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A review by novabird
Identity by Milan Kundera
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,
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,
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.
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,
For Chantal memories are
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;
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.”
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
“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