is a novel written by Milan
Kundera wherein, he explores the idea of ‘lightness’ as a quality in the
existence of the mankind juxtaposed to life being perceived
as a‘burden’. 

The events take place in Prague 1968. At the backdrop we see the life
of the Communist Society, and the Soviet Union’s invasion on Prague.
The characters in the story are Tomas, a surgeon and his wife, Tereza,
who is a photographer, highly affected by her husband’s infidelity.
Tomas has a lover- Sabina, an artist who also has an affair later in
the novel with Franz. Simon is Tomas’ son from his first marriage.

As the author explores the motifs of individuality, love, body and sexuality, 

lightness and weight, human relationships, human beings and their relationships

 with nature and animals, through his writing, he challenges the philosophy 

proposed by Nietzsche which  claims that everything that is born will 

re-occur or that any event which  took place in the history of time will happen again.

Kundera provides an alternative philosophy, wherein through his
characters and their lives he depicts how ‘being’ and the existence of
man, where life is only to be lived for once and one does not therefore
know if the choices made and the actions of the people are any more
 significant than their lives which will end when they die.  This
momentary nature of the experience, as Kundera suggests in his work,
which people have as they go by in life, makes their existence or
‘being’, light.

Contrary to which, if one were to believe in Nietzsche, who
Philosophized life as- Einmal ist Keinmal, the interpretation would be:

Einmal ist keinmal is a German proverb which means
    •    Literally: Once is never.
    •    Used often as an excuse for trying something again after the first try or to make somebody prove him/herself again.
    •    A first time offence should be forgiven.
    •    "It's OK to try anything once." - As a rationalization or an excuse for doing something one perhaps shouldn't, one time.
    •    Something that happened once might as well never happened at all.

Kundera argues that Nietzsche’s concept reveals that anyone who believed in it would find life to have a burden.

The German adage suggests that if we were to live only one life, we may as well not have lived at all. In his book, the first couples, Thomas and Tereza perceive their lives to be that of a burden. They are constantly in conflict with the choices they make and therefore their actions and living the consequences is a burden for them.
Juxtaposed to which, Franz, Sabina and Simon are representatives of lightness. These characters depict Kundera’s philosophy at the best because they live their lives as if,
“There is no means of testing which decision is better, because there is no basis for comparison. We live everything as it comes, without a warning, like an actor going on cold.”
Kundera also provides an instance from his own life wherein he reveals that he could reconcile with his past as he read a book on Hitler, and even though he grew up during the war and lost his family members as they suffered in the Hitler’s concentration camps, his memories of his own childhood were more powerful an association with Hitler’s images than the lives of those he had lost. It is this reconciliation within which he believes lays the meaning of the world, wherein everything that exists is pardoned before it could occur.* It is that realization that makes one’s being light.
However the author considers the altering point of view in the beginning of the novel wherein he shares that the eternal return is one of the heaviest burdens and while a burden can make a person come close to the earth and therefore that much close to the truth, he himself suggests his philosophy but does not claim that to be the only truth. It thus, implies, that burden can be perceived on a positive note, 
which largely depends on how one wants to lead the life and interpret it.

