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Angela Rochford Transnational Literature Blackboard Response 28 Apr. 2019 Life Lessons in Kundera’s The Book of Laughter and Forgetting Before starting the book, I wondered what the title meant; what exactly is the book “Forgetting” and “laughing” at? I also wondered how these things affected each other in the same environment. After reading the first chapter, I knew the type of “Forgetting” within the book would be a forced one. Being charged for treason, Clementis was executed and immediately removed from all history books and photographs. Just because this once great man did something the Russian government didn’t agree with, they tried to erase him from existence. Even though this might not be so easy, this example shows the totalitarianistic government of Russia during this time. Honestly, the letters didn’t show me much signs of “laughter”. In fact, the only laughter I could detect came from myself while reading it. The bluntness and odd relationship between Mirek and Zdena actually made me giggle while reading. For example, Mirek blatantly states: “No, Zdena was guilty of something differently serious. She was ugly” (Kundera 15). Something so rude yet a bit silly in the middle of such a serious story is quite funny. Especially because Mirek claims Zdena is ugly, but he knows he once loved her. I think including this crass view of Zdena is meant to lighten up the story. Even though it is offensive towards Zdena, it sparks a brief spell of laughter in the midst of forced a suppression of history. Mirek experiences another form of forgetting in his life — a more casual and common

form. He requests the old love letters he once wrote to Zdena to analyze the parts of his life he forgets. While this is often a harmless thing many people do in their life, it actually puts Mirek in danger. Distracting himself with his past gives the secret police time to arrest him and ten his sons. I think Kundera included this message to show his readers the risks of dwelling on the past, he just shows this in a physical way. In life, it can harm someone mentally, physically, and emotionally. I really appreciate Kundera’s mix of blunt realism and the comedy within it and the curse of forgetting. There are a lot of deeper themes within these letters, like government and politics, that not everyone might know a lot about. But, there are a lot of themes that are universal for all humans, which is very important to every piece of literature....