The Book Of Laughter And Forgetting - Milan Kundera

there are so many gems of narratives in this that about 10 times while reading the book i came upon a passage i was determined to write it down and document it somewhere, but i never did. and now i can't remember where those passages are.

in essence, the book is really all about laughter, and forgetting. through 7 loosely connected narratives kundera gives new meaning to the phrase variations on a theme. at times while reading it i felt like i was listening to a beethoven sonata that wasn't actually there. kundera finds exuberance in the most unlikely places, the big nose of some long ago lover, a mother remembering a poem she recited on a school stage once, and inescapable pathos in more hopeful moments, a father unable to speak to a son trying to make up for lost time, a widow finally able to forget her husband. rapidly the author and his protagonists seem to be weighed down by their own comedy, and attempts at satire seem only able to reveal irreversible disappointment.

only in the book's later chapters does the author reveal the fundamental parameters of that feeling at the very centre of each one of his stories - that word litost. "Litost is a state of torment created by the sudden sight of one's own misery. "

"Facing her are six long necks topped by tiny heads with straight bills opening and closing soundlessly. She does not understand them. She does not know whether the ostriches are threatening her, warning her exhorting her, or imploring her. And because she does not know, she feels immense anguish. She fears for the golden ring (the tuning fork of silence) and keeps it convulsively in her mouth.

Tamina will never know what those great birds came to tell her. But i know. They did not come to warn her, scold her or threaten her. They are not at all interested in her. Each one of them cane to tell her about itself. Each one to tell her how it had eaten, how it ahd slept, how it had run up to the fence and seen her behind it. That it had spent its important childhood in the important village of Rourou. That its important orgasm had lasted 6 hours. That it had seen a woman strolling behind the fence and she was wearing a shawl. Then it had gone swimming, that it had fallen ill and then recovered. That when it was young it rode a bike and that today it had gobbled up a sack of grass. They are standing in front of Tamina and talking to her all at once, vehemently, insistently, aggressively, because there is nothing more important than what they want to tell her."