Laughable Loves

must read series of short stories on the humor of love.

Nice book

Character you're just going to want to cringe over, and perhaps relate to.

"We pass through the present with our eyes blindfolded." says Kundera. Most of the characters in this collection of seven great stories are blind in one way or another. If they happen to be wise, they turn out, after all, to be unbearably light, chasing after women, embracing men, for no purpose whatsoever other than that is what they seem destined to do. Their perspectives on themselves are often pitifully unrealistic, hence the stories tend to center around misunderstandings. The men can't break the habit of "continuing conquest". The women seem remarkably prone to give in. Even when the men are happily married, the chase still beckons. With great humor and wit, with a lot of philosophical depth, Kundera traces the mentality of various Czechs in different walks of life in the 1960s through the medium of their sometimes tawdry love life. Tales of would-be conquests turn out to be critiques of society, questions about the meaning of life, or witty perspectives on the old theme of youth vs. age. Great Romeos turn out to be duds, burnt-out old flames can be lit again. Eroticism is not what it is cracked up to be, but sometimes it's more than we expect. Great stuff. Maybe it's a special Czech style of writing about love, maybe it's that wry, ironic humor found in Hasek and Skvorecky that I've always liked, but Kundera's characters lack the aggression, material concerns, or passion for commitment found in American novels as well as lacking the love of style found in the French. They are simply average people with limitless libido. So are they average ? That one is up to you. In a story about how desire for a girl makes a young man invent a religious fervor, then defend it to the local Party committee, winding up in bed with his boss, who is supposed to purge him of religion, Kundera turns away from the plot to write...."it seemed to Eduard that [the girl's religious] ideas were in fact only a veneer on her destiny, and her destiny only a veneer on her body; he saw her as an accidental conjunction of a body, ideas, and a life's course, an inorganic structure, arbitrary and unstable. ....He saw her as an ink line, spreading on a blotter: without contours, without shape." The skill of a man who can stick lines like this into a story which STILL manages to entertain has to be seen to be believed. Each story provides its own stock of surprises. This is the first book by Kundera I've ever read. It certainly won't be the last.

I just came across this collection of short stories, and as a devoted Kundera fan, I quickly devoured it amidst Christmas preparations, letter writings and other more dreary readings. And what a delight! This is early Bohemian Kundera, written while he still lived in then Czechoslovakia, and it is quite evident that he has not yet matured into the thoroughly seasoned writer that produced masterpieces such as "Life is Elsewhere", "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" and "Immortality". However, this is unmistakenly literary genius in the making, and the mood throughout is simply captivating. The themes all deal with aspects of human sexuality - mostly from a Man's view. The stories have a raw sense of humanity to them - sometimes it can be uncomfortable reading; however, it has an undeniably tender undercurrent. Even when a character behaves despicably, I remained sympathtic with the human behind the actions. It just feels irresistably honest, and it is quite easy to get seduced by such well-portrayed human complexities. Among my favorite stories were "The Old Dead Must Make Room for the New Dead", which portrays the dilemma of whether to preserve a diffuse, but beautiful sensual memory or replace it with a graphic, but uglier version that will ultimately erase the former. "Edward and God" is another gem that deals with sexual longing and the fickleness of Religion (Atheism is cleverly presented just as irrational in its dogmatisms as Christianity). Finally "The Hitchhiking Game" is a classic portrayal of how easily perceptions can be irreversibly altered. I highly recommend this short-story collection; however, if you are reading Milan Kundera for the first time, I am tempted to recommened one of his more famous works...

This is a collection of seven very early stories by Milan Kundera. I believe they were mostly written during the 60's and are set in the Czechoslovakia of that time. He has an innovative but very readable style - simple, precise, light. These stories bring out philosophical mysteries while being page turning reads at the same time. They sort of remind me of fables, but without any obvious moral lessons. Not exactly anyway. They will, however, give you plenty to think about on the nature of Identity, Desire, Ego, etc. For me, this is Kundera at his best or very near. I really liked Unbearable Lightness of Being and The Book of Laughter and Forgetting and this book has the same virtues as those. I think some of his later works, like Immortalitiy, tended towards self indulgence, but the early and middle stuff is some of the most inventive, engaging work of the 20th century.

Milan Kundera is one of my heroes. He is a symbol of artistic and political bravery from an age when the heavy heel of Soviet totalitarianism was firmly planted on the neck of central and eastern europe, including his home country of Czechoslovakia. 'The Book of Laughter and Forgetting', and 'The Unbearable Lightness of Being' were both huge international successes. But ... 'Laughable Loves' is one that I would prefer not to have read. It is a collection of short stories. Nothing wrong with that. They are Czech in tone and setting. Again, nothing wrong with that. The problem is that the idiosyncratic viewpoint in each story is (as judged from the 21st Century) cynically misogynistic. Not in a deliberately hyperbolic manner aimed at milking humor, but in a way that reflects on the attitude of the author. That's why I would have preferred not to have read it. The 'humor' is still born.

