| Farewell Waltz: A Novel | 
 enlarge | Author: Milan Kundera
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Category: Book
List Price: $12.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  13 reviews
Sales Rank: 69915
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1st
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 288
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5.3 x 0.8
ISBN: 0060997001
Dewey Decimal Number: 891.86354
EAN: 9780060997007
ASIN: 0060997001
Publication Date: May 13, 1998
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Product Description
"It is hard to imagine anything more chilling and profound than Kundera's apparent lightheartedness."'Elizabeth PochodaIN this dark farce of a novel, set in an old-fashioned Central Euroepean spa town, eight characters are swept up in an accelerating dance: a pretty nurse and her repairman boyfriend; an oddball gynecologist; a rich Amrican (at once saint and Don Juan); a popular trumpeter and his beautiful, obsessively jealous wife; an unillusioned former political prisoner about to leave his country and his young woman ward.Perhaps the most brilliantly plotted and sheerly entertaining of Milan Kundera's novels, Farewell Waltz poses the most serious questions with a blasphemous lightness that makes us see that the modern world has deprived us even of the right to tragedy.Written in Bohemia in 1969-70, this book was first published (in 1976) in France under the title La valse aux adieux (Farewell Waltz), and later in thirty-four other countries. This beautiful new translation, made from the French text prepared by the novelist himself, fully reflects his own tone and intentions. As such it offers an opportunity for both the discovery and the rediscovery of one of the very best of a great writer's works."Kundera remains faithful to this subtle, wily, devious talent for a fiction of `erotic possibilities.' "'New York Times Book Review"Farewell Waltz shocks. Black humor. Farcical ferocity. Admirably tender portraits of women." 'Le Point (Paris)"After Farewell Waltz there cannot be any doubt. Kundera is a master of contemporary literature. This novel is both an example of virtuosity and a descent into the human soul."'L'Unit, (Paris)
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| Customer Reviews: Read 8 more reviews...
 Farewell Schmaltz: Square Dancing Around Nihilism in a Bowler Hat-- Cane Handy, Pinky High and Chin Raised. July 16, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Summary: Pietistic Nihilism, Subtle Narcism, Soap Opera Discourse.
The story is simple soap opera fare. The characters are poorly dissimulated (that is, articulated) doppelgangers of the author. The product (a labour of ego, i.e. masturbation) is a sort of vain self-referential humor (cynicism in tartuffe airs) that seduces the reader into an alliance with the narrator(s) (Kundera) against the more or less superficial subjective reflections (Kundera) on the part of the personalities concerned (again, Kundera). The ignorant do not know: the stupid do not know they do not know. Kundera has here an expose of ignorance that is stupid-- it thinks it is 'art' being anti-art, but is merely a cipher of the culture it pretends to escape; the author is in a cave of modernity and gets off on leading others into a further permutation of it and what makes it radically evil is that he pretends to show you the way out with facile threads of irony (admitting the spiral tangent it is).
This novel is not farce: it is all very calculated and nothing actually outlandish takes place. It is not satire either, because it fails to elucidate anything. It's not a parody, it parodies nothing except life because it must. As a reflection on the intransigence of Time and the senselessness of the acts by humans occurring in it, the novel succeeds only inasmuch as an image of a mirror of a mirror are shown to be mere anagrams of what is (a mirror) [This both is and should sound stupid.]. The problem: no one needs to be told this or read a book such as this to know/understand/experience what has just been described. It is one thing to laugh at the vanity of 'humanity' in the sense Schopenhauer meant (whom Kundera must be familiar with) but entirely another to laugh at one's vanity because one MUST laugh; is incontinence not the very essence of egoism?
The laughter is self-conscious and most of all, forgettable. --This is not a book of laughter and forgetting. It is a book to laugh at and forget. Everyone has better things to do and books to read than this cultured trash.
Worse than disappointing July 4, 2008
This is the third of Kundera's books I have read and by far my least favorite. I had previously read The Unbearable Lightness of Being and Immortality. I loved the former and really enjoyed the latter though with more than a little quarrel. Reading Farewell Waltz made all the problems I had with Immortality harder to dismiss.