In support of his own opinion Kundera therefore says:
‘We can never know what we want, because living only one life, we can neither compare it with our previous lives nor perfect it in our lives to come.’
Tomas is a surgeon who explores relationships with other women and sees his relationship with his wife as a burden. It is through the character of Tomas that the author reveals his own belief about the relationship of love and body. The author mentions in the novel that a man’s desire to make love to a woman is different from that of having casual sex. The desire to share sleep with a woman is the hallmark of true love.
Later in the novel, he gives more meaning to Tomas’s search of 
“Es muss Sein!” as the author mentions that Tomas was interested in knowing what ‘must be’ and in the search, as he practiced his profession, comes across, the otherwise.
“Being a surgeon means slitting open the surface of things and looking what lies hidden inside.”
Kundera mentions in book that an author always reveals his own life through his writing. It stands true for him as all his works provide a hint of his involvement with music as well as reveal a lot about his life experiences. He learnt piano from his father, who worked under Leos Janacek.  The author explicitly takes the metaphor of Beethoven’s “Es muss sein!” which means, ‘It must be’ and is suggestive of- necessity, weight and value which hint at the weight involved in the belief.
The characters of Tomas and Tereza are an antithesis to the idea which 
Kundera proposes, and in exploring the alternative he brings out the difference between his and Nietzsche’s philosophy.
Kundera’s style of treatment is known for his using both first and third person narratives.  When he gets back to closing the loop of lightness and weight in yet another chapter he shares with the reader:
“Characters are not born like people, of woman, they are born out of a situation, a sentence, a metaphor containing in nutshell the basic human possibility that the author thinks no one else has discovered or said something essential about.”
He gives a very insightful idea about how he conceived and treated his characters:
“I have known all these situations. The characters in my novel are my own unrealized possibilities. That is why I’m equally fond of them all and equally horrified by them. Each one has crossed the border that I myself have circumvented.”
He says he believes that the novel is more of an exploration as beyond the border begins the secret that his work seeks. He mentions that it is not his confession but an investigation that he feels the need to do in search of the meaning of the human life which according to him is trapped in the world that has become the way it is.
In is the contrast which the author deals with, of having known and yet not giving away the answer as an absolute truth that makes his philosophy interesting, ‘light’. Thus, it is the contrariness which gives space for the author to explore meanings and thereby keep it open for the readers to have an interpretation of their own.
Thomas thinks of “Es muss sein!” when he is about to leave Tereza behind. It is as we read the novel that we find out that Thomas could not have known whether it would be the right thing to do, when he was making the choice, as he ends up with Tereza again.
“We all reject out of hand the idea that the love of our life may be something light or weightless; we presume our love is what must be, 
that without it our life would no longer be the same. We feel Beethoven ourselves, gloomy and awe-inspiring.”
Tomas came to the conclusion that the love story of his life did not exemplify, ‘It must be so’ but rather, “It could just as well be otherwise.”
Tomas also is a character that represents Nietzsche’s philosophy of 
“Einmal ist keinmal” and Tereza his wife is a person who is absorbed by the physicality of her body and always fears that she is just another woman in the line of many he used to see.
It is only after she goes through an experience of sleeping with another man does she realize that there is a difference between sex and lovemaking.
Tereza also ends up spending a lot of time with Karenin when he is about to die of cancer and it is through the relationship she shares with the dog, is she able to realise how love can be treated as something wherein one seizes to expect. She also has her doubts if such an emotion can exist in human relationships at all.
The author expresses how human love is plagued with expectations
“Perhaps all questions that we ask of love, to measure, test, probe, and save it, have additional impact of cutting it short. Perhaps the reason we are unable to love is that we yearn to be loved”.
Tereza ends up doubting Tomas in his old age when he received letters from his son Simon, (the son from his first wife) as to whether it was a secret mistress that wrote to him.
Tomas and Tereza live away from each other but they get back together. Meanwhile Tomas also sees Sabina, who is his mistress and closest friend.
Sabina had said to Tomas:
“The reason why I like you is because you are the complete opposite to Kitsch.”
Sabina is a representative of someone who rebels against the idea of kitsch and the principles of the Puritan society. She expresses her views through the paintings and ends up writing to Simon that she wanted to be cremated and thrown to the winds to symbolize the lightness in her being.  Sabina symbolizes ‘lightness’ in being and it is through her that the reader knows how Kundera proposes lightness can become a part of one’s life.
It is when Kundera talks about Soul and Body, that he expresses how he thinks chance encounters are the ones which make an insightful experience unlike routine events which are ‘mute’. It is by a chance event that Tomas and Tereza meet again after they are separated.
Sabina becomes the only connection between the two very different worlds, that of Tomas and Tereza, and the other one of Franz.  However these two different couples never meet.
Even though Tomas and Sabina share a bonding they eventually separate.  The author also explores the idea of ‘light’ and ‘weight’
by bringing out the contrast in their sexuality.
According to the author, men who were philanderers are divided into two types. A lyrical obsession wherein the man goes from one woman to another in the search of a specific  experience which they seek, and they end up being disappointed as no experience lives upto their ideal outlook. The next one is the kind which has an epic obsession, they have no subjective touch with the women and they have an inability to be disappointed in anything at all from the exchange, unlike the first type. It is this quality in them that people cannot forgive.
Tomas belonged to the latter category.
Tomas being an epic womanizer, turned away from the conventional beauty from which he could get little pleasure and therefore started seeking to meet the otherwise. He wanted to hide his affairs, including the one he had with Sabina because he was ashamed of revealing his sexuality.
Sabina, on the other hand wanted to hide her affairs not out of a negative emotion or fear. She wanted to keep it away from the eyes of society so that her life does not get classified according to the rules of the society.
For Sabina, no place was home.
Franz re-married Marry-Aine Claude before he fell in love with Sabina. He liked being with his wife because it was her aggressiveness in an invulnerability that relieved him from the burden of goodness.
His idea of love was different from that of Marry-Aines. It is when he gets back to her and asks for re-marriage that she tells him that for her love was a battle. For Franz, as he told Sabina, love meant a means of renouncement of strength.
It is this difference that separates him from his wife.
Franz felt that he should disclose his affair with Sabina to his wife and thereby become free of lies, as well as stand by Sabina. Quite to the contrary it was in hiding about Sabina, did Sabina seek freedom and lightness.
It is with the act of making their love affair public, did Franz lose Sabina.
It made her feel under the burden of the society as the people would start comparing her with his wife. For her, a love publicized- was weight.
Sabina always felt that Franz’s strength was outwardly. That he was weak because he never gave her orders and his goodness worked against her. She decided that Franz wasn’t to be for her life, after he expressed that love was a means for him to renounce his strength.
Sabina’s lightness came into being through her encounter and exchange with Franz.
Kundera gives yet another and an interesting interpretation of betrayal.
Normally, betrayal is perceived to be something that is negative. However it was Franz’s and Sabina’s betrayal that freed them.
“Betrayal. From tender youth we are told by father and teacher that betrayal is the most heinous offense imaginable to mankind. But what is betrayal? Betrayal means breaking ranks. Betrayal means breaking ranks and going off into the unknown. Sabina knew of nothing more magnificent than going off into the unknown.”
“Franz was riding Sabina and had betrayed his wife; Sabina was riding Franz and had betrayed Franz.”
It is in leaving Franz that Sabina finds nearly an answer and meaning to her search.
“Until that time her betrayals had filled her with excitement and joy, because they opened up new paths to new adventures of betrayal. But what if the paths came to an end?”
“Sabina felt empty all around her. What if that emptiness was the goal of all her betrayals?”
 A Chinese proverb says: “Beware of what you wish for”.
It is that which held true for Sabina. Author suggests that we have no idea of what it is to achieve a goal till we are actually in the moment when we have achieved it.
He says: “The goals we pursue are always veiled.”
“Sabina was unaware of the goal that lay behind her longing to betray. The unbearable lightness of being- was that goal?”
The idea of kitsch is a powerful subtext in the novel.
Kundera uses the concept of Kitsch to express lightness.
He argues with the idea laid in Genesis which says that the man is the most superior beings of all. He questions if it is so, because we created the work ourselves.
Kitsch is a German word, which implies a denial of shit in both literal and figurative senses. Therefore, he also criticizes the ideology of communism which claims to be “Kitsch”.
As the author criticizes Kitsch by saying that only those who do not question belong to the category of it. He mentions that if we accept what Genesis proposes, than it is our agreement with ‘being.’
“Kitsch has its source in the ultimate agreement of being.”
Since we cannot remove kitsch from the integral human condition, what can only be done is to identify any kind of kitsch for the lie that is stands for, which will make it non-kitsch.
The author also mentions that it is when the difference between the extremes is reduced to nothing, that there is lightness in existence.
Since that is not possible figuratively and practically, as differences will always exist, Kundera calls it:
“Kitsch is the stop over between being and oblivion.”
Lastly, the author divides his characters as representatives of his ideology. He believes that we need someone to look at us.
He has divided them in four categories.
    •    People who look for infinite number of anonymous eyes.
These eyes will eventually disappear as people move away from
making the ones who want to be viewed feel lonely and without attention. The German singer and the Russian actress in the story belong to this category.

