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blueyorkie's review against another edition
4.0
It took me a few chapters before I started to appreciate the story and be receptive to the messages conveyed by the characters in the novel. But the dance launched at first carelessly, vulgarly, finally grows until it becomes, indeed, a waltz of life, uncontrollable and frenzied. Life is undoubtedly a wheel, a cycle that carries us away, good or bad.
aniabot's review
1.0
Would give 0 stars if i could. Milan Kundera has been a favorite author of mine for so long, but now i don't know if i never noticed his sexist self aggrandizing garbage laced into his writing, or if this novel stands out as uniquely terrible (it's been a while since I've read a Milan Kundera novel, and perhaps i remember it in a more naïve light than what i just experienced). Unfortunate to have an artist's integrity decay in less than 300 short pages.
healhtydoseofselfdestruction's review against another edition
2.0
Sinto-me incomodado em dar duas estrelas ao livro: não quero ser confundido com o exército de seres "puros", linchadores "do bem", que - pude ler em várias outras resenhas - têm distribuído uma ou duas estrelas à publicação por ser Milan Kundera, segundo os integrantes da seita justiceira, "misógino, sexista, machista" etc. Não, eu não me deixo levar por essa mania de misturar a ficção com a vida do autor - e ainda que Kundera seja, pessoalmente, aquilo de que o acusam, a mim pouco importa: estou aqui avaliando uma obra de sua lavra, não sua pessoa; não misturo a arte com o artista. E é A Valsa dos Adeuses que merece o aborrecido "ok" relativo às duas estrelas: história chata, com alguns diálogos incrivelmente tolos, outros um tanto enfadonhos, mirabolante e com reviravoltas fantasiosas que mais combinam com fracos roteiros hollywoodianos do que com a pretensa profundidade "em camadas" que querem impingir ao livro. Meu primeiro contato com uma obra de Kundera foi uma grande decepção.
milkasop's review against another edition
challenging
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
mohamedhabeb's review against another edition
5.0
رقصة الوداع..
هذه الرواية في رأيي هي فيلم رائع لا ينقصه شيء، لا المتعة ولا الشخصيات ولا الأحداث ولا المشاعر ولا الأماكن وبالتأكيد لا ينقصه ال plot twists، هذه رواية تصلح لتكون فيلماً درامياً عظيماً -لا أعلم هل تم بالفعل أم لا- عن شخصيات مختلفة يجمعهم المكان ذاته وإن اختلفت نواياهم ورغباتهم.
رواية بها تشابكات عنيفة وعلاقات متعددة ومتشعبة، وحب وخيانات وتوجس ورغبة وهروب وقتل وسجن ولكنها بسيطة، عذبة وغاية في الرقة.
تقنية كسر الحائط الرابع استخدمت في الرواية ببراعة، فكان الراوي العليم لا يكتفى فقط بمعرفة الأحداث بل تصل معرفته إلى ما يدور داخل النفوس فيعلم ما وراء الحدث ويفسره نفسياً وفلسفياً حتى يقدم لك صورة اكبر تزيد عمقاً للأحداث فوق عمقها.
هذه الرواية من ألطف الروايات التي تحتوي على هذا القدر من الفلسفة من دون تقعير أو إقحام.
ولكن الرواية تحتاج إلى غلاف أفضل، بكل تأكيد تحتاج إلى غلاف أفضل من لوحة بيكاسو العامة التي تخلو من أي تميز والتي لا تعبر بأي حال من الأحوال عن مدى جمال المحتوى.
5/5 :)
هذه الرواية في رأيي هي فيلم رائع لا ينقصه شيء، لا المتعة ولا الشخصيات ولا الأحداث ولا المشاعر ولا الأماكن وبالتأكيد لا ينقصه ال plot twists، هذه رواية تصلح لتكون فيلماً درامياً عظيماً -لا أعلم هل تم بالفعل أم لا- عن شخصيات مختلفة يجمعهم المكان ذاته وإن اختلفت نواياهم ورغباتهم.
