Kundera, Milan. Immortality. New York: Harper Perennial Modern Classic, 1999.
This was an odd book that I have to admit I gave up on. Similar to other books with magical realism, Immortality was a book I had little patience for.
It starts off beautifully. The narrator is poolside, watching an older woman make a playful, girlish, and even flirty gesture to her swim instructor as she is leaving. Watching her act so young, so unaware of her actual age prompts the narrator to ponder ageism and what it would mean to be truly ageless. From there the novel meanders through fact and fiction, weaving real historical figures like Goethe and Hemingway with fictional ones like the woman from the pool, Agnes. Kundera’s writing breaks boundaries because the style is a conversation with the reader, a philosophical journey through topics like relationships, sex and of course, immortality.
Author Fact: Kundera is a Czechoslovakian writer who was stripped of his citizenship in 1979 after moving to France. He became a french citizen a few years later.
BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter simply called “Magical Realism” (p 148).
~*LunaSea*~ 