
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Richmond Hoxie
About this listen
Rich in its stories, characters, and imaginative range, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting is the novel that brought Milan Kundera his first big international success in the late 1970s. Like all his work, it is valuable for far more than its historical implications. In seven wonderfully integrated parts, different aspects of human existence are magnified and reduced, reordered and emphasized, newly examined, analyzed, and experienced.
©1978 Milan Kundera; translation copyright 1996, Aaron Asher (P)2012 HarperCollinsPublishersListeners also enjoyed...
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Milan Kundera is a master of graceful illusion and illuminating surprise. In one of these stories a young man and his girlfriend pretend that she is a stranger he picked up on the road - only to become strangers to each other in reality as their game proceeds. In another a teacher fakes piety in order to seduce a devout girl, then jilts her and yearns for God. In yet another girls wait in bars, on beaches, and on station platforms for the same lover, a middle-aged Don Juan who has gone home to his wife.
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-
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Well done
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eh
- By Amazon Customer on 02-18-25
By: Milan Kundera, and others
Brilliant but/and complex,
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3.5 stars. I'm aware this is a philosophical novel, important in criticizing the Czech communist regime then in power and, indeed, resulted in that regime's revocation of Kundera's citizenship.
Nonetheless, I cannot in good conscience give a novel 4 or 5 stars on that basis when I dislike the type of author interactivity in a work of fiction that pervades this "novel." That is to say, I have a hard time reading as a story, i.e., enjoying or being vivified by a fictional narrative in which the author repeatedly reminds me that he is making it all up, such as saying why he picked out this name or that and why he decided the character would take off her clothes in a public place or make whoopee with the protagonist or go to an island of misfit 12 year old boys, be made to disrobe then be touched repeatedly and privately as a kind of gross anti-goddess.
Too Much Authorial Prodding
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Kundera Never Disappoints.
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Mostly Forgetting....
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This was my first and I found the characters to share a lot of those weird thoughts we all have that don't share.
Thoroughly enjoyed
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A well-lubricated orgy of ideas
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Where does The Book of Laughter and Forgetting rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
I love Milan Kundera. Love, love love.I'll admit this book is a bit choppy, not your typical novel, a bit heady over hearty.
But that's why it's my favorite of his books, and it was great to hear life breathed into it by Richmond Hoxie.
What other book might you compare The Book of Laughter and Forgetting to and why?
If you liked this you'll love The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Immortality, or Farewell Waltz - some of Kundera's more approachable works.But for me, this one is tops.
Kundera Masterpiece
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Lots of history
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Surprisingly boring, poorly written (stiff), imitative of other authors, pretentious.
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Dull and confusing
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