[Dating without Kundera][1] reminds me of my friend [Isabella, whom I wrote about recently][2], because she recommended _The Unbearable Lightness of Being_ to me more than a decade ago. According to this writer, however, that gesture meant little more than a pseudo-intellectual exchange of witty Euro banter between two East Coast proto-philosophers.
[1]:http://www.idlewords.com/2005/11/dating_without_kundera.htm
[2]: http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/sutta/digha/dn-16-sv0.html
>Like an early physicist studying the atom, you … hurl little bits of culture at your new love and collect valuable data about her inner life by observing the way they bounce off.
**Was I being tested?**
But hell, I’ve enjoyed Kundera’s work, not for the ‘turgid sex’ or the obligatory references to Nietszche, but for its Joycean grittiness, surreal imagery and (god, I never thought I’d use this phrase myself) post-modern deconstruction of humans put in - to put it mildly - interesting circumstances. (Upon rereading the linked article, I discovered the author had provided me with the perfect description of the environment Kundera - and these other writers - describe: absurd)
On the other hand, I didn’t feel the same rush on the second reading as the first, in the same way that Rilke’s _Letters to a Young Poet_ speaks to me on a different, more mature level than it used to; more an exploration of the relation of self to others, rather than the validation of youthful solitude I took it for at the time.
I’m going to check out the other recommended books on that page, though. It’s been a while since I’ve ‘dated’ any good post-modern books.
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