Product Description

This collection contains stories about the sport of love - Don Juanism, ageing, male and female power and seductions undertaken for all kinds of intriguing motives. Milan Kundera is author of "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" and "The Book of Laughter and Forgetting".

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #38641 in Books
• Published on: 2000-08-21
• Original language: Czech
• Binding: Paperback
• 287 pages

Customer Reviews

Superb, perceptive glimpses of the mundane unpredictability
Milan Kundera is one of the few authors in the world who can capture the painful transparency of desire with a few lines. In his collection of short stories, 'Laughable Loves', he uses his sparse but intricate prose to devastating effect, exposing the complex structures men build on top of their ultimately mundane fantasies and erotic desires. The author does not employ intricate and bemusing syntax; his straightforward, teasing style of writing illustrates his astute perceptiveness when unravelling the myths of love. This book is a gem of a starter course- rather than leaving the reader bloated and immobile by unnecessary stodge, this book can make us appreciate the idea of thoughtful reflection being an ingredient in the creation of self-explaining simplicity, leaving us with a myriad of sensations to savour.

A brilliant insight into the male mindset in times of love.
This is a collection of short stories about love particularly from the male perspective. Each looks at contrasting different aspects of love with unnerving verisimilitude. Kundera's observation of human behaviour is startingly accurate as he deftly unravels the male psyche; the female characters are no more idly portrayed either. The prose is lucid, elegant and concise, as is the situational complicity of each plot. This book shows how men are consumed by, and can be crippled by love (in a way that many women think impossible) and how this can tenuously result in them acting as they do - often as irreverent, cold-hearted bastards. Women, read this to understand your hubby/men in general; men, read this to know that you are not alone.

In Love
I first read this as part of a college class---and I don't think I read any of the other required reading because I spent the rest of the time reading Kundera. Although obviously different from his other works in format, Kundera's insight brings clarity to life's most confusing and fundamental situations.