The Book of Laughter and Forgetting

The Book of Laughter and Forgetting was written in 1978 by Czech author Milan Kundera while he was exiled in France. Though written in Czech, the novel was banned in his native country, so it was first published in French in 1979 and in English in the U.S. in 1980. The narrative explores themes of good and evil, the causes of laughter and forgetting, exile, politics, and self-preservation, among others by addressing the totalitarianism of his home country. Kundera’s exile while writing the book is central to the historical context of the novel.

The Book of Laughter and Forgetting eschews the traditional narrative structure of a novel, instead comprising seven sections, each with its own plot and characters. Though the book might be interpreted as a short story collection, a pervasive narrator (Kundera) appears in every section, thus connecting each part to the whole.

Part I, “Lost Letters,” begins with a story about two well-known Czech political figures: Gottwald and Clementis. Gottwald was the first Communist president of Czechoslovakia, and Clementis was a high-ranking official who fell from grace. When Clementis is deemed an enemy of the state, the propaganda department removes his image from a popular photo of him with Gottwald. This introduction sets up the section’s next story about a citizen named Mirek. Like Clementis, Mirek is about to be arrested and erased. Before this happens, however, Mirek takes a road trip to retrieve love letters from Zdena, a former lover. Mirek leaves incriminating evidence lying around at home, but he’s in a hurry to get the letters to alter history himself: Zdena is considered ugly, and he doesn’t want anyone to know that he loved her (he plans to alter the letters). When he returns home, the secret police are already there. They arrest him, his seventeen-year-old son, and a group of their friends.



Part II, “Mama,” is about a relationship between Karel, his wife, Marketa, and his lover, Eva. Though Marketa doesn’t get along with Karel’s mother, his mother visits the couple. Karel’s mother has been difficult to deal with in the past, and so they tell her she can only stay for a short while. Though she is nicer than before, she overstays her welcome. Eva arrives, and Marketa is annoyed that Karel’s mother is still there. When the mother mentions that Eva reminds her of an old friend, Mrs. Nora, Karel is turned-on. He makes love to both Marketa and Eva, imagining Eva as Mrs. Nora (the women find his actions weird). Later, Eva invites Marketa to make love without Karel, and the women find that they like making love without him. Karel, seeing his mother off, has only fond memories of his mother now, as well as of Mrs. Nora.

Part III, “The Angels,” centers on two American students studying in France who have to do an oral report on Ionesco’s “Rhinoceros.” The students, Gabrielle and Michelle, are named after archangels, as is their teacher, Madame Raphael. The students don’t know what the play is about, aside from it being comical. Kundera inserts himself to explain that laughter was invented by Satan, but angels learned it to mock him. Because of this, one can never tell if laugher is angelic or demonic. He explains his exile, and how his friend R helped him get a job after he lost his. He contacts her, and though she offers him a column to write, she is found out, interrogated, and loses her job. Kundera visits her and realizes that he wants to rape her to keep some semblance of control over his life. Later, Gabrielle and Michelle give their report with cardboard rhino noses on. A student ridicules them, and then the teacher joins them in a dance. The three then ascend to heaven.

Part IV, “Lost Letters,” is about Tamina, an exiled woman who has resettled and found a job as a waitress. She fled Prague with her husband, Pavel, but Pavel has since died, leaving Tamina with nothing but her memories of him. She determines to retrieve old notebooks in Prague in the hope they will help her keep her memories of Pavel, which are quickly fading. Because she has been exiled, she has to scheme with an old friend, Bibi, to retrieve them. Moreover, a younger man, Hugo (who has bad breath) has a phone, and she needs this phone to call Bibi. She sleeps with Hugo, even though she despises him physically, only to find out that neither Bibi nor Hugo can enter Czechoslovakia to retrieve the notebooks. She despairs, hoping she can retain the last of her memories.



Part V, “Litost,” is about a butcher’s wife, Kristyna. One summer, she meets a young student who enthralls her with his talk about Schopenhauer. She can’t give in to his advances, however, because she has to use contraceptives to have sex. Though annoyed, he invites her to Prague. Kundera explains the concept of Litost, a Czech word that describes the torment of seeing one’s own misery. This is played out later when Kristyna arrives in Prague. The young man’s teacher, Voltaire, has invited him to a meeting of great poets, but he can’t go because Kristyna is in town. Not only this, she looks frumpy in the big city. Convincing her to let him go, he meets Lermentov, Goethe, and Petrarch. Goethe tells him that poets need someone like Kristyna, and when the poet signs a book for her, the young student’s lust for her is renewed. Later, however, she finally reveals that she can’t have sex with him, causing litost for the young poet. Later, Petrarch sees a love letter Kristyna has written and praises the young student for inspiring such perfect poetry.

In Part VI, also titled “The Angels,” Kundera uses Kafka to describe the state of memory loss common in Czechoslovakia, a state brought about due to the constant “erasing” of people. Kundera talks about his father, who in his last days also suffered from a type of memory loss that symbolized the entire state of affairs in the country. Tamina resurfaces. She meets a man named Raphael who tells her he can help her get away. Under his instruction, she rows to an island inhabited by children. Tamina must take part in their games and bathe with them. She soon finds that her naked body arouses them; she, in turn, is aroused from being touched. When one of the kids hurts her, however, she stops. This angers the children; their wrath toward Tamina eventually increases to the point that she decides to flee the island. She tries swimming away, but after a day, realizes that the only way out—to be truly weightless—is to allow herself to drown, which she does as the children watch.

The last section, Part VII, “The Border” begins as Jan, a forty-five-year-old male is about to relocate to the U.S. Tired of sexual encounters, Jan longs for the more innocent times of sexual arousal, as symbolized by his infatuation with the Daphnis and Chloe myth. Deciding to visit friends before he leaves, he first meets up with Hanna, a gorgeous, self-centered actor. She tells him about their mutual friend Passer who is in the hospital dying of cancer. He next meets up with the Clevis family, who are having a debate about the sexual objectification of women. Papa Clevis implores Jan to see Passer, which Jan does right before Passer dies. At Passer’s funeral, Papa Clevis’s hat blows off and lands in the open grave, causing everyone to laugh. Earlier, Jan had run into Barbara, who invited him to an orgy. Though he is tired of events like this, he attends. Eventually, he is kicked out, however, when he finds the entire ordeal absurd. Later, he goes to a nude beach with Edwige. Again, he finds the event absurd and wishes for sexual arousal more like Daphnis and Chloe. The nude sunbathers think he is brilliant, while Edwige thinks he wants to return to a time before Christianity spoiled everything.