Product Description
En un balneario algo trasnochado convergen temporalmente ocho personas cuyas circustancias se van entretejiendo paulatinamente hasta formar, con la precision de una telarana, una trama en la que todos, directa o indirectamente, acaban viendose atrapados : el musico celebre y la hermosa enfermera que quiere quedarse embarazada ; la celosisima esposa del musico y el joven mecanico enamorado de la enfermera ; el ex convicto, victima de las purgas de su pais, que va a despedirse de la muy cerebral Olga ; el ginecologo, con sus fanfarrones proyectos demograficos ; el rico excentrico, una version de santo moderno. La despedida tiene la ligereza y la magia de un vals, de «un sueno de una noche de verano». Pero, tras esta forma intencionadamente frivola, se oculta la pregunta mas grave : merece el hombre vivir en esta tierra ? Acaso no hay que «liberar el planeta de la garras del hombre» ? En este sentido, cuesta imaginar algo mas glacial y mas profundo que la aparente ligereza de Kundera. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Primeros Pasos
Este es uno de los primeros libros de Kundera y eso se nota. Claro que para los aficionados al checo, los pecados de juventud del autor son un agradable paseo por los recursos kunderianos. "La insoportable brevedad del cuento" no parece ser el vehículo ideal para las pasiones lentamente informadas por Milan Kundera. De todos modos, la soberbia madurez de sus novelas posteriores ya se prefigura en estos seres que aman con una intensidad carnal, humana. ... Read more

Product Description

Customer Reviews (1)

Critical Essays on Milan Kundera
A real treat to read! This book contains reviews/critiques of all of Kundera's major works begining with his first novel, The Joke, up to 1996's Slowness with heavy emphasis placed on analysis of The Book of Laughter andForgetting.The highlight of this collection are the four interviews withKundera.He is a fantastic interviewee and we, of course, gain furtherinsight into the workings of his mind. To maximize enjoyment of thiscollection I recommend that the reader be familiar with all of Kundera'soutput. ... Read more

Product Description
Una mujer y un hombre se encuentran por casualidad durante su viaje de regreso al pais natal del que emigraron hace veinte años. ¿Podran reemprender una extraña historia de amor, apenas iniciada entonces en su tierra? El caso es que, tras tan larga ausencia, «sus recuerdos no se parecen». Porque «nuestra memoria, la pobre, ¿que puede hacer? Solo es capaz de retener del pasado una miserable pequeña parcela sin que nadie sepa por que precisamente esa y no otra». Vivimos sumidos en un inmenso olvido, y no queremos saberlo. Solo aquellos que, como Ulises, vuelven despues de veinte años a su Itaca natal pueden ver de cerca, atonitos y deslumbrados, a la diosa de la ignorancia./Bypassing the question of whether you can ever go home again, Milan Kundera's Ignorance tackles instead what happens when you actually get there. Ignorance is the story of two Czechs who meet by chance while traveling back to their homeland after 20 years in exile. Irena, who fled the country in 1968 with her now-deceased husband Martin, returns to Prague only to find coldness and indifference on the part of her former friends. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Un libro sobre el sentimiento de los exiliados!
Irena salió de Praga después de la ocupación soviética de 1968 rumbo a Paris, en donde vive desde hace 20 años. Sin embargo para sus amigos franceses ella siempre ha sido una emigrante. Nadie quiere entender que sus 20 años en Paris son los años de su vida y no los años que dejó atrás en Praga en su patria perdida. Después de la caída de la cortina de hierro ella visita Praga y se da cuenta de que allí tan ella es tan sólo vista como una visita, que Paris es su nueva Patria, pero sin embargo Paris no quiere serlo. En Praga ella encuentra a su ex-marido que también ha sido emigrante, pero que había tomado camino a Dinamarca. Ellos creen crear una nueva relación basada en recuerdos pasados, más sin embargo en la vida no se puede dar un salto de veinte años. La novela trata el problema que tienen muchos emigrantes en sus países huéspedes. Para muchos pasan los años y se siguen sintiendo como extranjeros, sin embargo cuando regresan a sus paises de origen, se dan cuenta que estos se les han vuelto extraños. El libro se los recomiendo a todas las personas que viven fuera de su patria.