رواية بها تشابكات عنيفة وعلاقات متعددة ومتشعبة، وحب وخيانات وتوجس ورغبة وهروب وقتل وسجن ولكنها بسيطة، عذبة وغاية في الرقة.
تقنية كسر الحائط الرابع استخدمت في الرواية ببراعة، فكان الراوي العليم لا يكتفى فقط بمعرفة الأحداث بل تصل معرفته إلى ما يدور داخل النفوس فيعلم ما وراء الحدث ويفسره نفسياً وفلسفياً حتى يقدم لك صورة اكبر تزيد عمقاً للأحداث فوق عمقها.
هذه الرواية من ألطف الروايات التي تحتوي على هذا القدر من الفلسفة من دون تقعير أو إقحام.
ولكن الرواية تحتاج إلى غلاف أفضل، بكل تأكيد تحتاج إلى غلاف أفضل من لوحة بيكاسو العامة التي تخلو من أي تميز والتي لا تعبر بأي حال من الأحوال عن مدى جمال المحتوى.
5/5 :)
screen_memory's review
4.0
The final line of dialogue in The Farewell Waltz comes courtesy of Bertlef, an American, after he has adopted a middle-aged doctor to be his son. His wife, having arrived via train only moments later says she does not understand what is happening. Bertlef: "I shall explain everything to you. We have many things to talk about today, many things to celebrate. We have a marvelous weekend before us." But has a death not occurred that very day? Indeed, the woman Bertlef had made love to the night prior has recently expired. Why, then, his cheery disposition? The answer, which Kundera painstakingly details, is that life is not so simple as we would think; poles of black and white with seemingly infinite shades of gray, and, in The Farewell Waltz, of blinding, magnificent blue. In this novel, Kundera’s expert hand effortlessly weaves a myriad of narratives which, in most of Kundera’s works, inevitably, and tragically, converge in on one another. With his fiction he shows his readers that the intricate interplay of seemingly negligible, subtle and minute circumstances have the capability to result in a drastic shift in how we see and experience the world, as well as influence our thoughts and perceptions. No seeming certainty asserts an invulnerability to revision.
Klima is a famous trumpeter with a reputation that precedes the instrumentalist. During a practice one night, he receives a call from a former lover, Ruzena, who works at a distant European spa that treats women for infertility. She announces to Klima that she is pregnant with his child. Klima does not receive this news well, and argues that the child could not be his. He is, in fact, a married man, and Ruzena was a one-night stand.
Tomorrow is his wife’s birthday, and, unfortunately, he must abandon her to rectify the awful predicament he’s been coerced into. He buys her flowers and surprises her with movie tickets. “Won’t you be here tomorrow?” she asks. He explains to her that he has been ordered to play a concert on behalf of a youth league. His wife doesn’t believe him, but she has accepted the fact that her husband’s passions belong to other women.
When he meets up with an American, Bertelf, a charming, aged Christian with an unconquerable sense of well-being who had introduced him to Ruzena, he tells a similar tale of a woman whom many men had made love to except for him. When he finally made love to her once, she told him that she was pregnant. He welcomed the news and said he planned to marry her. Not expecting him to accept such a circumstance with enthusiasm, she confessed that she had lied. He suggests to Klima that he not feign affection for Ruzena but that he actually learn to love her. Later, they visit the doctor Skreta who eventually reveals that he tested the woman’s urine and that she is, in fact, pregnant. He suggests that Klima, with Skreta on drums and a pharmacist on piano, play in town so that Klima can accompany Ruzena to the board meeting where the committee will decide whether or not they will grant the abortion.
Klima phones Ruzena, adopting his sentimental act, and agrees to meet her at a brasserie to discuss the matter. When they do so, Klima accounts for his two months of silence, explaining that he had been the victim of ingratitudes and had lost everyone dear to him. He was all alone and did not want to talk to anyone for fear of what he might say or how he might act. Ruzena believes him. She says that she was planning on having the child even if he had not responded to her phone calls and letters, a revelation which disarms Klima. Abandoning his earlier sentiments, he tells her it’s a couple’s business, not just the woman’s, but she insists that she will have it. Klima has no kids, saying to himself that he did not want to exhaust his wife by having her raise a child; this he also tells to the girl. She suspects his wife is infertile and remarks that she is overjoyed to be able to give him a child. Realizing he is at a dead-end, he orders two brandies and makes a shoddy toast to the future family.
