Farewell to the waltz

Author: Milan Kundera
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-04-01
Features: In a sense, this book can almost be called the author's most cherished novel. Like The Laughing Love, the author found it incredibly amusing to write, more entertaining than any other novel. It's a different state of mind. Great European novels are a form of diversion, and all true novelists cherish this aspect! Yet diversion does not exclude gravity. In this book, the author grapples with a question: Is humanity worthy of surviving on Earth? Shouldn't we "free the Earth from the claws of humanity"? Combining exceptionally heavy questions with exceptionally light forms has always been the author's ambition. This is not merely an artistic ambition. The juxtaposition of light form and heavy themes reveals the utter meaninglessness of our human drama—everything that unfolds in our beds is as meaningless as the performances we stage on the historical stage—and to an alarming degree.