The book of laughter and forgetting by Kundera Milan

Author:Kundera, Milan
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Publisher: Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England ; New York, N.Y., U.S.A. : Penguin Books
Published: 1981-07-30T16:00:00+00:00

Since revenge can never reveal its true motivation (the student can't tell the girl he slapped her because she swam too fast), it must plead false ones. In other words, litost is unthinkable without a kind of passionate hypocrisy: the young man proclaims he was frantic at the thought of his girl drowning, and the child plays agonizingly off-key, feigning hopeless ineptitude.

I was originally going to call this chapter Who Is the Student? But even if it now deals with the emotion I call litost, it still is very much about the student as well. In fact, the student represents litost incarnate. No wonder the girl he was in love with finally left him. There is nothing particularly pleasant about having your face slapped for knowing how to swim.

The butcher's wife from his hometown entered his life in the form of a giant-sized bandage ready-made for his wounds. She admired him, worshiped him. When he talked to her about Schopenhauer, she never tried to make her own independent personality felt by raising objections (as did the girlfriend of inglorious memory); and when she looked at him, he was so moved by her emotion he seemed to see tears welling up in her eyes. We must also bear in mind that he had not made love since breaking up with his girlfriend.

Who Is Voltaire?

Voltaire is a lecturer at the university, a witty and aggressive young man whose eyes glare maliciously into the faces of his adversaries—reason enough for his nickname.

He liked the student, which was no mean distinction; he was very particular about the company he kept. One day, after a seminar, he went up to the student and asked if he was free the following evening. Too bad, the very time Kristyna was due to arrive. It took the student all the courage he could muster to tell Voltaire he was busy. But Voltaire wouldn't hear of it. "You can put it off, can't you?

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