Children
Children are not angelic little creatures in The Book of Laughter and Forgetting—although, hey, angels aren't even angelic in this book. We see children primarily as a bunch of little predators o...
Clementis' Hat
The photo of Clementis and Gottwald is literally the first thing we see in this novel. Clementis offers Gottwald his hat to keep the chill away. It's a Kodak moment. But after Clementis is executed...
The Circle Dance
We're sorry to say it, but the circle dance is the closest thing you're going to get to fun in this novel. Kundera describes his participation in it this way:I too once danced in a ring. It was in...
The Border
As you might imagine, the idea of a border would be an important one for a writer who had been unceremoniously kicked over one. It's true for Kundera and for some of his other dissident or roaming...