Tuesday, June 22, 2010

The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera


"The heaviest of burdens crushes us, we sink beneath it, it pins us to the ground. But in love poetry of every age, the woman longs to be weighed down by the man's body.The heaviest of burdens is therefore simultaneously an image of life's most intense fulfillment. The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to the earth, the more real and truthful they become. Conversely, the absolute absence of burden causes man to be lighter than air, to soar into heights, take leave of the earth and his earthly being, and become only half real, his movements as free as they are insignificant. What then shall we choose? Weight or lightness?"

Good question. Thanks to Gayle Katz for donating this book to the Friends of the Library booksale where I picked it up for a quarter. Your eco-friendly action introduced me to a very different type of literature.

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