Take a story's temperature by studying its tone. Is it hopeful? Cynical? Snarky? Playful?
Somber, Pensive
We don't mean to scare you by using adjectives like this. Kundera can be playful (though usually in a nihilistic way), provocative, and even funny at times. But consider this: he's contemplating the destruction of his home culture (and his homeboys) by the Communist regime. It should be no surprise when he lays something like this on us:
You must understand, by then there was no more than a choice among several varieties of defeat, but this town rejected compromise and wanted victory! That was litost talking! A man possessed by it takes revenge through his own annihilation. (V."Theory".4)
And that's the lightest that Kundera gets in this book—note the exclamation points. Remember two things about this author and his book: humor is kind of the enemy here (remember that devilish laughter?) and that Kundera lost his Czech citizenship because of this book.
He's not writing from a happy place.