Life Is Elsewhere

Fidel Castro and his bearded men charged down out of the Sierra Maestra and paraded victorious through the streets of Havana to delirious cheers of adoring crowds. Mao Tsetung arrived with his vast armies at Beijing and declared that "China had stood up". The `Internationale' played and a brave new world began. We dreamed we would change the world as youths, we might die for a great cause, we yelled at barricades (of whatever material-or perhaps they were intangible) and loved with the passions of the times. Repression of anybody (except "the exploiters") never appeared on the cards, no, it was freedom in the air. Hasn't this atmosphere repeated itself time and time again, across the globe ? And there's always a poet or two to inscribe glorious verses on the stones of History. Byron, Mayakovsky, Rimbaud, Marti, Rizal. But what if `the Revolution' ushers in a period of less freedom, greater oppression, and wider stupidity that leads to mass fatalities ? Then what kind of poet would you need ? Well, what kind do you get ? Artists who paint girl + tractor. Novelists who write books called "Cement". And poets like Jaromil, the subject of this great novel. Fidel called the people who fled the new Cuba "gusanos" or worms. Reading Kundera's novel about Czechoslovakia, you feel strongly that the gusanos remained and cooperated, wrote poetry in praise of the unpraise-able. Or, maybe there's a global glut of gusanos. Maybe a gusano poet is about as necessary as wings on a turtle.OK, this novel is a fictional biography of a very weedy mama's boy who remains naïve, protected and innocent despite everything that happens around him, even the death of his father in a concentration camp. The world around the main characters, the society at large, remain pale and nearly invisible. He (and we) really see nobody except his mother---his loves are extensions of his ego, his poetry or paintings the same. Dreams and fantasy are his stock in trade, his alter-ego jumps in and out of beds, while Jaromil stews. All is self-absorption. In modern America, the poet would be called a "dweeb". We have to laugh at Jaromil or scorn him. LIFE IS ELSEWHERE is a satire that concentrates on unpleasant aspects of the human condition so well that you cringe time and time again. Kundera spares no one, not his main character and certainly not his readers. Jaromil is surrounded, as the author says, with a wall of mirrors, and cannot see beyond. We look into our own mirrors as we read. It's doubtful that we admire the reflections. The basic themes are human nature, art and literature in society, and the sad tribulations of a small nation. Kundera, like Brazil's Machado de Assis, cuts his books up into extremely small chapters, which is an effective tool in expert hands. Each one makes a point, introduces an irony, or engages in new soul-searching. The plot of LIFE IS ELSEWHERE is minor; it is the process of writing and thinking about the issues that counts.

This book will open the doors to the mind of an artist. It puts into words so many feelings that artists across the world are borned with. It is delightful reading, the way only Kundera makes possible! This novel will wrap you, touch your heart and surprise you with its unexpected conclusion.

Milan Kundera's novel, Life is Elsewhere revolves around the principle that in a society with strict rules, a poet risks betraying his lyricism. In expounding his theme, Kundera describes the life of his protagonist, Jaromil, from birth to death. Jaromil misreads the liberty previous poets such as Shelley, Mayakovsky and Rimbaud have taken with their own creations and proceeds to apply those own (misread) liberties to himself."Lyric poets generally come from homes run by women," Kundera tells us. And, as if to prove himself correct, Jaromil, too, comes from a home run by a woman--his mother. Jaromil's mother, however, is a monster of deceptive affections and she deliberately leads poor Jaromil so far astray that he comes to believe he truly does possess the gifts his mother assigns to him and that he is "one of the elect," destined for greatness. Jaromil, meanwhile is wretchedly inadequate and soulless to the core. But before condemning his poor mother, the reader should realize that her penchant for making Jaromil's childish utterances into the stuff of Blakean bon mots is not only a defensible argument against romanticism, it is also the best thing in this book.Kundera lets us know repeatedly that Jaromil is a pariah. But he also invests his protagonist with enough of Byron's charm to let us forgive him his flights of fancy and fantasy. Kundera sees fit to involve Jaromil with that one group of people who are even easier to poke fun at than poets--politicians. The politician's power, however, can be real, while the poor poet's is forever imagined, even in the best of cases. And, while Rimbaud saw fit to rid himself of both poetry and the politics behind poetry, Jaromil never takes that step no matter how much Kundera pushes him.This is, perhaps, Kundera's most elastic novel, forging ahead while also expanding in every other direction. It is also hilariously funny. While not possessing the classic endurance of Laughable Loves or The Joke, Life is Elsewhere is still classic Kundera and well worth anyone's investment.

This is Kundera's most harrowing book because his hero is a monster. He doesn't mean to be a monster, of course. He is Jaromil, a dreamy young man who only wants to write lyric poetry. But this is Czechoslovakia, 1948 and the Communists are about to seize power. And they know how to make use of a well-meaning young naif like Jaromil who will end up writing propaganda and betraying his friends to the secret police. Kundera is ruthlessly funny about the kind of sentimentality that ends up serving totalitarian ends. A French critic wrote that "Life is Elsewhere" is "the strongest work ever written against poetry." I would amend that to say it's the one of the strongest books ever written against *Romanticism*. Kundera is completely unenthralled by Utopia. He's seen too many people sent to the gulag in the name of the perfect society. A thrilling, essential novel.

Kundera's study of a young poet is both funny and deeply jarring as he turns his insightful eye against myths which not only his characters hold to be true, but most of us outside the book as well. Following the poet from conception to death, Kundera weaves a narrative that begins in comedy and ends in tragedy. He also cleverly weaves in stories of other lyric poets, including Shelley, Rimbaud, and the Czech poet Jiri Orten. This is a wonderful story that is about poetry, but also about changing in a changing world as well.