The Unberable Lightness of Being

Response 1

In his novel _The Unbearable Lightness of Being__, Milan Kundera portrays love as a big irony with the man and the woman constantly misunderstanding each other or coming to understanding too late. Franz and Sabina of course never really understand each other. It is a big irony that Franz leaves his wife for Sabina,which just urges the latter to leave him permanently. But what is more ironic is what happens between Thomas and Tereza. While Thomas thinks he is the strong protector of a weak child, it is Tereza's very weakness,however, that gradually levels his world in which scalpel and penis are exchangeable tools for discovering and conquering the world. Although Thomas thinks that compassion sustains his love for Tereza, what really urges him to follow her is his desire to nudge her into his game; compassion is the kitsch he invents to cover the very lack of it in his successful managing of various womenn. Similarly, fidelity is a kitsch Tereza uses to cover her conscious or unconscious awareness of her own role in their relationship: she is not a weak child but a persistent trainer who dreams to turn Thomas into a Karenin. That may be why they do not have happiness together while each may feel they love the other very much. For Kundera, this is the biggest irony of human love: it can never be greater than the love between man and dog; for the former is inevitably intertwined with the love of the self while the latter is a selfless love. Perhaps if human beings could give up some bits of themselves or when they do not have much of themselves--as at the end of the novel when Tereza realizes her mistakes and when Thomas is too old to conquer for himself--they would love each other better and have moments of happiness. But by letting the two major protagonists die immediately after they reach this understanding, Kundera obviously refuses to build a kitsch of love in his book.

However, does love really have to be as Kundera portrays it? Are human beings indeed unable to make selfless, unconditional love? Are we indeed incapable of "delivering ourselves up to [a partner] demand-free and ask for nothing but his [or her] company (297)? I would like to give more positive answers to these questions.

Response 2

In K's view,love is a kitsch that we have to invent and reinvent to find meanings for life, which is of course the biggest kitsch--the denial of the shit of death. But what I want to know--and what I find lacking in the book--is that kitsch making does not necessarily lead to misery and destruction. True, no one can do anything about the final erasure, but the invention of love itself demonstrates the voluminous and volatile qualities of human intelligence; in its constant assertion of human contact, love has rendered void the final separation. Of course, love here should not be interpreted narrowly as simply the romantic relationship between man and woman but must include love of the self, which engenders love of the other and of the world in general. The fact that the love of the self is the most fundamental form of love does not necessarily lead to the concept of the world as a selfish crap; for in initiating and maintaining the circuit of love, it makes possible-however ironically--human contact, a fundamental triumph of life over death. In this sense, an old woman's resentment against her acquaintances dying on her is no longer an odd lady's funny babbling; it is also a poignant effort to reconnect the chain of human contact when death has broken it.

We need to value kitsch-making a bit more rather than taking it all negatively. Of course, not all kitsches are productive; some lead us directly to destruction, such as fascism. But kitsch-making itself should be taken as a trenchant sign of human intelligence.

思念 Si Nian

"Field [田]over heart [心] means remember,"
Writes Kimiko Hahn (CAP 178)
What about Nian [念}]
Can we say "Today [今] over heart means remember," too?

Really really Si is nothing than
Fill your heart with memories of a closed world that
You do not remember there is an outside that knows no boundaries

Nian is to let today weigh so much on your heart that you forget
There is something called succession.

Succession? Succession?

Drop the heart,and you win the day.

Parallel Lines

What would you say if we
Remain two parallel lines
Never crossing we stay in each other’s view
Point blank, heart to heart?

No, No, No, you say
It is cruel.

Yes, yes, I agree
I know that longing
Love’s magic power of drawing
Two lines to melt in hearts’ popping

But you know and me and then
And then no more no more
Happily ever after we shall see
White despair in between
And yet a moth I’d like to
Be in your light and die.