Book Review: Milan Kundera's "The Unbearable Lightness of Being"

The Unbearable Lightness of Being, by Milan Kundera (NY: Harper and Row, 1987).

I had heard so many reader rhapsodies about this novel from my friends. In the bookstore, in a reversal of form, so many customers pressed the book into my hands and recommended it so highly that I brought it home to reside in my bedside town of book piles. It was a long-term tenant, however, just not piquing my interest each time I reached for a new book to read. When I decided to try the Orbis Terrarum Reading Challenge, in which nine books about nine countries by international authors are chosen, I blew the dust off this novel and decided I would travel to Czechoslovakia before and after the 1968 Prague Uprising for the second leg of my around the world trip.

After having read it, I am of two minds about the book. I think it is an interesting and thoughtful book, one with many provocative images and unusual relationships and ideas. For someone who enjoys novels of ideas or who enjoys reading philosophy or poetry, I can understand how one could have such passionate views about it. I am not such a reader, preferring characters with lots of depth or unusual descriptions of time and place.

The book follows two couples throughout the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia, and the immersion into that historical era was interesting to me, so I kept slogging on, despite my lack of interest in the four main characters and their endless loop of: A) self-doubt and unhappiness driven by philandering lovers or B) sexual/psychological domination while wearing unusual haberdashery.

Kundera is certainly a vivid writer. I was struck in particular by two images he portrayed: a description of the human body as a machine with a nozzle for oxygen intake and the face as instrument panel for the clockwork brain; and a sad chapter about a dying crow, buried up to its neck in rubble by street urchins and rescued by Teresa, the most tormented main characters.

I wouldn’t state that I enjoyed reading this book, but I am glad that I learned more about that era in Czech history and I can at least converse intelligently with my buddies about this book. I do, however, look forward to my next armchair journey on this reading challenge, to a sunnier Egyptian climate, with Nobel Laureate Naguib Mahfouz in The Harafish. Onward!

Vintage Book Coasters

Our little village thrift shop, Second Hand Rose, is a treasure house for vintage stuff and I'm always treating myself to a visit. I don't usually find too many great books, but the old linens, dishware, funky sweaters and tschotchkes never disappoint. I'm also usually lucky at sniffing out a great adornment for the bookshelves at the shop, like little statuettes of kids reading or homemade pottery, and this last week I picked up this gem which I thought was just a wooden trinket meant for a teachers' gift with little wooden book replicas. It turns out they are drink coasters. But now I'm wondering what the deuce is up with the half of a toothpick glued to the top of this coaster holder. A memento from a really great cocktail onion?

The 100 Manliest Books

There is an amusingly edifying post over at The Art of Manliness about the blog's Top 100 Essential Books for the Manly Library. The authors not only provide an interesting commentary and meaningful quote from each member of this masculine century but incorporate often imaginative photos of each title.

Here's how they summarize Oscar Wilde's "The Picture of Dorian Gray":

Packed with impeccable wit, clever one-liners and an excessive amount of egotistical vanity. At the very least, this book will show you the glory and the pitfalls of being the best looking chap around.

and now I don't have to read Hemingway's "A Farewell to Arms" with this succinct wrap up:

Written from the perspective of Lieutenant “Tenente” Frederic Henry it is a novel of epic manly proportions. As an American ambulance driver with the Italian army in WWI, Henry is injured by a mortar and while in the infirmary falls in love with his British nurse, Catherine Barkley. After healing and having impregnated nurse Barkley, Henry returns to his unit, only to narrowly escape fratricide. Henry goes AWOL and he and his bird flee to neutral Switzerland where they live a peaceful existence until Barkley dies during childbirth. In typical Hemingway fashion, he mourns her death by simply walking back to his hotel in the rain.

A Tartt in the Face

Clever Keltie from Canada has started a blog, 365 Masks, to make a mask from different materials each day this year. Mask #103 is made from the pages of Donna Tartt's "The Little Friend", helpfully pre-shredded for the artist by her two naughty cats. There are lots of other great masks on her site and I especially like the spiky mask made of toothpicks and the creepy minimalist spider one.

Bookstore Housekeeping: Washing the Windows

The Bookshop Blog has posted a cranky article I wrote about the glamorous life at the old open shop and washing up the windows. Here's the opening paragraph:

Yet another customer sighs and notes that owning a used bookstore is the ultimate dream job. She muses on how lovely it must be for me to be surrounded by books, reading in between helping readers pick out the perfect novel; absentmindedly petting store cat Sam and sipping herbal tea while ringing up stacks of books.

