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Farewell Waltz: A Novel
by: Milan Kundera

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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 891.86354
EAN: 9780060997007
ISBN: 0060997001
Label: Harper Perennial
Manufacturer: Harper Perennial
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 288
Publication Date: May 13, 1998
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Release Date: April 21, 1998
Sales Rank: 353760
Studio: Harper Perennial

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Editorial Review:

Product Description:
'It is hard to imagine anything more chilling and profound than Kundera's apparent lightheartedness.''Elizabeth PochodaIN this dark farce of a novel, set in an old-fashioned Central Euroepean spa town, eight characters are swept up in an accelerating dance: a pretty nurse and her repairman boyfriend; an oddball gynecologist; a rich Amrican (at once saint and Don Juan); a popular trumpeter and his beautiful, obsessively jealous wife; an unillusioned former political prisoner about to leave his country and his young woman ward.Perhaps the most brilliantly plotted and sheerly entertaining of Milan Kundera's novels, Farewell Waltz poses the most serious questions with a blasphemous lightness that makes us see that the modern world has deprived us even of the right to tragedy.Written in Bohemia in 1969-70, this book was first published (in 1976) in France under the title La valse aux adieux (Farewell Waltz), and later in thirty-four other countries. This beautiful new translation, made from the French text prepared by the novelist himself, fully reflects his own tone and intentions. As such it offers an opportunity for both the discovery and the rediscovery of one of the very best of a great writer's works.'Kundera remains faithful to this subtle, wily, devious talent for a fiction of `erotic possibilities.' ''New York Times Book Review'Farewell Waltz shocks. Black humor. Farcical ferocity. Admirably tender portraits of women.' 'Le Point (Paris)'After Farewell Waltz there cannot be any doubt. Kundera is a master of contemporary literature. This novel is both an example of virtuosity and a descent into the human soul.''L'Unit, (Paris)

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- Farewell Schmaltz: Square Dancing Around Nihilism in a Bowler Hat-- Cane Handy, Pinky High and Chin Raised.
Summary: Pietistic Nihilism, Subtle Narcism, Soap Opera Discourse.

The story is simple soap opera fare. The characters are poorly dissimulated (that is, articulated) doppelgangers of the author. The product (a labour of ego, i.e. masturbation) is a sort of vain self-referential humor (cynicism in tartuffe airs) that seduces the reader into an alliance with the narrator(s) (Kundera) against the more or less superficial subjective reflections (Kundera) on the part of the personalities concerned (again, Kundera). The ignorant do not know: the stupid do not know they do not know. Kundera has here an expose of ignorance that is stupid-- it thinks it is 'art' being anti-art, but is merely a cipher of the culture it pretends to escape; the author is in a cave of modernity and gets off on leading others into a further permutation of it and what makes it radically evil is that he pretends to show you the way ... Read More

Rating:

- Worse than disappointing
This is the third of Kundera's books I have read and by far my least favorite. I had previously read The Unbearable Lightness of Being and Immortality. I loved the former and really enjoyed the latter though with more than a little quarrel. Reading Farewell Waltz made all the problems I had with Immortality harder to dismiss.

First for all his "love" of women I cannot help but see him as a misogynist. Like the other books of his I read there is a fair amount dedicated to characters exposing their ideas. Only hear it is done more in dialogue than with an omniscient sounding narrator. And while the spa town is mostly filled mostly with women yet is is the male character who do most of the talking and always get the last word in the arguments. And of course they spend a lot of time talking a bout women and the reproductive cycle, while the female characters never express an opinion on these subjects. ... Read More

Rating:

- Enjoyable read from the profound Kundera.
Summary:
"[For] Kundera, the individual is the smallest cell of society, the object, not the subject of history." - Elisabeth Pochoda
In a small spa town, seven characters searching for happiness find themselves intertwined in a waltz orchestrated by Milan Kundera. In five days you will be introduced to, and discover, the secrets and desires of a pretty nurse (Ruzena), a suspicious boyfriend, a gynecologist, a rich American, a famous trumpeter and his obsessively jealous wife and a former political prisoner about to leave the country. How far will the characters go to fulfill their will? Human morality, responsibility, and quest for stability are held under scrutiny and explored in this wonderfully written book.

Thoughts:
Full of wit, charm, sudden revelations and memorable quotes, this book is a true enchantment to read, bringing you into the lives of all these characters. You'll wonder ... Read More

Rating:

- Not your average Kundera
It is true that 'Farewell Waltz' is among Kundera's lighter novels and does not pack as much of a philosophical punch as some of his other works. However this is not to say that it lacks the gifted Kunderian touch.

What Kundera presents us with here is an examination of the complications that can be encountered where matters of the heart are concerned. The characters of 'Farewell Waltz' are plagued with inconquerable passions, raging jealousies and, at times, appallingly shallow self-interestedness.
These potentially unpleasant characteristics however form a potent and entertaining mix for the reader, as well as a novel that is not short on depth and examinations of the emotional turmoil that the human mind is prone to.

Although the characters of this novel are somewhat more unpleasant than those in Kundera's other offerings. 'Farewell Waltz' is still a good read and an interesting aside ... Read More

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