the festival of insignificance. milan kundera. (303)

i checked out the festival of insignificance because its the first book that milan kundera has written in 6 years, i think.  i don't know it's been a while, so i decided to check it out.  i did reread the unbearable lightness of being in anticipation.  and just like i felt that i wasn't intelligent enough to completely grasp how wonderful unbearable is, i was definitely not intelligent enough to get this book.  i mean there was a bit about stalin and one of his guys that was old and wet his pants.  there were four friends.  there was musings on women's body parts being sexy and what that had to say about the era (i thought that was quite witty).  there was a future mother that drowned a man when she tried to commit suicide because she was pregnant, this was a complete shock to me.  there was an actor who made up his own language.  a man that lied about having cancer.  a mother, who was an angel, that passed away.  there was an absent mother.  there was talk about a play that completely theoretical, i liked that talk.  but all in all there wasn't too much cohesiveness to make this a full story for me.

i did google afterwards to help myself understand it more.  also to see that hopefully i wasn't an idiot, but i did find one guy that was just as confused as i was.  and he loved kundera.  his article was good.  you should read it, it is better than any review, i would write.  you can read that article here.

i mean there were some deep little musings that i enjoyed.  the one how women like men that do not overwhelm them with flirting, because it causes them too much pressure to perform, instead we like men that seem to ignore us because its the insignificance that sets us free.

i liked the talking about lines.  because i hate lines at museums, though i always find myself in them.  i absolutely hate how people will wait in a line to see artwork, i purposely bounce around when i see this happen in hopes that people will follow suite.

the idea of apologizers was interesting to think about since i am one.  a boy i once dated pointed out how i always said i was sorry for things when there was nothing to be sorry for, but i did it out of habit/reflex.  who knows why.  though amy schumer has this great skit about it just being in women's nature to apologize because of society.  though the apologizers in kundera's work were both men.  and i do agree that apologizing does make you the scapegoat for things when you did nothing wrong and just say it.  but i do agree with charles that i would like a world filled with people who apologized versus not.

i also liked that mom's rant on human rights.

all in all this book felt insignificant and maybe that was point.  maybe kundera wrote this book just to get out random little thoughts and made it a quick read to demonstrate how the thoughts we think are insignificant.  they are best when in discussion but when they stop being part of our dialogue, they use their meaning.

oh and i didn't really get that whole play thing in the end. i don't know.  read this if you want, it's short, but really in comparison to his other works it seems insignificant.