To read more check out this link.

A Book Signing and Free Book Contest

It had been a few years since we had an event at our bookstore and this past Saturday we hosted a book signing with Sheridan Hay, author of the biblionovel "The Secret of Lost Things". This literary novel focuses on the arrival of a young Tasmanian transplant, Rosemary Savage, in Manhattan and her interaction with an exceedingly eccentric cast of characters at a used and rare bookstore. Dan and I were thrilled to welcome Ms. Hay and her lovely family to our shop and it was nice to have everyone talking, snacking and having a good time prowling around. That's Sheridan Hay below on the left with one of our fabulous bookstore customers.


We have a few signed copies of this wonderful book available and I thought it would be fun to offer a free copy to one of my loyal Book Trout readers. Just leave a comment after this post by May 31, 2008 and I will randomly pick someone to receive a free copy sent to you in the mail.

Armed Services Paperbacks

Our upstate New York colleague Dan Weaver, of the Book Hound, has an interesting article on Armed Services edition paperbacks at Biblio Unbound. Dan used to have an open shop in Amsterdam, NY, but now sells online exclusively. The Book Hound specializes in religious books, New York State history, particularly Mohawk Valley history, and older children's books. He also finds time to blog about things bookish on Bruised Reads, which I recommend for its down-in-the-trenches library sale reports and thoughtful book reviews. Lots of interesting reading!

Book Review: FAR AFIELD by Susanna Kaysen

The first leg on my Orbis Terrarum Reading Challenge is complete and it was a fantastic voyage. I read "Far Afield", by Susanna Kaysen (NY: Vintage, 2002), the author's second novel, originally published in 1990 and reissued after the huge success of her memoir about time spent in a mental hospital, "Girl, Interrupted", later made into the Wynona Ryder vehicle of the same title.

"Far Afield" took me and the hero, Jonathan Brand, to the Danish territory of the Faroes Islands, a cluster in the North Atlantic, located between Iceland and Scotland. Jonathan is a Boston anthropology student doing fieldwork on this Scandinavian nation, to the dismay of his professors, who don't feel that cultures with newspapers deserve study. He perseveres and diligently studies the Faroese language, folkways and history. This meticulous preparation by the introspective and quiet Jonathan is in contrast with the other two Americans he encounters while on assignment: Wooley, another anthropology grad student (blasted luck!), whose breezy California manner and mangling of Faroese get the same local reception as Jonathan's self-conscious reserve; and Bart, the chain-smoking consumptive and presumed CIA agent, who tucks into Faroese cuisine with gusto.

Food comedy is peppered throughout the novel. Jonathan's first local contact is the outrageous Eyvindur Poulsen, a painter/politician/free spirit whose constantly tests poor Jonathan's stomach with the wildest Faroese delicacies: Spik (whale blubber), Turrur Fiskur (rotten halibut), Kjot (rotten lamb), boiled sheep's head and roast puffin). Jonathan is put off by this endless array of boiled fish and mutton and lack of vegetable accompaniments:

"Cod it was, cooked beyond necessity--beyond conscience--to a bleached stiff mass. Jonathan shut his eyes and wished for an artichoke, a little pot of hollandaise, a goose sausage, an endive salad: a roadside inn near Nimes. The last green vegetable that had touched his lips had been an Icelandic one, many weeks before. A slow cementing process was occurring inside him; each day the amount he expelled decreased in comparison to the amount he ingested. Soon, at this rate, he would lose the ability to excrete."

Brand does eventually use the bathroom and it is this most unglamorous of human functions that leads to his entree in Faroese society. Poor Jonathan clogs up the toilet in his rented flat and discovers that he must empty the septic tank. His neighbors crowd around to silently watch him dig and fill up his wheelbarrow with the noisome leavings. Old Jon Hendrik needles him first by remarking "In America, you hire people to do this, hah." Jonathan retorts with a shot about having proper sewage systems in the U.S, but Jon Hendrik reminds him that he is not home. Jonathan keeps shoveling and spits out in perfect Faroese "Vaelkomin til Foroyar" (Welcome to the Faroes). With that magical phrase and mordant acceptance of life's indignities, Jonathan is one of the gang. From then on he is invited to dinners and tea (temun), he is set up with potential girlfriends, gets a new soul-searching, bad-boy buddy, Hedin and government-rationed booze, formerly completely unavailable, is now proffered.

