Identity

Milan Kundera published Identity (L'Identité) after moving to France from Czechoslovakia in 1975. Kundera is perhaps best known for his 1984 novel, The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Two things make Identity unique. It is arguably the most traditional novel Kundera has written to date, and at 176 pages in length, it is also among his shortest works. It tells the simple story of a recently divorced ad executive, Chantal, who meets her younger lover, Jean-Marc at a seaside hotel. While Chantal is out walking, Jean-Marc searches for her. She wonders why "men don't turn to look at [her] anymore," contemplating the possibility that she is now too old to be considered attractive by other men. She defines herself through the perceptions of others, until she begins receiving love notes from an anonymous admirer. Chantal hides the letters from Jean-Marc and fantasizes about each new man she encounters, wondering if he is her secret admirer. The two protagonists reveal Kundera's brilliant mind at work in contemplating whether it is ever possible to know the intimate object of one's love, further complicated by the impermanent nature of identity. While Identity may not be Kundera at his best (for that, read The Unbearable Lightness of Being), it is nevertheless worth the investment of an afternoon or late night reading a short novel by a truly unique writer. Trust me. Even when Kundera is not at his best, he is still better by far than other writers at their best. G. Merritt

What is human identity? How can such an intangible concept be preserved, manipulated, lost, developed, and fade all during a life time? Sounds like an absurd question in today's fast-paced world where we drown ourselves in formulaic self-help books, watch an endless succession of talk-shows and other people's realities and even hire so-called "life coaches" to help us cope with our own existence. And yet, when reading Milan Kundera's "Identity", one starts to wonder that perhaps people need to have more questions to ponder, without being so needy about the answers...? The story about the two lovers, Chantal and Jean-Marc, starts out on the Normandy coast. We gradually get glimpses into their respective ponderings about their own identity. Chantal is startled to discover that "men don't look at her anymore" - a realization that causes her to explore why that is so important to her - especially since she has the most devoted lover she could wish for. Meanwhile, while visiting a dying old friend, Jean Marc discovers that his friend viewed their friendship not so much a union of two different individuals, but more like a "mirror that reflects oneself". In both instances the characters start questioning their own identity as it is perceived by others, including each other, as well as to themselves. What follows is an engaging tale about how Chantal and Jean-Marc embarks on answering these and other related questions. And finally, true to form, Kundera twists the story to focus on us - the readers. We are challenged to ponder not only the factual events of the story, but also whether we need to have all the answers instead of the more ethereal questions. If you are already a Kundera fan, I predict you will embrace this delightful novella. However, if you are reading Kundera for the first time, you might want to get aquainted with some of his earlier works first (I recommend "Life is Elsewhwere" or "The Unbearable Lightness of Being") in order to get a deeper appreciation for the unique literary tradition Kudera presents us.

HOW INFREQUENT it is to understand you share a tiny portion of time in history with someone so substantial; so outstanding above all others in a the similar craft. Milan Kunera is why - in a pocketbook sense - I read; and he, his works then, this, and those to come are the very best answer I have when some lover of writing tells me that our days are too short; and world history too immense to spend any of our time reading literature.I CAN NOT (and wouldn't if I could) tell you WHY Identity is worth of a read. If you've ever bumped-up against Kundera by choice or college coercion, this small work is part of his best; certainly the best since ULB - and that's all you will need to know. If you are part of that crowd, I can guess only that its smallness is why you've not yet read the book.SOMEWHERE BETWEEN Pynchon's Mason & Dixon and Wolfe's Man in Full this one missed my attention. That was my fault, and that was my loss until yesterday. the Teddy Rex diptych by Edmund Morris was well-made and properly presented;--grand and loud. This tiny offering from Milan Kundera trumps it.IF YOU HAVE NEVER read Milan Kundera, begin here and you shall begin a never affection for literature. The work is his latest; certainly one of his greatest, and there are many great works that came before it. With the shelves of fiction weighted with so much rubbish here is something so poetic in presentation, beautiful in truth, that it almost makes up for the last 50 years.Note: Mr. & Mrs. Hollywood, please stay clear of this work.

Czech-born Milan Kundera now lives in Paris and writes in French. His characters, not unnaturally, live there as well. Unlike their creator, however, they are not immigrants. Their Frenchness is total. They speak like rive gauche intellectuals and could easily be the protagonists of one of Eric Rohmer's Contes moraux.Their behavior, however, sometimes suggests that they have lived lives elsewhere. For the characters in Identity, one of the best of Kundera's many novels, seem to echo a couple portrayed in one of his early short stories, one called "The Hitchhiking Game," and written in Czech while Kundera was still living in Brno.In "The Hitchhiking Game," a young couple becomes engrossed in a case of lost-and-found identity while playing a flirtatious game. In the end, the girl cries out, "I am me, I am me, I am me." And the reader is left to wonder just who "me" might really be.Chantal, the female protagonist of Identity is the above-mentioned girl's soul sister. Discomfited by blushing during adolescence, Chantal is now at an age where she is facing menopause, and the blushes have returned to haunt her, this time in the form of hot flushes. Hot flushes, however, are the least of Chantal's worries.When she becomes fearful that men are no longing pining for her from afar, her lover, Jean-Marc begins to send her a series of unsigned love letters. This ludicrous gesture, although well-intentioned, leads to an inevitable crisis as Jean-Marc finds himself the engineer of his own undoing.In Jean-Marc's mind, Chantal no longer makes love to him, but to that unknown other, Jean-Marc's own alter ego, his other self. For her part, Chantal does, indeed, try to conjure up, at crucial moments, that hidden admirer...until she deduces the true writer of the letters. This revelation, of course, leads to further complications as Chantal mistakenly assumes her fidelity is being tested.Every move in Identity, as in Kundera's other novels, has ironic consequences and every ironic consequence is precisely delineated. As perceptions change, so do identities, although we are not always sure from what, to what. Jean-Marc, observing how Chantal's entire personality changes when she enters the advertising agency where she works is forced to wonder which of her masks is the real one; the public one or the private?The ad agency itself, is run by a charismatic charlatan named Leroy, a man of no fixed principle. He preaches that the only duty of mankind is to provide flesh for the deity, therefore lovemaking is a religious duty.The agency, with its zealous exclusivity, hints at the mindless dedication demanded by Communism (described as the laughter of angels in The Book of Laughter and Forgetting). Without meaning to do so, Jean-Marc, himself, colludes in this perilous game of amnesia, having absolutely no curiosity about Chantal's previous existence as as wife and the mother of a now-deceased child.In Kundera's novels, people are usually crossing a boundary

I've read all of Milan Kundera's novels twice--except my least favorite, "Life is Elsewhere". The second reading of "The Joke" and "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" improved them, but the second reading of "Identity" improved "Identity" especially. Buy this book. If you aren't moved, put it aside for a year then read it again. (If the ending puzzles you, reread it slowly and carefully, remembering there is nothing to "get": Milan Kundera is always lucid and plain-spoken.)Also recommended: PENTATONIC SCALES FOR THE JAZZ-ROCK KEYBOARDIST by Jeff Burns.