Slowness

By Milan Kundera
Translated by Linda Asher
HarperCollins, $21

ISBN 0060173696

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Review by Jim Knowles

Slowness, Milan Kundera's newest novel-and his first written in French rather than his native Czech-is a philosophical tragi-comedy that will delight, disgust, and challenge any reader willing to engage with its bizarre and compelling logic. Fans of Kundera's earlier work will find themselves on familiar ground here: the long philosophical asides; the multiple points of view; the black humor; the cold, cerebral eroticism. The difference is that Kundera's French novel seems finally to have achieved the lightness that the author values so highly and for which his Czech novels strive but often fail to realize.

Under pressure from Kundera's forceful associative intellect, a meditation on slowness versus speed moves into more esoteric discussions of Epicureanism, the art of amorous conversation, the relation of speed to memory, the provincialism of his former comrades from Communist Europe and--more. As delightful as these diversions are, they ultimately serve the book's central quest to understand the existential nature of "the dancer." What is "the dancer"? This is vintage Kundera: the novel always raises more questions than it answers.

The plot follows an eclectic group of misfits to a converted 18th-century chateau, where they are to attend a conference of entomologists. The narrator, Milan, and his wife have gone to the chateau for a weekend getaway. At the same time, we follow the story of a young Chevalier who is seduced there on the same night 200 years ago--by the mysterious Madame de T. Confrontations lead to a hilarious climax, but readers will find that Slowness is a moral tale weightier than it first appears.

Jim Knowles is a writer from Staunton, Virginia.

©1996, ProMotion, inc.

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