"The Unbearable Lightness of Being" - Milan Kundera

Published in 1984 by Harper & Row

Following the stories of two couples, intertwined by a 20 year dalliance.  We are introduced to a world where it is not weight but lightness that is the most difficult to bear.  Tomas is married to Tereza, she is young and helpless and every time he sleeps with a new woman it kills her inside.  His longtime lover Sabina is her opposite   Impulsive, carefree and open to everything with no guilt holding her back.  And last there is Franz, a teacher who meets and falls in love with Sabina, even when they are no longer together he still thinks of her and wishes she could be by his side.

There is a lot of war, sex, secret police, death, and talk of bowler hats as well.

Quotes:
"Vertigo is something other than the fear of falling.  It is the voice of the emptiness below us which tempts and lures us, it is the desire to fall, against which, terrified we defend ourselves."

"Culture is perishing in overproduction, in an avalanche of words, in the madness of quantity."

"Only the most naive of questions are truly serious.  They are the questions with no answers.  A question with no answer is a barrier that cannon be breached   In other words, it is questions with no answers that set the limits of human possibilities, describe the boundaries of human existence.

Rating: ***

"Slaughterhouse Five" - Kurt Vonnegut

Published in 1969 originally, 2009 by Dial Press


recognized as one of the most influential anti-war books of all time, Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse 5" is a trippy book.  It explores war, free will, fate, love, paranormal activity, and weaves in historical events the entire time.  Vonnegut tells the tale of Billy Pilgrim, a young man who doesn't particularly believe in war and continuously asks to be left behind to die.  He is able to become unstuck from time and can see different points of his life throughout the story.  We are lead through his time before the bombing of Dresden, his boring married life after the war, time spent on an extraterrestrial planet called Tralfamadore, his death, and some other events.


Personally, I enjoyed this book, not in the way people are supposed to appreciate and love classics.  I can't see this ever becoming my favorite book of all time, but I did really like the writing style the ideas were all solidly put together to create a nice mesh of historically accurate sci-fi.


Quotes:
""Would you talk about the war now, if I wanted you to?" said Valencia. In a tiny cavity in her great body she was assembling the materials for a Green Beret.
"It would sound like a dream," said Billy. "Other people's dreams aren't very interesting, usually." 


Rating: ****