Warning****Plot Spoilers Ahead**********

Toward the end of Jonathan's year of study, fishing boats spot a herd of whales and Jonathan's neighbor, Sigurd, hurries the American into his patched up car for a trip over the hills to the grind, the whale hunt. The whales are herded towards the beach by Faroese fishing boats. Once the leader of the whales is beached, the others ground themselves on the shore en masse. Jonathan is staggered by this sight but has no time to jot down field notes when he is dragged into the kill by Sigurd and Hedin, and shown how to straddle the man-sized whales and sever their spines. Drunken and violent revelry at the village hall with Hedin continues all through the night.

Jonathan has finally achieved that which he carefully researched and sought; acceptance by his Faroese comrades. He has had doubts about whether to fully integrate with his new friends and stay on as a permanent resident. Much of the book contains this internal debate and his feelings of being an outsider in American society, too. The debate ends with the grind and another unsettling incident when a cat is tortured to death by a young neighbor and this is shrugged off by everyone as a old custom, something that kids just do.

The book reminded me of another great novel, Annie Proulx's "The Shipping News", with its weary, tragi-comic hero, maritime setting and eccentric characters. I recommend it to others with the high praise that my copy is staying put in my home library and will not be traveling to our used bookstore for resale.

Next on the Orbis Terrarum reading itinerary is the Czech Republic with Milan Kundera's "The Unbearable Lightness of Being". I'll report back soon.

In Which I Win 50 Sad Chairs

Amazingly, I won a contest. I got a great little art photography book by Renaissance Man Bill Keaggy, "50 Sad Chairs" (Pittsfield, MA: Blue Q, 2007) after trawling through his website, admiring his collection of found bookmarks . Keaggy is the author of "Milk, Eggs, Vodka: The Lost Grocery Lists of America" and has many interesting projects to check out on his mosaic of a website. His photos of rocks shaped like shoes is mesmerizing and hilarious. I think I had a similar collection when I was a young naturalist. He also generously gives out free copies of his books to his email subscribers, so you may want to emulate me and check it out.

"50 Sad Chairs" is a gem. It documents three years of color portraits of the abandoned chairs of St. Louis, Missouri, and these studies of kicked-to-the-curb keister-holders, whether upholstered and plastic, discarded from offices or homes, may look defeated at first, but the author's snappy captions show their spunk. This book would make a great gift for anyone interested in photography or design or anyone who enjoys a good relationship with their furniture. Snap one up from Keaggy's website, or if you're feeling lucky, join his email list and win one like I did. This book's a keeper, so don't look for it on the shelves at OSB, grab one for yourself.

Earth Day Gardening

In celebration of Earth Day, and because I had the day off from the bookshop (we're closed Mondays and Tuesdays), but mostly because I had procrastinated quite a bit, I spent this warm day in the sunshine, barefoot and bent over, planting my spring vegetable garden. Yesterday was the back breaking part, edging my 25 x 45 foot plot with the square spade. It started out Monday morning as a 23 x 44 footprint, but I kept veering off crookedly, so there's more room to plant.

Today was a perfect seed planting morning. Our soggy soil had dried up enough to resemble chocolate cake crumbs, which I read somewhere once is the perfect loamy texture to inaugurate the garden season. I managed to get in my spinach, climbing peas, lettuce, radishes and Italian dandelions. Dandelions! Yes, dandelions, because I like my braised veggies with garlic and oil and this is some fancy Italian chicory that is a new resident in the garden bed. I already had some returning chives, Oriental poppies (from a mixed wildflower seed packet from four years ago that keep on showing up), cilantro, lemon balm, thyme and oregano. No spears up in the asparagus bed yet, but they'll follow the sun soon and then we'll get to gorging ourselves on them, roasted with garlic and herbs.

If you fall in love with your garden each year too, then here's a book I have recommended and placed in customers hands over and over again. I buy it every time I see it when I'm out book hunting, and it never fails to find a good home. I have one copy for sale at Old Saratoga Books at present, but you could also probably find a copy at your local library too if you want to "test drive" it first.

This book gem is:

Cooking from the Garden, by Rosalind Creasy (San Francisco, CA: Sierra Club 1988). A gorgeous, photograph-packed book for home gardeners and cooks to drool over. Creasy thoroughly details theme gardens: Heirloom, Native American, Baked Beans, Cajun, Asian, French, Mexican, German, etc. and offers planting advice, recipes, interviews with gardeners, and a wealth of new ways to enjoy vegetables, herbs and edible flowers. The emphasis is on vegetables and herbs that taste and look good, and you'll find plenty of new varieties to try.