Identity: A Novel
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Manufacturer: Harper Perennial
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 891.868354
EAN: 9780060930318
ISBN: 0060930314
Label: Harper Perennial
Manufacturer: Harper Perennial
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 176
Publication Date: 1999-05-01
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Release Date: 1999-04-21
Studio: Harper Perennial
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Editorial Reviews:
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There are situations in which we fail for a moment to recognize the person we are with, in which the identity of the other is erased while we simultaneously doubt our own. This also happens with couples--indeed, above all with couples, because lovers fear more than anything else "losing sight" of the loved one. With stunning artfulness in expanding and playing variations on the meaningful moment, Milan Kundera has made this situation--and the vague sense of panic it inspires--the very fabric of his new novel. Here brevity goes hand in hand with intensity, and a moment of bewilderment marks the start of a labyrinthine journey during which the reader repeatedly crosses the border between the real and the unreal, between what occurs in the world outside and what the mind creates in its solitude. Of all contemporary writers, only Kundera can transform such a hidden and disconcerting perception into the material for a novel, one of his finest, most painful, and most enlightening. Which, surprisingly, turns out to be a love story.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: The Beginning is Strong
Comment: Throughout this book the characters evolve. We continue to learn more about their difference in age, life experience, income and self image at an even pace. Based on characters, this has the potential of being a five star book.
As to plot, the book has a strong start. The story of the letters, their mystery, their impact on Chantel and the timing and means of exposing their origin is well executed. Once the origin of the letters is exposed, the surreal takes over. While pieces of this part have well crafted dialog, the overall introduction and staging of this part of the plot does not meet standard set in the beginning of this short novel.
This is the only Kundera book I've read. I wasn't totally satisfied, but will read another.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A Lesson for Lovers.
Comment: Milan Kundera published Identity (L'Identité) after moving to France from Czechoslovakia in 1975. Kundera is perhaps best known for his 1984 novel, The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Two things make Identity unique. It is arguably the most traditional novel Kundera has written to date, and at 176 pages in length, it is also among his shortest works. It tells the simple story of a recently divorced ad executive, Chantal, who meets her younger lover, Jean-Marc at a seaside hotel. While Chantal is out walking, Jean-Marc searches for her. She wonders why "men don't turn to look at [her] anymore," contemplating the possibility that she is now too old to be considered attractive by other men. She defines herself through the perceptions of others, until she begins receiving love notes from an anonymous admirer. Chantal hides the letters from Jean-Marc and fantasizes about each new man she encounters, wondering if he is her secret admirer. The two protagonists reveal Kundera's brilliant mind at work in contemplating whether it is ever possible to know the intimate object of one's love, further complicated by the impermanent nature of identity. While Identity may not be Kundera at his best (for that, read The Unbearable Lightness of Being), it is nevertheless worth the investment of an afternoon or late night reading a short novel by a truly unique writer. Trust me. Even when Kundera is not at his best, he is still better by far than other writers at their best.
G. Merritt
Customer Rating:
Summary: Weird
Comment: Who talks like the characters in this book? Are there really people in the world who do? And where are they so I can smack all the self-pity right out of them?!
All I could think while I read this book was, "These people need to get a hobby or something because they have way too much time on their hands."
Customer Rating:
Summary: Weak for Kundera
Comment: Years ago, I had read the first few chapters of The Unbearable Lightness of Being in a bookstore. The words stayed with me always, until years later when I actually had the opportunity to complete the reading. Identity had a different effect. I chose it for a train ride because the book I was really searching for was not in stock. Unfortunately, I'm quite disappointed.
Kundera's characters are not believable. Then again, I understand why. This is Kundera we're talking about. I believe his emphasis usually to be on what he writes about the world and psychology. Less importance is given to how it is actually told (in my mere judgment). Honestly, not only have I yet to meet anyone who converses like either Chantal or Jean-Marc, the two protagonists are also boring and not relatable. By about the 24th (or so) chapter I found myself gauging the thickness of progress I've made in the pages versus how thick the book is, and was happy to realize that Identity is a short novel.
Chantal is average. I understand the importance of using everyday subjects in writing about life's generalities and quirks, which is how I generally view Kundera as a writer. I think it can be agreed upon that he writes his personal takes on psychology through characters and in fiction form. However, Chantal isn't even pleasantly average. We know nothing about her all the way until about chapter 42 when she begins fantasizing awkward sexual situations while riding a train into England from Paris for initial reasons obscure.
The plot is boring. Basically, a woman receives admiration letters in her mailbox each morning--which, by the way, we knew were from her existing boyfriend the second we read the first instance, yet it takes half the novel to reveal this information. Whether or not Kundera wanted his readers to know more than Chantal is ambiguous to me. Perhaps her ignorance and continual fantasies about whom the author of her letters could be is more of a testament to her weakness and susceptibility as an older woman than I had previously realized. Either way, the subject is irritating, and upon hearing the fuss about her first letter, I had no idea that this was the entire plot of the novel. Then it never went away.
When the woman (Chantal) realizes that her boyfriend has been making a checkpoint of her hiding spot for these letters (and consequently realizes that he has been writing them himself), she is offended, and he confused, for the woman he believes to be his loved one would never hide silly letters from him. Thus, he questions her identity, all in a short chapter-long internal struggle leading well, nowhere. Immediately following: an awkward and unnecessary run-in with Chantal's previous family. It is Chantal, however, who instigates the couple's separation.
I get it, I get it. Chantal in the beginning is not Chantal at the end. Somewhere along the line fantasy intrudes the (mediocre) story we had been reading. Parts are clever, but 80 percent of the book is a bore, frankly. There are some good quotes, but the story is not memorable enough for my taste. I particularly liked, "That is why she dislikes dreams: they impose an unacceptable equivalence among the various periods of the same life, a leveling contemporaneity of everything a person has ever experienced; they discredit the present by denying it its privileged status" (5). Also, "That `and that's how time goes by for them' is a fundamental line. Their problem is time--how to make time go by, go by on its own, by itself, with no effort from them, without their being required to get through it themselves" (79). I'm sort of glad to be through with Identity but I'll keep reading Kundera--my impression for this one is just weak.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Another Masterpiece of Introspection
Comment: This is one of the first novelas Kundera has written in French, and is certainly among the best in his long series of observations of human nature. Although all the novelas exist in the shadow of Kundera's great full length novels, The Unbearable Lightness of Being and Immortality, they are all literary gems well worth reading.
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