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Laughable Loves

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( 38,066 ratings, 2,668 reviews)
Book Hero Magic crafted this summary to help describe this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Summary
Laughable Loves by Milan Kundera is a collection of short stories that delve into the complexities of love and relationships. With a mix of wit and philosophical insight, Kundera explores the humorous and sometimes absurd facets of romantic entanglements. Each story presents characters grappling with the challenges of intimacy, deception, and the search for authenticity in their connections with others.
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Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?

If you appreciate stories that explore the complexities and absurdities of relationships through keen observation and wit, this collection may captivate you. The narrative delves into the humorous and often ironic nuances of love and desire, perfect for readers who enjoy thought-provoking, character-driven fiction.

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Laughable Loves by Milan Kundera is a collection of seven masterful short stories which were banned upon their appearance in 1968.

A dazzling collection of stories - originally banned in 1968 Prague - by a 'magnificent short-story writer' (NYT) and author of classic The Unbearable Lightness of Being.

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

Laughable Loves is a collection of stories that first appeared in print in Prague before 1968, but was then banned.

The seven stories are all concerned with love, or rather with the complex erotic games and stratagems employed by women and especially men as they try to come to terms with needs and impulses that can start a terrifying train of events.

Sexual attraction is shown as a game that often turns sour, an experience that brings with it painful insights and releases uncertainty, panic, vanity, and a constant need for reassurance.

Thus, a young couple on holiday starts a game of pretence that threatens to destroy their relationship. Two middle-aged men go in search of girls they don't really want. A young man renews contact with an older woman who feels humiliated by her ageing body. An elderly doctor uses his beautiful wife to increase his attraction and minister to his sexual vanity.

In Laughable Loves, Milan Kundera shows himself, once again, as a master of fiction's most graceful illusions and surprises.

Book Hero Magic summarised reviews for this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! HOW HAS THIS BEEN REVIEWED?

Laughable Loves by Milan Kundera is praised as an intellectually profound and literary work that intertwines Freud's psychological insights with Kundera's unique narrative flair. The stories are noted for their surprising and illuminating nature, capturing the complexities, paradoxes, and sometimes brutal yet humorous aspects of human life. Critics highlight Kundera's unmatched blend of sympathy, cynicism, irony, and affability, characterising the book as light, wry, wise, and energetically virtuosic.

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Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9780571206926

Publisher: Faber & Faber

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 21 August 2000

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Faber & Faber

Edition: Main - Re-issue

Contributors:

  • Translated by Suzanne Rappaport
  • Translated by Suzanne Rappaport
  • Translated by Suzanne Rappaport

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 18.0mm

Width: 126.0mm

Height: 198.0mm

Weight: 247g

Pages: 304

About the Author

Milan Kundera, born in Brno, Czechoslovakia, was a student when the Czech Communist regime was established in 1948, and later worked as a labourer, jazz musician and professor at the Institute for Advanced Cinematographic Studies in Prague. After the Russian invasion in August 1968, his books were proscribed. In 1975, he and his wife settled in France, and in 1981, he became a French citizen. He is the author of the novels The Joke, Life is Elsewhere, Farewell Waltz, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, and Immortality, and of the short-story collection Laughable Loves - all originally in Czech. His most recent novels, Slowness, Identity and Ignorance, as well as his non-fiction works The Art of the Novel and Testaments Betrayed, were originally written in French.

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  • Identity
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  • 89 Words followed by Prague, A Disappearing Poem
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