Reviews

Identity by Milan Kundera, Linda Asher

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novabird's review against another edition

4.0

Identity begins with a description of a television program called, “Lost to Sight.” The program focuses on missing persons. Chantal’s colleague says to her,

“Can you imagine, someone you love disappears and you never find out what happened to him! It could drive you insane.”

Identity explores the idea of this loss through jealousy, misidentification, misrepresentation, misunderstanding and nightmares, and almost all these are aspects of untruth.

Previously in, 'The Unbearable Lightness of Being,' Kundera said,

“Loves are like empires; when the idea they are founded on crumbles, they, too, fade away.”

The empire that founds the love between Jean-Marc and Chantal in, Identity, is threatened when they have an argument that casts the plush marginality of Jean-Marc’s world against the citadel of conformism of Chantal’s world. Their conflicting ideas previously and tacitly understood to remain unspoken have now been voiced.

“Their ideas had gone in different directions, and it seems to him that they will never converge again.”

“Because one idea was as good as another. Because all statements and positions carry the same value, can rub against one another, nestle, snuggle, fondle, mingle, diddle, cuddle, couple.”

When ideas carry the same value then they also carry with the same weight of truth.

Identity, explores the concept of shaping identity in a world where our perception of another is based upon what is visible to us as truth and how we construct memories.

In one scene where Chantal is traveling by train and it descends under the Channel, a companion says to her,

“We’re going deeper and deeper.”
Chantal answers, “To where truth resides.”

For Chantal memories are

Spoiler

deconstructed in a long nightmare scene.

In the end the idea of a fear of loss of a loved one is brought full circle, “I’ll never let you out of my sight again.” Chantal’s fear of aging is replaced by fear of loss of Jean-Marc, of her love for him.

Kundera reintroduces the idea of borders that has been a motif in two of his previous works that I have read;

“At what exact moment did the real turn into the unreal, reality into reverie? Where was the border? Where is the border?”

He ultimately asks us to question some ideas he presents as integral to the demarcation of borders and how we form identity:

a) Friendship and memory – “Friendship is indispensable to man for the proper function of his memory.”

b) Feelings from which we cannot escape their control over us - “no one can do a thing about feelings, they exist and there's no way to censor them. We can reproach ourselves for some action, for a remark, but not for a feeling, quite simply because we have no control at all over it.”

c) Concept of God - “As if the director of the dream made a bad casting choice.”

d) Conformism as a good – “Isn’t conformism the great meeting place where everyone converges where life is most dense, most ardent?”

e) Free will – “If that’s all we’re capable of, what pride can we take in the fact that we are, as they tell us free beings?”

f) Cynical pov about desolation of the present world – “We put make-up on desolation.”

g) Individuality vs society – “You’re free to melt your own individuality into the cauldron of the multitude either with a feeling of defeat or with euphoria.”

Spoiler

Kundera also says, “And starting when did their real life change into this treacherous fantasy?”

I believe it happened at the moment when they could no longer identify themselves as a couple, when their disparate backgrounds crash into reality during an argument and succumb into both their flights from home and their escaping from any real discussion about their greatest areas of difference.

Love the philosophical discussion about perception and identity formation and for that .75 extra. 4.75

theeuphoriczat's review against another edition

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4.0

Rather than look at this book in terms of identity, love or passion as explored in this book (highly suggest you read it), I will focus more on what I call 'Momentary Forgetfulness'. A main focus in this book is recognition and not just of an individual but a situation/occurrence. The brevity of it and an important appreciation of what currently is. The story of Chantal and Jean-Marc is written in such a way that you almost feel involved in their moments, their loss of recognition and the almost unreal nature of their love. You begin to think, 'Just hold out a bit more', 'If he is unrecognizable maybe it is not him but at the same time think he has changed because she looked away'.

You float between the real and the unreal, just like Chantal, between the expectation of society and self accountability. Honestly I could go on and on. Really loved their conversations on friendship, love, acceptance, dreams and much more.

Here are two quotes from the book
"Dreams: they impose an unacceptable equivalence among the various periods of the same life, a levelling contemporaneity of everything a person has ever experienced; they discredit the present by denying it its privileged status"

"Friendship is indispensable to man for the proper function of his memory. Remembering our past, carrying it with us always, may be the necessary requirement for maintaining, as they say, the wholeness of the self"

I would highly suggest this book. I am starting to become a real fan of Milan Kundera writings

tahliaswid_'s review against another edition

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emotional inspiring mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

ending really pissed me off, but like everything else was perfect

ojreadsbooks's review against another edition

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emotional mysterious reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

eli02's review against another edition

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emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

mrsbrewcrew's review against another edition

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2.0

A good read for provoking thought... I read a chapter or two & stewed on them. I spent days ruminating on the idea of friendship being to "provide a mirror so the other person can contemplate his image from the past". However, the ending of the book was somewhat anti-climatic, and uncreative compared to the rest of the story.