kaislea reviewed Farewell Waltz by Milan Kundera
Review of 'Farewell Waltz' on 'Storygraph'
3 stars
Absolutely horrible story! I really don't know whether this was a tragic comedy or a comical tragedy, but nevertheless it was very dark. It might take me some time to get over the ending.
Before starting the book I was reminding myself of Kundera's misogynic way of representing women in his stories, as well as his cynical hatred towards youth, idealism and all things that represent meaningfulness or anything that makes life heavy and deep. And well, this book definitely filled those expectations, and much more dramatically than what I could have thought of.
In this story Kundera walks us through his theory of life's unexpected lightness, the one that makes everything chaotic and purposeless, quite throughly. He points out how the decisions between life and death can be made without much of an thought, that the ones behind the most horrible actions can be admired, that suffering can be …
Absolutely horrible story! I really don't know whether this was a tragic comedy or a comical tragedy, but nevertheless it was very dark. It might take me some time to get over the ending.
Before starting the book I was reminding myself of Kundera's misogynic way of representing women in his stories, as well as his cynical hatred towards youth, idealism and all things that represent meaningfulness or anything that makes life heavy and deep. And well, this book definitely filled those expectations, and much more dramatically than what I could have thought of.
In this story Kundera walks us through his theory of life's unexpected lightness, the one that makes everything chaotic and purposeless, quite throughly. He points out how the decisions between life and death can be made without much of an thought, that the ones behind the most horrible actions can be admired, that suffering can be caused in the mids of everyday life even for the ones we love most just for the burst of a moment, and none of that might make more of an impact than any everyday life decision - as he performs it: do we drink expensive wine from a clean glass or cheap, bad wine from a dirty one.
He points out vividly that no one really ever gets lessons from karma, but that the idealistic, romantic people will enevitably suffer, usually for no good reason whatsoever. It's probably a rule of his that Kundera makes the romantic, idealistic characters suffer all the more they believe in something with a purpose. That probably should represent how the meaninglessness and lightness (nothingness) of life is the only thing that follows, and the young people with their stupidity are the only ones getting fooled by that. But I think this story was way too cynic, unethic and misogynist for it to even be taken seriously in the end. It was just ugliness that the reader had to endure.
I think the lightness of everything is a beautiful and freeing thought - to be unable to control anything and to consider ones life more of a humorous joke really makes everything quite a lot more easy to bare. But when all of his characters constantly pay for all of their naive, beautiful, life-loving, enthustiastic, idealistic or romantic thoughts with horrible consequenses, I think the stories turn out to be unrealistic and cliché in their own world
.
All of the women in the book are walking stereotypes of two categories: the mothers and the whores, all of the characters have their stories unfold upside down and inside out, and only the ruthless will always win in the end.
The tit-covers were a topping to the cynic cake. I think I just listened an angry old man shout at me that there is no hope and that women are all stupid and evil, for 3 hours. Quite enough.