Identity

Kundera's insight into the labyrinth of the human mind with a humorous perspective

In his second novel written in French (published in 1997 in France), Milan Kundera returns to the ambiguous theme of love. With an almost pedantic consistency, he now focuses on the experiences of an ageing loving couple (typically childless for the author): Jean-Marc and Chantal. In a dreamlike and existential narrative, their climbing relationship (a relationship that is anxiously obsessive) escalates into a kind of grotesqueness. This disturbing novel suggests questions about the identity of loving beings in the uncertain and volatile territory of love. But Kundera's insight into the labyrinth of the human mind is not without a soothing (and corrupting) perspective of humour, for even Jean-Marc sees his hysterical crying at the panic of losing Chantal as a comedy of grief played out by his mind. Radúz Mácha's presentation (factual, but also not only latently dramatic) emphasises the existential position of narrative as a concentrated inquiry into the uniqueness of man.