First for all his "love" of women I cannot help but see him as a misogynist. Like the other books of his I read there is a fair amount dedicated to characters exposing their ideas. Only hear it is done more in dialogue than with an omniscient sounding narrator. And while the spa town is mostly filled mostly with women yet is is the male character who do most of the talking and always get the last word in the arguments. And of course they spend a lot of time talking a bout women and the reproductive cycle, while the female characters never express an opinion on these subjects.
Most of the women in the spa town are treated more en mass than as characters, while even the group of male pensioners who exist to capture dogs gets to have a more vocal reflection than any of the women. One of the main character's is a gynecologist named Dr. Skrata, who seems a beloved eccentric of the author's but his treatment of his patients is about as frightening as Jeremy Irons's twins in Dead Ringers. And as I said, based on the other reading of his I have done, I doubt Kundera is entirely in jest, if not completely out of it.
 Enjoyable read from the profound Kundera. June 9, 2007
Summary:
"[For] Kundera, the individual is the smallest cell of society, the object, not the subject of history." - Elisabeth Pochoda
In a small spa town, seven characters searching for happiness find themselves intertwined in a waltz orchestrated by Milan Kundera. In five days you will be introduced to, and discover, the secrets and desires of a pretty nurse (Ruzena), a suspicious boyfriend, a gynecologist, a rich American, a famous trumpeter and his obsessively jealous wife and a former political prisoner about to leave the country. How far will the characters go to fulfill their will? Human morality, responsibility, and quest for stability are held under scrutiny and explored in this wonderfully written book.
Thoughts:
Full of wit, charm, sudden revelations and memorable quotes, this book is a true enchantment to read, bringing you into the lives of all these characters. You'll wonder when and where their interaction will occur and once you discover it, you won't be able to stop reading on to wonder where the characters will go next. A wonderful read that will certainly become a favorite.
Memorable quotes (as I translated from the French):
"Aesthetic racism is almost always a mark of inexperience. [...] When God invited humanity to love and to reproduce, doctor, he was thinking of the ugly just as much as the handsome. I am thus convinced that aesthetic criticism comes not from God, but from the Devil. In heaven, no one distinguishes between ugliness and beauty."
"I say that maternity is a curse and I refuse to contribute in it."
"I know only one thing; that I could never say with total conviction that man is a wonderful being and I want to reproduce it."
Go out and pick up the book today. Delve into this wonderful work by Milan Kundera!
Not your average Kundera November 28, 2006
It is true that 'Farewell Waltz' is among Kundera's lighter novels and does not pack as much of a philosophical punch as some of his other works. However this is not to say that it lacks the gifted Kunderian touch.
What Kundera presents us with here is an examination of the complications that can be encountered where matters of the heart are concerned. The characters of 'Farewell Waltz' are plagued with inconquerable passions, raging jealousies and, at times, appallingly shallow self-interestedness.
These potentially unpleasant characteristics however form a potent and entertaining mix for the reader, as well as a novel that is not short on depth and examinations of the emotional turmoil that the human mind is prone to.
Although the characters of this novel are somewhat more unpleasant than those in Kundera's other offerings. 'Farewell Waltz' is still a good read and an interesting aside in the career of a great writer.
Shockingly funny... and sad! October 13, 2002
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
It is a strange story .. at the beginning you might think it is one of those books dealing with something that could happen everyday .. but the way the characters are woven into the story .. the complications and the revelations of each one of them is way extreme! A five day adventure .. a hideous ride .. a mockery of human life .. six different characters.. none of them was happy or satisfied with what he/she had .. each one of them wanted more and something better .. and took hard measures to reach their goals just like Dr. Skreta whom I think is ironically funny, smart and desperate! Kundera keeps you in touch with his characters .. you know what they think and how they feel .. you know their weaknesses and their strengths .. and what they want to accomplish ..yet I didn't expect such a tragedy!
Read it and enjoy!
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