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update 6/27/16
Also by Milan Kundera
THE JOKE LAUGHABLE LOVES LIFE IS ELSEWI IERE THE FAREWELL PARTY THE BOOK OF LAUGHTER AND FORGETTING JACQUES AND HIS MASTER THE ART OF THE NOVEL IMMORTALITY
MILAN KUNDERA
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Translated from the Czech by Michael Henry Heim
Harper Perennial
A Division of HwperCollinsPublishers
Portions of this work originally appeared, in somewhat different form. in The New Yorker.
A hardcover edition of this book was published in 1984 by Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc.
the unbearable lightness of BEING. English translation copynght ˜ 1984 by Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc. Translated from Nesnesitelna lehkost byti, copyright ˜ 1984 by Milan Kundera. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information address HarperCollins Publishers, 10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022.
First Harper Colophon edition published 1985. Reissued in Perennial Library edition 1987. Reissued in HarperPerennial edition 1991.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Kundera, Milan.
The unbearable lightness of being.
"Perennial Library"
I. Heim, Michael Henry. II. Title. PG5039.21.U6U5 1987 891.8'635 83^8363 ISBN 0-06-091465-3 (pbk.)
96 RRD H 40 39
CONTENTS
PART ONE Lightness and Weight 1
PART TWO Soul and Body 37
PART THREE Words Misunderstood 79
PART FOUR Soul and Body 729
PART FIVE Lightness and Weight 173
PART SIX The Grand March 241
PART SEVEN Karenin's Smile 279
INDEX
INDEX 4
PART ONE 8
Lightness and Weight 8
1 9
2 11
3 12
4 15
5 17
6 19
7 21
8 24
9 25
10 27
11 29
12 31
13 33
14 35
15 36
16 39
17 40
PART TWO 42
Soul and Body 42
1 43
2 44
3 45
4 45
6 46
7 48
8 49
9 50
10 52
11 53
12 55
13 56
14 57
15 59
16 60
17 61
18 62
19 64
20 64
21 66
22 67
23 69
24 70
25 72
26 74
27 76
28 78
29 79
PART THREE 81
Words Misunderstood 81
1 82
2 87
3 90
4 96
5 100
6 105
7 109
8 116
9 118
10 122
11 126
PART FOUR 129
Soul and Body 129
1 130
2 131
3 133
4 135
6 137
7 139
8 141
9 142
10 144
11 145
12 146
13 148
15 151
16 152
17 153
18 155
19 156
20 157
22 160
23 161
24 162
25 164
26 165
27 167
28 168
29 169
PART FIVE 171
Lightness and Weight 171
1 172
2 173
3 176
4 177
5 181
6 186
7 190
8 192
9 195
11 201
13 206
14 214
15 217
16 221
18 223
19 225
20 227
21 229
22 233
23 234
PART SIX 237
The Grand March 237
1 238
2 239
3 240
4 241
5 242
7 244
8 245
9 246
10 247
11 249
12 250
13 251
14 252
15 254
16 256
17 257
18 258
19 259
20 260
21 262
23 264
25 267
27 270
28 271
29 272
PART SEVEN 273
Karenin's Smile 273
1 274
2 279
3 284
4 288
6 297
PART ONE Lightness and Weight 1
The idea of eternal return is a mysterious one, and Nietzsche has often perplexed other philosophers with it: to think that everything recurs as we once experienced it, and that the recurrence itself recurs ad infinitum! What does this mad myth signify?
Putting it negatively, the myth of eternal return states that a life which disappears once and for all, which does not return, is like a shadow, without weight, dead in advance, and whether it was horrible, beautiful, or sublime, its horror, sublimity, and beauty mean nothing. We need take no more note of it than of a war between two African kingdoms in the fourteenth century, a war that altered nothing in the destiny of the world, even if a hundred thousand blacks perished in excruciating torment.
Will the war between two African kingdoms in the fourteenth century itself be altered if it recurs again and again, in eternal return?
3
4
It will: it will become a solid mass, permanently protuberant, its inanity irreparable.
If the French Revolution were to recur eternally, French historians would be less proud of Robespierre. But because they deal with something that will not return, the bloody years of the Revolution have turned into mere words, theories, and discussions, have become lighter than feathers, frightening no one. There is an infinite difference between a Robespierre who occurs only once in history and a Robespierre who eternally returns, chopping off French heads.
Let us therefore agree that the idea of eternal return implies a perspective from which things appear other than as we know them: they appear without the mitigating circumstance of their transitory nature. This mitigating circumstance prevents us from coming to a verdict. For how can we condemn something that is ephemeral, in transit? In the sunset of dissolution, everything is illuminated by the aura of nostalgia, even the guillotine.
Not long ago, I caught myself experiencing a most incredible sensation. Leafing through a book on Hitler, I was touched by some of his portraits: they reminded me of my childhood. I grew up during the war; several members of my family perished in Hitler's concentration camps; but what were their deaths compared with the memories of a lost period in my life, a period that would never return?
This reconciliation with Hitler reveals the profound moral perversity of a world that rests essentially on the nonexistence of return, for in this world everything is pardoned in advance and therefore everything cynically permitted.
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