When the couple are leaving, a group of men in black numbering ten are outside and he believes he sees one smiling at him. They are driving and eventually see a light in their rearview. One of the men has been following them. They stop and the man comes up, saying he needs to talk to Ruzena. Klima says she’s with him, but the stranger says he needs to talk to him, too. Klima speeds off and eventually eludes him, and Ruzena explains that he has been regularly stalking her.
When Klima goes to visit Bertlef, he doesn’t answer the door. Klima presses the doorknob and sees that the room is open. Within his room he can see a radiant blue light on the wall and wonders if Bertlef is making love or bathing in the light. Bertlef then comes out of his room and is happy to see Klima, invites him in. The room, by some odd quirk of perception, becomes lit by an ordinary lamp. When he brings up the blue light, Bertlef is confused and says the stress must have him hallucinating.
We then meet Jakub, who plans to emigrate. He has a blue tablet Dr. Skreta produced some fifteen years ago when he was in the military which he shows Olga, a female friend of his for whom he feels no intimate passion. He says to her that it should be a rite of passage to receive such a tablet, to have one be in control of the time in which they die and so live responsibly and with purpose. Jakub and Ruzena are familiar only as neighbors. When a team of dog catchers attempt to abduct a dog he is watching, Ruzena attempts to prevent him from escaping apprehension.
Later at the spa, the strange man from last night comes up to Ruzena and asks forgiveness for causing a scene. He appears to be her scorned admirer, possibly lover. She says she has nothing going on between Klima and her, but she refuses to “lower herself” by swearing to such a petty thing. We begin to wonder if he is not a scorned lover and, if so, if the baby is actually his. At Bertlef’s house, Jakub, in Dr. Skreta’s company, looks upon a pious painting the American had made and asks why the halo in the painting of his patron saint is blue. Bertlef describes the artistic history of the halo and how it has changed color over time but was originally blue. This raises a number of questions: Has Klima seen an angel the night before in Bertlef’s house? Is this foreshadowing some awful future circumstance involving the blue poison tablet?
Bertlef speaks of King Herod who, after hearing of the future King of all Jews, ordered all babies to be murdered. He viewed it as his gift to the world that he sought to rid the world of mankind. Jakub relates to this view. Skreta later relates to Jakub his insemination of his patients with his own sperm as his gift to the world to contrast King Herod’s idea of his gift to the world. Dr. Skreta’s gift to the world is to bolster the country’s population with his sons and daughters.
Kalima takes an exhausting journey via train to where Klima is set to perform and is happy to see a poster advertising the concert when she steps off as she doubted that Klima was actually performing. However, this joy is soon defeated by the realization that this fact does not disprove his infidelity. Later she runs into a film crew she knew years back who celebrate their reunion and denounce her husband for having kept her caged. Ruzena, with some time remaining before the concert, steps into a filthy bar and runs into the same film crew with whom she is familiar as they had earlier been shooting a feature at her spa. She unwittingly shakes hands with Klima's wife.
Jakub is spending his final day before he plans to emigrate talking with Olga. They are in the same brasserie as Klima and Ruzena, although Jakub knows only Ruzena. When the pair leaves, he notices that she left her tube of tranquilizers on her table. Inspecting the contents, he is amused to see that the pills seem nearly identical to the blue poison pill Dr. Skreta had given him. He places the poison within the tube and marvels at their similarity. Just then, Ruzena returns to claim her tube. He attempts to hold her back but she insists he return it. Without refusing or attempting to explain, he lets her leave with it. He then becomes obsessed by the thought that she will eventually die by means of taking the poison. He keeps thinking that it is not too late to chase after her and explain, but he does not know how he would explain his need to suddenly depart to Olga and so remains seated. Throughout the rest of the story he makes multiple attempts to contact or run into Ruzena and explain, each time unsuccessful.