    •    People who want to be looked at by many eyes. When they lose public, it is that they feel that they have lost almost what they meant to be. Franz’s wife, Mary Claude, belongs to this category.

    •    Category of people who need to be constantly before the eyes of their beloved. Tomas and Tereza belong to this category.

    •    “The rarest are the ones who live in the imaginary eyes of those who are not present. They are the dreamers. Franz, who travelled for Sabina to see her, Tomas’ son who got back to his father.
 It is through Sabina and Franz’s choices that lightness becomes a part of their lives.  After Sabina listens to an emotional song, she does not get carried away by it. It is in identifying kitsch in it that she makes it non-kitsch. Franz realizes that there is always going to be an inherent difference between various things that exist and unlike Stalin’s son, who was killed in the war because he did not stop to see the difference, 
that instead of revolting Franz gives in to the situation.
“Franz felt like placing his own life on the scales, he wanted to prove that the Grand March weighed more than shit.”
Lastly, if one goes by Kundera’s logic, it is in knowing that our one lifetime is only once to live and since we have no way to determine what is right or wrong, it is in knowing that our lives are insignificant in  the same context, that makes our ‘being’, light. At the same time, one can look at it as the ‘being’ to be ‘unbearable’ because of the same insignifance, one’s awareness of life taking place once and never again.
Having known this makes one feel that it is unbearable, because people want to outlive and make meaning out of their lives.