List Based On Books Life is Elsewhere
| Title | : | Life is Elsewhere |
| Author | : | Milan Kundera |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Deluxe Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 432 pages |
| Published | : | July 25th 2000 by Harper Perennial (first published 1973) |
| Categories | : | Fiction. European Literature. Czech Literature. Literature. Novels |
Milan Kundera
Paperback | Pages: 432 pages Rating: 3.95 | 14244 Users | 781 Reviews
Relation In Pursuance Of Books Life is Elsewhere
Kundera initially intended to call this novel The Lyrical Age. The lyrical age, according to Kundera, is youth, and this novel, above all, is an epic of adolescence; an ironic epic that tenderly erodes sacrosanct values: childhood, motherhood, revolution, and even poetry. Jaromil is in fact a poet. His mother made him a poet and accompanies him (figuratively) to his love bed, and (literally) to his deathbed. A ridiculous and touching character, horrifying and totally innocent ("innocence with its bloody smile"!), Jaromil is at the same time a true poet. He's no creep, he's Rimbaud. Rimbaud entrapped by the communist revolution, entrapped in a sombre farce.Point Books During Life is Elsewhere
| Original Title: | Život je jinde |
| ISBN: | 0060997028 (ISBN13: 9780060997021) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Characters: | Jaromil |
| Literary Awards: | Prix Médicis Etranger (1973), National Book Award Finalist for Translation (1975) |
Rating Based On Books Life is Elsewhere
Ratings: 3.95 From 14244 Users | 781 ReviewsWeigh Up Based On Books Life is Elsewhere
I don't know what it is exactly that makes me want to write my first ever review on Goodreads after reading this novel, and yet, after reading it, I know it is impossible to simply let it go. So here goes...Every time I pick up a Kundera novel I'm certain that I am either going to love or hate the novel. This one, within the first few pages, convinced me that I was going to hate it. After forty pages I despised it. The lead character is a self-centered sorry excuse of a human being, who has noI can's really say anything bad about this book, it was really great and great all the way through. Not much dialogue (like his other books) but it really doesn't matter. Kundera is a writer that I feel like i should of read a lot more of by now.
Life is Elsewhere is Kunderas brazen send-up of the world of poetry, particularly the world of poets who involve themselves with politics. It follows in the tradition of the nineteenth century novel where your given the main characters life from birth onwards, although it does cut out portions, a la A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. The main character is Jaromil, a man who has a painfully awkward childhood (complete with a few hysterically funny scenes) who grows up to believe hes
I so want to write a review for this book as it's sooo good. If only I could find a bit of time for writing these days! I hope I will before I start to forget what I want to write.
You think that just because it's already happened, the past is finished and unchangeable? Oh no, the past is cloaked in multicolored taffeta and every time we look at it we see a different hue. Life is Elsewhere is Kundera's parody of youth and adolescence. It ridicules the ego of young artists and makes a folly out of sanctified values of the time: motherhood, poetry, revolution, nationalism. Don't get me wrong: Kundera will never sound that harsh, he puts forward his satire with tenderness
Because real life is elsewhere. The students are tearing up the cobblestones, overturning cars, building barricades; their irruption into the world is beautiful and noisy, illuminated by flames and greeted by explosions of tear-gas grenades. How much more painful was the lot of Rimbaud, who dreamed about the barricades of the Paris Commune and never got to it from Charleville. But in 1968 thousands of Rimbauds have their own barricades, behind which they stand and refuse any compromise with the
I always find it hard to accurately appraise books whose protagonists I hate. Both Jaromil and his mother are small and odious, and my distaste is magnified by the fact that Jaromil is a character whom, if portrayed through a different narratorial lens, I likely would have loved. Thats the point of this book, though, a biting and deeply effective critique of the lyrical poet and often Kundera seamlessly transitions into speaking of Hugo and Rimbaud and Pushkin in the same breath (and indeed
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