At the concert, Ruzena and Kalima are seated near each other with the rest of the film crew. One of the men has his arm around Ruzena and is fondling her breast. Meanwhile, two other men's legs are touching Kalima's, and this indiscretion bestows upon her a sense of adventure. Kalima, choosing not to cross the intimate border or remain on the dull side of it, opts instead to remain in the middle of it, and lets her leg linger against theirs.
Later, Ruzena realizes the woman is Klima's wife and insists the man stop touching her. She is embarrassed to have been pawed so shamelessly in front of her rival. Bertlef arrives shortly thereafter and takes a seat next to Ruzena and conquers the lecherous men, who are harassing Ruzena for her prudishness, with his lighthearted wit. During the performance Bertlef eventually leaves with Ruzena back to his apartment. Bertlef taking Ruzena away allowed Klima to associate with his wife after the concert without fear of discovery, although he nearly panics at her absence, wondering if she had gone back on their agreement to have the abortion. Husband and wife ultimately end up at Dr. Skreta's, which he had lent to Klima for the night, and attempt to make love, although he cannot maintain an erection. This, as with every other minute detail, Kalima interprets as his love for another woman. Their night ends.
Olga and Jakub make love in the neighboring room. Olga is curious as to why they had never so much as kissed, not knowing Jakub has no feelings for her as anything but a female acquaintance. He feels sorry for her since her father, who had denounced Jakub as an enemy of the state and condemned him to death, had been imprisoned and executed, and so makes love to her out of a sense of duty, of compassion, although he remains obsessed with Ruzena's inevitable demise all the while. When he telephones the spa later, he is relieved to know that, while she can't come to the phone, she is alive, which tells him that the pill was not really poison, although he does not entertain the possibility that pure chance had happened in her favor, making her retrieve her usual pills instead of the poison.
The following morning, 5:30 am, Klima goes to Ruzena's home, with Frantisek on his trail who had been pacing back and forth outside all night, worrying over Ruzena’s whereabouts, and knocks on her door. When she does not answer he goes to the spa and waits for her. When she comes in, he begs her to reconsider the abortion. She tells him she has reconsiders, and explains to her co-worker that Klima is no longer a factor in her decision. She says she has fallen in love. Bertlef, despite his graying and balding hair, had pleased her more than anybody else in her life. She meets Klima at the clinic at 9 am. Dr. Skreta, acting the part for the board, lectures the couple on the implications of their abortion. Finally, it is approved. Frantisek has stalked her into the clinic after asking about her whereabouts at the spa, and follows her back to the thermal house when she exits the clinic. He is convinced the child is his — and likely is — and Ruzena insists that she will not listen to him and insists he leaves, especially since he is in a woman’s only area of the spa. He doesn't, saying if she kills his baby then he'll kill himself, too. A naked woman walks over to retrieve a towel and is puzzled at the sight of this man. To calm herself down Ruzena takes a pill and immediately doubles over and dies almost immediately. This spectacle creates an absurd procession of nude women hurrying to the scene to witness death in a familiar face, with hysterical Frantisek sobbing over her body. It is amusing to note that Farewell Waltz’s most comic moment occurs at the time of Ruzena’s, and, by extension, her child’s, death.
Meanwhile, Jakub is driving to the border. He contemplates his high-mindedness which he believes accounts for his distaste for other people, the reason why, as Kundera writes, he willingly gives them poison. He is confronted by the metaphysical thought that he is a murderer. He was assured that she was still alive, yet he had left the poison in the tube while convinced it was poison, therefore making him no greater than a murderer. Pondering the situation as though it had happened (for, according to Jakub, to whom the news of her death has not reached, it has not happened -- Ruzena is still alive and well in his world), he decides that he feels no sympathy for the metaphysical murder. He proceeds toward the border liberated and happy to finally leave the country, although he is leaving the only hometown he ever had, wherein he had not ever allowed himself to attempt to love another. Before he leaves he notices the penultimate child whose facial features, like numerous others he’s seen, resembles the eccentric doctor’s; the ultimate being Bertlef’s son, who resembles the doctor down to the birthmark above his lip.
