Picking up The Unbearable Lightness of Being again

The first time I was assigned to read The Unbearable Lightness of Being was in Prague. As all NUin kids (myself included) seem to repeat over and over again, I studied abroad for my first semester of college. Spending four months in beautiful Prague was a dream to say the least, but on top of that, the classes I took at our host university were also intriguing.

This class in particular was titled Literature & Politics and explored a fascinating and wide variety of novels. Our professor was adorable, but stern, and had a thick Irish accent. Off the top of my head, a couple of the most memorable titles were The Reader by Bernhard Schlink and Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. It was definitely one of my favorite classes that semester, and it reignited my love for reading once again.

And then there's The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera. I fully intended to read the whole novel when it was assigned and not just skim the first page while I was abroad, but I think it was one of the later books in the syllabus. Naturally, I slacked off, overwhelmed by finals and my last days in Europe fading away.

In retrospect, this was such a waste. Milan Kundera is Czech, and the story takes place in Prague during the 1968 Prague Spring. At the time, thanks to my required Czech history class, I knew plenty about the history and was immersed in it. I was surrounded by red roofs and walked through Wenceslas Square more times than I can remember. Now, all of that knowledge has gone kaput. 

I don't know what exactly motivated me to pick up this book again, but if I had to guess, I would say it's probably a mix of nostalgia and regret. Whereas before I had gone to the Boston Public Library and then let my first book (On the Road by Jack Kerouac) sit on my desk for the next three weeks, I was determined to not let that happen again. I missed the E train heading back to campus from Copley, which was irritating, but also gave me around 10 minutes to actually start reading The Unbearable Lightness of Being. 

I was immediately swept up in it. It's not particularly difficult reading as I had first thought, but moves quickly, and the chapters are short. The book was also turned into a movie, and because of my first unsuccessful encounter with reading it, I had watched the trailer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyxFXH0kzmE)  instead, which has resulted in me only being able to imagine Tomas, the protagonist, as a young Daniel Day-Lewis.

It's definitely interesting also considering the novel's translation. Within the first few pages, I noticed the repetition of a few phrases like "a child someone had put in a bulrush basket" in describing the character, Tereza. The phrase makes sense, but it's an interesting way to describe someone and makes me wonder if the meaning in Czech was something which could not be fully captured in English. More to be reported when I get further!