Sex, Solitude, and a Side of Nietzsche: Making Sense of The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being is a novel that deals with such weighty topics that it almost feels ironic to handle them with a title so buoyant as ‘lightness.’ This text floats through philosophy, politics, love, and betrayal with the kind of existential pondering usually reserved for lonely people in cafes at 2am. It’s a book that demands its readers wrestle with both Friedrich Nietzsche and a laundry list of complicated interpersonal relationships, forcing us to question if our life choices are as heavy as we imagine, or if they’re mere flickers in the cosmic theatre.

At its core, it’s less a story than it is an existentialist inquiry wrapped around a set of particularly messy romantic entanglements. Kundera uses four main characters – Tomas, Tereza, Sabina, and Franz – as metaphysical test subjects, dissecting them on a table of philosophical speculation. Kundera seems obsessed with the idea that the choices we make are essentially meaningless because they are unrepeated and unrevisitable; life, he asserts, has no “dress rehearsal.” Tomas, the philandering surgeon who seems to pursue as many women as he does philosophies, embodies Kundera’s idea of lightness. His promiscuous approach to life suggests that none of his actions will have lasting consequences, despite Tereza’s palpable need to ground him, adding the requisite weight to his existence.

And let’s talk about Tomas. Kundera presents him as the novel’s philosophising womaniser – a character who might as well be given a PhD in epistemology and a restraining order by the women in his life. He’s a walking contradiction, an intellectual who is emotionally allergic to commitment but cannot resist a cerebral conversation (or an attractive companion). He’s the embodiment of Kundera’s philosophy, taking life as it comes, unbothered by the lingering discontent he leaves in his wake. Tomas could be an insufferable character if his struggles weren’t so relatable, though; who hasn’t at some point wondered whether the pursuit of intellectual freedom could somehow excuse a little personal messiness? If we’re being honest, Tomas is like an overzealous philosophy grad student who read Nietzsche once and decided that he could outsmart life itself.

Tereza, on the other hand, is not as carefree. She is fragile, burdened by an acute sense of permanence and purpose. Her love for Tomas is an unyielding force, a weight that she believes gives her life meaning. And yet, her relationship with Tomas seems to exist solely to prove Kundera’s theories: that love, while adding heft to one’s soul, is not necessarily meaningful or fulfilling. Poor Tereza is like a tragic Shakespearean heroine trapped in a French New Wave film. She longs for depth in a man who prefers to stay skimming across the surface. Her love for Tomas, and her struggle with fidelity, feels like a literal weight dragging her down – never more symbolically than when she attempts to drown herself in a literal lake.

Then there’s Sabina, an artist whose paintings are just as opaque as her morals, and Franz, a professor of questionable impulse control. These two enter the story as philosophical foils to Tomas and Tereza, adding a little depth to the conceptual playground Kundera has set up. Sabina flits between love affairs and political betrayals, symbolising the so-called lightness Tomas believes in, while Franz romanticises struggle to the point of almost caricature, pursuing idealism with such intensity that one wonders if he’s trying to win an award for Most Earnest Human. Franz’s downfall isn’t even ironic; it’s simply sad. He walks into political conflict with a naive heroism that Kundera almost laughs at, as though idealism itself is a liability.

Kundera, as a narrator, doesn’t particularly help matters. In fact, he has a penchant for butting in like a dinner guest who keeps steering the conversation back to his favourite philosopher. He’ll let Tomas and Tereza work through a tense moment, only to stop the narrative cold and tell us about Nietzsche’s theory of eternal recurrence. Kundera almost seems to enjoy the idea that life is best explained not through characters’ actions, but through abstract thought experiments that intersect briefly with their lives. He’s practically delighted by the notion that nothing matters, though he argues the point with the urgency of a man trying to win a very long debate against himself.

And here lies Kundera’s triumph – and his flaw. The Unbearable Lightness of Being can often feel like an extended philosophical monologue masquerading as a novel. Kundera is less interested in the texture of his characters’ lives than he is in making an argument about the human condition. Characters here aren’t fully fleshed people, but philosophical stand-ins, mouthpieces for Kundera’s latest rumination on existence. It’s a love story in the same way a map is an adventure: all the details are there, but they’re overshadowed by an intellectual agenda so heavy it might as well have Nietzsche as a ghostwriter.

However, despite all its abstractions, this work is oddly enjoyable – especially if you like your novels with a side of angst and introspection. It’s the sort of book you can read on a rainy day, then stare into the middle distance, wondering if you, too, are a Tereza trying to make a home with a Tomas. Kundera’s skill lies in the fact that he’s fully aware of the absurdity of his own premises, and he’s in on the joke. He realises that his characters, in their struggles to find meaning, often become so philosophically lost that they mirror the very existential absurdity he’s trying to unpack.

If anything, the novel should come with a disclaimer: don’t read this if you’re already feeling too existential. Or maybe do read it, if you need company in the wilderness of your own overthinking. Kundera, for all his existential despair, offers a bleak humour in the absurdity of it all. There’s something refreshingly honest about his refusal to offer redemption, as if he’s saying, “See? Nobody has the answers.” And if nothing else, The Unbearable Lightness of Being is a comforting reminder that maybe, just maybe, it’s okay not to have it all figured out.