I’immortalité (1988/1990) by Milan Kundera
Hardcover.
Book Condition: Like New. Jacket Condition: Very Good. 412pp. Dimensions:12cm x 14.5cm x 3cm
‘It will make you cleverer, maybe even a better lover. Not many novels can do that.’ Nicholas Lezard,
Kundera’s humour is absolute and attention to detail profound. Both the characters and scenery make up this book to be a wonderful way to understand what it is to be alive. Immortality focuses on the story of Agnes, her husband Paul and sister Laura. Agnes’ character is created out of a sixty year old woman, who catches Kundera’s eye at a swimming pool. The odd pairing of her wrinkled, aged body and young bright facial expression bemuses him. He comments, ‘“There is a certain part of all of us that lives outside of time. Perhaps we become aware of our age only at exceptional moments and most of the time we are ageless.” Ernest Hemingway, Goethe and Ruben a lover from the past also make appearances throughout. In seven parts Kundera grapples with the fragility, purpose, meaning and examples of death in The Face, Immortality, Fighting, Homo sentimentalis, Chance, The dial and The celebration.
We recommend reading a this short piece by The New York Times. For it is a superb example of Milan Kundera’s fascinating manipulation of sentences and play on factual events…: https://6thfloor.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/18/remembering-and-forgetting-milan-kundera/
Immortality is the concluding book of a trilogy which includes The Book of Laughing and Forgetting, and The unbearable Lightness of Being.