Back at the scene of the death, Frantisek insists that he murdered her and that he be arrested, but the cause of death is undetermined. When Klima asks Dr. Skreta to watch after Ruzena before her operation, he announces in a very lighthearted manner that she won't worry at all since she is no longer alive. Klima repeatedly bows and shakes Skreta's hand before leaving. He returns to his wife and kisses her insistently and says he is so lucky to have her. When they are driving back home, Klima smiles sincerely as he caresses her shoulder, although this does nothing for her. She is neither suspicious nor moved. When she was leaving the neighboring room in which he made love to Olga, Jakub happened to run into Kalima. Seeing her for the first time and free of reservation owing to his nearing departure, he announces that he is leaving the country but now wishes he could stay not because he is starting to become fond of the country at the last minute, but because he had always turned away from beauty, and that Kalima is the most beautiful woman he has ever seen. She laments over that missed opportunity, leading to a loss of love for Klima. She, being no longer concerned as she is about his affairs, sees in their future their inevitable breakup, and this does not move her.
A moral reading of this novel will lead us unto numerous questions and protestations; who does nobody bother over Ruzena’s death, save for her scorned lover for whom she had no feelings for? Each character merely offers their surprise over the happening as though they had merely read of it in the news. Following the scene in which Frantisek demands to be arrested, we know not of what happened to him. He promised Ruzena that if she took the baby's life that he would then take his own. Now, what will he do now that both mother and child are gone? Perhaps the pathetic clinger has go on to kill himself as well.
Olga remembers Jakub showing her his poison tablet, and she brings this detail to Dr. Skreta’s attention once the inspector leaves, but Dr. Skreta denies that he gave him such a thing. She knows she will never inform on him. But yet her thoughts are devoted to the murdered, not to whom has been murdered. Bertlef remarked, while explaining his evidence to the inspector for freeing her from the charge that it was a suicide, that she was boxed into her dreadful life, with a hanger-on who loved her whom she did not love, and a man she admired who did not love her. The baby was only her ploy to bind Klima to her. She had nothing else.
Following her death, there is a sense of liberation and celebration all around. Klima has been freed from fate’s torment. Kalima had been given a taste of what she saw in Jakub as "a real man,” and given a sense of adventure and a taste of infidelity through the film crew's subtle embraces. She seems to no longer love nor worry over her husband and his affairs. Jakub is free to emigrate as he had always dreamed of, witnessing before his departure the enlightening marvel of unrivaled beauty in Kalima. Dr. Skreta was adopted by Bertlef and thus given American citizenship and the liberty to travel more freely, and both of their wives arrived on the same train. Olga was freed from her sorrow and her feelings for Jakub. Nobody mourned. Everybody celebrated.
When we read a novel, we expect that all the questions we have asked throughout the course of our reading will be answered on or before its conclusion. Kundera confronts us with the truth that even the novel, the divine historic record of human experience, is unable to explain all of life’s mysteries. What of that blue light both Klima and Ruzena saw in Bertlef’s apartment? Was its radiant glimmer meant to foreshadow Ruzena’s forthcoming encounter with that divine overwhelming light of the afterlife, a mysterious shining from the blue halo she would soon wear in death? What of Frantisek? Has he gone on to take his own life? What course does Kalima’s relationship with her husband navigate following her disenchantment by the elegant words of Jakub? Will Jakub ever learn that he is, in fact, responsible for Ruzena’s death, that the pill was indeed poison? Is Dr. Skreta really inseminating his every patient with his own sperm, and are the children who resemble the doctor really his? We must humble ourselves and become reconciled to the tragic fact that a great deal of our questions, whether it regard this novel or life as we know it, will remain, until the end, unanswered.
zepedromaio's review against another edition
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
3.75