Virgilio Krumbacher

An essay about memory
Like most of the Kundera's books I was sticked to it until i finish the reading. It's a very struggling story about people that has been auto-exilated.

This book can be seen as an essay about memory, cause Kundera presents the remembrances and hopes of the characters are so dissimilar about reality showing differences between man and woman feelings and perceptions.

I dislike Kundera's misogyny.

Could be one of Kundera�s weakest, worth reading anyway
In "Ignorance", Milan Kundera maintains the same line of writing he has used in his previous works. He develops interesting characters and exposes their thoughts and feelings, maybe mixing them a little bit with specific subjects such as slowness, inmortality or ignorance. He usually does this with great results, his novels are mostly very entertaining and profund in some way. I said in a previous review that when you finish a book by Kundera you feel like you just had a great conversation. However, this doesn't happen with "Ignorance", it still is entertaining and all, but in a very forgetable way. ... Read more

Product Description
The work of contemporary Czech novelist Kundera is examinedin 23 essays, including ones by Octavio Paz and Carlos Fuentes. About half have been previously published. Among the topics are the Central European style, Kundera's predecessors,his similarity to other writers, and critiques of specific ... Read more

Product Description
Since sexuality and sexual politics account for the most consistently engaged tensions in Milan Kundera's fiction, it is surprising that critical attention to Kundera's work has yet to produce an extensive study that concentrates on the Czech novelist's problematic representations of women. In this study, O'Brien offers two such in-depth considerations: First he tracks the (mis)representations of the female characters; then he explores the promise of reading Kundera from the feminist perspective. Initially, O'Brien takes Kundera to task for representing women from a perspective dominated by either/or, opposition-based frameworks. Instead of dismissing Kundera as sexist, however, O'Brien takes these concerns further, arguing that a feminist-postmodernist approach shows Kundera exposing, not reinforcing, the misrepresentation of women. Using an eclectic perspective that draws on the insights of feminist criticism and deconstruction, the author looks to strong women, such as The Unbearable Lightness of Being's Sabina in order to develop a method of simultaneously appreciating the complicated surfaces and the paradoxical depths of Kundera's work. Considering O'Brien's own cross-purpose and Kundera's famous penchant for ambiguity, the duality of O'Brien's conclusions are appropriate. Milan Kundera & Feminism considers Kundera's contributions to the feminist critique of representation without ignoring the serious difficulties for the feminist reader. ... Read more

Product Description

Agnès's Final Afternoon imitates the protagonist of Milan Kundera's novel Immortality on the last afternoon of her life. Like all readers of fiction, Agnès steps out of the world of planned routes, responsibilities, and social self and gives herself up to the discovery of a new landscape, an experience that will transform her. François Ricard's essay enters into the writings of Milan Kundera in much the same way. The landscape he explores includes a chain of ten novels, composed between 1959 and 1999, and two books containing one of the most lucid reflections on the novel.

Customer Reviews (1)

If you love Kundera and the fate of the novel
If you love Kundera and have read at least a few of his books, this literary review will help you grasp the depth of Kundera's works and help you understand why his novels are so revolutonary and enjoyable. Kundera's literary goal, as described by Richard, is nothing short of reinventing the novel as a contemporary art form and free from linear storytelling. Richard sees what Kundera is all about -- we, as readers, sense Kundera's vision but Richard really puts it in clear, simple focus. His description of the Kundera hero, someone who doesn't give up but simply stops playing the game, is worth the price of the book. Again, if you love Kundera and sense what he's all about, this book puts into clear prose exactly what makes Kundera unparalleled among the ranks of contemporary novelists. ... Read more