Milan Kundera is, perhaps, what Woody Allen probably wishes he were: a non-neurotic European gentleman; a cool customer who knows a few things about love, and doesn't mind sharing them. And he has lived a professional life of art under a repressive Soviet bloc regime, to boot. Laughable Loves is my first stab at Kundera, and what a find! Here is a thoroughly modern (though several decades old) collection of sketches of romance young and old, foibles and conceits timeless and ubiquitous, and comedy blatant and tongue-in-cheek. The book starts out modestly with young couple whose blithe role-playing takes them to darker places in their hearts and minds than they'd ever imagined. Kundera then gives us a pompous professor/art critic who goes to great lengths to avoid a man who solicits his critique while halfheartedly protecting his young mistress; a bitter man who seeks to recapture a love he once let get away; a doctor, ex-Don Juan, who is full of himself and, ultimately, full of IT; and, among others, an atheist teacher who flirts with religion to get close to a girl, and flirts with the principal to save his career, with unexpected results. The stories are metaphysical puzzles (especially Dr. Havel) and teasing meditations on love, lust, and life from a lover-philosopher. Kundera makes no apologies and explores amoral terrain with authority--and wit. What a taut, satisfying collection of short stories. The question is not whom to read next, but what to read...

I've re-discovered Kundera's charming books many years after my first introduction to (and immersion in) them; I had originally read some of his books when I was still an adolescent. It's interesting with Kundera; I think if someone reads his books, as is often the case, in their teens and early twenties, they leave the reader with a completely different impression than when read later in life. What seemed, in my teens, charming sophistry about faraway stages of life- interesting but basically irrelevant to me- now becomes much more resonant, bitter and true to my current experience. All those philosophical, whimsical, laugh out loud funny but (at heart) tragic thoughts that Kundera is a master of become more painful, true to life and ironic, but also much more deeply enjoyable, when read in middle life. At least that's been my experience of re-reading Kundera recently. `Laughable loves' is a collection of 7 love stories written in (the then) Czechoslovakia, in the 60s. Differently to `The Joke' (which I read a few weeks ago), here Kundera allows politics to remain in the background, although it's interesting to read through the lines and imagine the authoritarian background against which the love stories Kundera describes play themselves out. There's a thread running through all seven love stories, and I suppose it's evident in the title: they're all laughable! Each of them is an expression of the randomness of life and the illusion that we control our stories, including our love stories: `it had only been my illusion', says the protagonist of one story, `that we ourselves saddle events and control their course; the truth is that they aren't our stories at all, that they are foisted on us from somewhere outside; that in no way do they represent us; that we are not to blame for the strange paths they follow; that they are themselves directed from who knows where by who knows what strange forces'. Some of the stories, for example `Nobody will laugh', are linked to `The Joke' as they involve the development of an innocent, random joke into a series of serious events: `we pass through the present with our eyes blindfolded. We are permitted merely to sense and guess at what we are actually experiencing. Only later when the cloth is untied can we glance at the past and find out what we have experienced and what meaning it has'. Other stories, e.g. `The golden apple of eternal desire' or `dr Havel after 20 years', involve games that are continued because of nostalgia and because of the love of youth even when they have long lost their original meaning. `The hitchhiking game' involves a game which has gradually become a trap for the lovers involved, without their conscious knowledge or understanding of how this transformation came about. My personal favourite was `Eduard and God', the final story in the book, which brought tears of laughter to my eyes; this is yet another story about randomness, lies, games, jokes- all in the context of how people deal with love, how it comes about, how it dies out, how it's avoided and how it's embraced. As funny and light as these stories are- and they make for thoroughly enjoyable, easy reading- they're equally painful, bitter and tragic, very much about the passing of time and the longing for youth; but there's also a whimsical quality to Kundera's writing, a `what the hell' element. Kundera, as always, writes starkly and elegantly, offering insight into love through quite bare, straightforward words. A delight to read if Kundera is your cup of tea: I truly love him but of course he's not for everyone.

Not yet started reading! The outlook is so cool!

An interesting collection of short stories from Milan Kundera. The author passed recently so I was keen to read more from the Czech/French writer. These are at times funny, sexy, interesting and sensitive and would make a good introduction to his output. Kundera has been subjected to allegations of misogyny yet I find little of that in his work: of its time maybe, but here was a male writer who obviously desired, loved and understood the opposite sex.

Love is one of the most difficult subject to be handled by any writer.It is being overused for the last 3000 years. Kundera excellent and superb to give it new angle.

These are small jewels of stories. Perhaps the only criticism of Kundera's work is the frequent silence of his female characters, who sometimes feel like props in the stories. However, the frequency of typographical errors impedes the flow and rather makes a mockery of Kundera's insistence that he took great pains with the revisions of his earlier work. It's almost as though the sloppy editing work pokes fun at his care. Pity.