Ignorance

8.5
I have always been a fan of Mr. Kundera, and his latest work didn`t dissapoint me even as much as a tiny, tiny little... thing. And it surely doesn`t mean that my expectations were low. Irene is a woman in her fourties that lives in France but now has a chance to return to her homeland of Prague since the iron curtain has fallen. She doesn`t really want to, but other people tell her - she must. There she meets Joseph - another man from the exile whom she once met when they were very young. Still this book isn`t that much about the main characters. It`s about the homecoming and its painfulness and senselesness. Kundera`s hero are somewhat similar to Odysseus who was abroad for 20 years and came back to people that didn`t bother to notice that he had changed. The book is about our memories and how they betray us. How we remember very little, and each our own, and how nobody really knows anyone at all. It`s very sad, it`s a book by an old man who has very much knowledge, a bit of humour but very little hope for this world. Read it if you can. And if you can`t read - don`t read it.
2004-12-18
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