Identity

Milan Kundera at his best!!

It's not everybody's cup of tea as it's a deeply intellectual and philosophical book but if you like this sort of thing, then it's a little gem with a clever twist in the end that you don't see coming.

book came but different cover

Milan Kundera: Identity.I have been reading Milan Kundera since he started publishing, and "Identity" reminds me of his "Laughable Loves" and "The Joke", which he had written at the beginning of his career. What permeates the atmosphere is sexual tension and an alternately repulsive and wise text.Kundera’s heroes never have live children and the women are quite naïve and unsophisticated. It is clear who writes the love letters to Chantal, and also why, which she doesn’t seem to understand.Still, these sad stories are wise. It is an anatomy and histology of human feelings, and these two sciences are not gentle and bloodless.

A must read.

Milan Kundera had already toyed with the idea of dreams coming into the realm of the real and the other way around (an idea that still makes us wonder). In "Identity" Kundera takes this to an extreme by analysing the life of a couple with certain disparities (age, social status, aspirations); by focusing on the male character the writer can develop the idea of identity not being a fixed entity far from change. In my opinion, the immigrant writer problematizes the concept in quite an original way, for (as in most of Kundera's stories) the male character and the female one offer the reader an integral perspective.Another profound reflection, hotbed of more ideas to any reader, and so, one of the subtlest books by Kundera.