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A review by mghoshlisbin
Identity by Milan Kundera
4.5
"...the gaze of love is the gaze that isolates. Jean-Marc thought about the loving solitude between two old persons become invisible to other people: a sad solitude that prefigures death. No, what she needs is not a loving gaze, but a flood of alien, crude, lustful looks settling on her with no good will, no discrimination, no tenderness or politeness--settling on her fatefully, inescapably. Those are the looks that sustain her within human society. The gaze of love rips her out of it."
What is it in that desire to be noticed and to be looked at, that is so integral to the human experience? And what a complicated thing it is, to want to be seen while also being fearful of being judged? The conflict between the social desire to be noticed and the personal desire for solitude is a complex thought that is explored beautifully in Milan Kundera's Identity. When picking up this book as an "inbetween fantasy read", I did not expect to enjoy it so much. But it was fabulous! Short and sweet, with an incredible mixture of themes such as boredom, the real/unreal, the role of dreams and dreaming in our lives, the inner workings of personal relationships, perception vs. reality--this book really was a treat.
The story details a tumultuous period in the relationship between Chantel and Jean-Marc, a couple whom were entirely in love with one another, but succumb to misunderstandings, misperceptions, and their own desires. Chantel, an older woman who had previously been married and lost a child, is in a relationship with Jean-Marc, who is utterly infatuated with her but beleaguered by his distortions of events and his confusion about Chantel's personal journey of self. The story begins when Chantel, attempting to explain a confusing desire for external validation, proclaims, "Men don't turn to look at me anymore." Jean-Marc, moved and disturbed by this sentiment, begins to send Chantel love letters under the guise of a secret, alternate admirer. As he does so, tensions form, and the distinctions between reality and a mystical non-reality begin to blur.
I found the discussions of boredom and the need to contrive intrigue in our lives extremely compelling. Some examples that struck me quite intensely: Chantel and Jean-Marc willfully ignoring roads to resolution in their miscommunication in favor of continuing the illusion of suspense; the way in which Jean-Marc intentionally imagines horrific scenarios of Chantel's demise or alternative love affairs in order to spark his sole trigger for empathy; Chantel's colleague Leroy as a provocateur for the sake of itself. Even the way in which Chantel descends into a near obsession with finding the culprit of the love letters is inherently non-promiscuous--she, more than anything else, craved relief from routine, a disruption of the normalcy which had been granted to their relationship. And as much as Jean-Marc was disturbed by the changes in Chantel, by her "two-faced" nature, one could argue that it also fascinated him and made his ardor for her stronger.
Similarly, the themes of death and violence are intricate and compelling. In this novel, death and love seem to ride the same edge: Chantel, working in advertising for funeral homes, is always surrounded by death. Death as a freedom (to be "free" from those "spies" and "watchers"--presumably the prison walls of convention), death as punishment (as it had felt for the child of her previous marriage), and death as a potential disruption of boredom.
Finally we must consider the role of reality and unreality in the novel. The final dream which Chantel experiences, which is such an incredible change of pace, a switch to climax with near no warning by Kundera. I believe that it is an exploration of what happens when we allow our fantasies to create space for themselves in our lives. Throughout the novel, Chantel is haunted by moments where thoughts impose themselves upon her; they are out of character, weird, unusual and they direct the next decisions she makes. This dream is also an implant into her fantasy mind, a moment where the real (her love for Jean-Marc) fades, and is replaced by the terrible. It is an ode to our capacity to dream, but I think it is also cautionary. We should hold tight to the grounding experiences of death and love.
I will come back to this novel with further thoughts I am sure. There were many other aspects I had many thoughts about--the inefficacy of language to convey meaning, the dissociation that is created between the persona we curate for society and how we appear to ourselves and our loved ones, and others. But perhaps I will re-read this in a year and come back with some new thoughts.
What is it in that desire to be noticed and to be looked at, that is so integral to the human experience? And what a complicated thing it is, to want to be seen while also being fearful of being judged? The conflict between the social desire to be noticed and the personal desire for solitude is a complex thought that is explored beautifully in Milan Kundera's Identity. When picking up this book as an "inbetween fantasy read", I did not expect to enjoy it so much. But it was fabulous! Short and sweet, with an incredible mixture of themes such as boredom, the real/unreal, the role of dreams and dreaming in our lives, the inner workings of personal relationships, perception vs. reality--this book really was a treat.
The story details a tumultuous period in the relationship between Chantel and Jean-Marc, a couple whom were entirely in love with one another, but succumb to misunderstandings, misperceptions, and their own desires. Chantel, an older woman who had previously been married and lost a child, is in a relationship with Jean-Marc, who is utterly infatuated with her but beleaguered by his distortions of events and his confusion about Chantel's personal journey of self. The story begins when Chantel, attempting to explain a confusing desire for external validation, proclaims, "Men don't turn to look at me anymore." Jean-Marc, moved and disturbed by this sentiment, begins to send Chantel love letters under the guise of a secret, alternate admirer. As he does so, tensions form, and the distinctions between reality and a mystical non-reality begin to blur.
I found the discussions of boredom and the need to contrive intrigue in our lives extremely compelling. Some examples that struck me quite intensely: Chantel and Jean-Marc willfully ignoring roads to resolution in their miscommunication in favor of continuing the illusion of suspense; the way in which Jean-Marc intentionally imagines horrific scenarios of Chantel's demise or alternative love affairs in order to spark his sole trigger for empathy; Chantel's colleague Leroy as a provocateur for the sake of itself. Even the way in which Chantel descends into a near obsession with finding the culprit of the love letters is inherently non-promiscuous--she, more than anything else, craved relief from routine, a disruption of the normalcy which had been granted to their relationship. And as much as Jean-Marc was disturbed by the changes in Chantel, by her "two-faced" nature, one could argue that it also fascinated him and made his ardor for her stronger.
Similarly, the themes of death and violence are intricate and compelling. In this novel, death and love seem to ride the same edge: Chantel, working in advertising for funeral homes, is always surrounded by death. Death as a freedom (to be "free" from those "spies" and "watchers"--presumably the prison walls of convention), death as punishment (as it had felt for the child of her previous marriage), and death as a potential disruption of boredom.
Finally we must consider the role of reality and unreality in the novel. The final dream which Chantel experiences, which is such an incredible change of pace, a switch to climax with near no warning by Kundera. I believe that it is an exploration of what happens when we allow our fantasies to create space for themselves in our lives. Throughout the novel, Chantel is haunted by moments where thoughts impose themselves upon her; they are out of character, weird, unusual and they direct the next decisions she makes. This dream is also an implant into her fantasy mind, a moment where the real (her love for Jean-Marc) fades, and is replaced by the terrible. It is an ode to our capacity to dream, but I think it is also cautionary. We should hold tight to the grounding experiences of death and love.
I will come back to this novel with further thoughts I am sure. There were many other aspects I had many thoughts about--the inefficacy of language to convey meaning, the dissociation that is created between the persona we curate for society and how we appear to ourselves and our loved ones, and others. But perhaps I will re-read this in a year and come back with some new thoughts.