Does this bowler hat make me look kitschy?

Read The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera if you want to find out:

-Why bowler hats are sexy (no really, they are)

-The meaning of kitsch. I always thought it meant:



But according to Kundera-the true meaning of kitsch is the aesthetic ideal whereby one denies the existence of anything unacceptable - basically, a lie. Kundera loves this word - his character, Sabina, hates it and everything it stands for with a passion, but Kundera loves it so much he goes on and on about it.

If you want to pretend that you read this book, just insert the word "kitsch" at every opportunity and you'll seem like you're in the know.

-How to get away with infidelity (if you're a habitual cheater and your partner is threatening to leave you, just tell him/her to read this book, point to the appropriate passages and say, "See honey, how my cheating is really a form of faithfulness?)


Tomas is a womanizer. Tereza, his loyal wife, is in despair over Tomas's repeated betrayals. Sabina is Tomas's mistress; she is faithful to no one and nothing, except for her abhorrence of any form of kitsch. Franz is so in love with Sabina that he has made a cult of loving her. Kundera makes all these characters sympathetic despite their weaknesses.

Is this book an intellectual's apology for infidelity? It opens with man's oldest excuse dressed up as an retort to Nietzsche's theory of eternal recurrence, but it is still an excuse - that is the you only have one life to live; might as well live it up.

Kundera of course puts it more elegantly:

"How can we condemn something that is ephemeral, in transit?....

In this world, everything is pardoned in advance and therefore everything is cynically permitted."

I wonder if he ever tried that with Mrs. Kundera. And if she bought it.

Looking forward to watching the movie adaptation. Daniel Day-Lewis as Tomas. Yum.