this was an appropriate subway read, but would have been better with tea. for yearners everywhere.

I don't think this has any spoilers, but it might be a little obvious what I'm talking about, so I've marked it so.

Kundera took a wonderful premise and a cool and beautiful pair of characters and did some sort of literary origami. But too few folds. It didn't end with me thinking he had uncovered something about humanity, but instead with the feeling that he'd played out some weird wishful thinking.

Perhaps he knew someone like this. But saying that, don't make the mistake of thinking he knew them, not how they thought or felt, just that someone in his life had escaped him in the same way as in the story. And he still desired them upon writing this.

I'm left thinking that his little stage play here undermined and desecrated the woman involved. If there wasn't a woman involved in real life, it desecrated the character at any rate. Which is a shame. She needed fleshing out. She needed to be more than a strange gelatinous mass shaped by the men around her. Read it and you'll understand. Choosing what she did was not reclaiming herself. Not her powerful younger self. It was capitulation to a man who never matured.

Maybe I'm meant to feel this way. But I hazard to guess, I wasn't. It is still capable of expressing its ideas about the old moving to make room for the new. About the hope that exists in never giving in to life's ebb. And that what is lost can be reclaimed, if it is desired. But it comes down to the method of retrieval. It comes down to your victory over something not costing someone else their autonomy.

I recommend this story is read. It is worth reading. It's a fantastic story that ends so wrongly that it might act as a good lesson for writers. It's a stillbirth. And I'm a little devastated. It got me thinking though and that's worth the stars. Even its failings can't outweigh its positives.

weird and intriguing, catchy theme.