So I've been reading Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being, despite the fact that I have many pressing assignments breathing down my neck. Thus far, it has been exactly my kind of read: philosophical yet simple, artistic yet base. A study in contradictions.
Still, I've read a number of books in this vein. I always enjoy them, but generally lack someone to share them with. I'm left reading myriad passages aloud to my patient mother, who does not love the prose, but the reader.
Not this time! When I first opened the book, which I ordered on Amazon.com (used), I was thrilled to find that its previous owner had written in it. Certainly I'm not the only nerd out there! At least one of you has to love finding traces of another reader. (Don't be shy!)
Anyway, there wasn't anything special on those pages, aside from the occasional underline or check beside the text, both of which could be found throughout the text.
I continued reading, making note of check marks and underlining whenever I came across them, but not really thinking all that much about them. Then I came upon this page:
So at this point in the story, the narrator is describing one of the main characters and said character's inability to stay faithful to his wife. It is all couched in rather sympathetic terms, as though we the readers should feel sorry for Tomas in all of his debauched glory.
In response to this, my doppel-reader wrote, "What an ass!" in the margin. At first, I simply laughed because this reader, who I presume is female, wrote what most people were probably thinking. Not only that, I was able to share the text with someone else (an unknown someone else) without having to explain the first thing about the book. It was like finding a ready-made companion.
Now that's all well and good, but then I realized something: I actually hadn't been thinking that. Because this entire portion of the text (which moves from one character to another) was devoted to Tomas, I found myself actually sympathizing with him, as opposed to his wronged and miserable wife, Tereza. As much as I hate to admit it, I was entirely wrapped up in the artsy nature of the novel, and, as a result, willing to forgive all number of transgressions committed by the pathetically flawed main character.
Thank God for doppel-reader! Her cursive wit brought me out of the land of the novel and back into reality, where cheating is wrong and that's that. In real life, I would never have empathized with the narrator's flimsy defense of Tomas; but alone and buried in a world created by Milan Kundera, I found myself playing by his rules.
I don't believe that I have a tight conclusion for this piece. Instead, I'll simply say that I learned two things. First, a book is always better shared. And second? Well, the written word is more powerful than most people realize.
