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Title: Identity

Author: Milan Kundera

Narrator: Richmond Hoxie

Format: Unabridged

Length: 3 hrs and 53 mins

Language: English

Release date: 02-21-13

Publisher: Canongate Faber Audio

Ratings: 3 of 5 out of 1 votes

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

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 this 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.

Members Reviews:

Identities in the Making

The story of Chantal and Jean-Marc, as told by Milan Kundera, is an old one, but it merits retelling. It reminds us what we are and how we got that way, and it enriches our understanding of the over-used and too often trivialized idea of relationship.

Whether or not the eyes are windows to the soul, they serve quite well as mirrors. We see ourselves reflected in the eyes and responses of others. We put ourselves in their place and ask what would have produced these reflections, what would have elicited these responses. Our interpretations, over time and with many others, constitute our identities. We see ourselves not as others see us, but as we interpret their responses upon seeing us. If we are fortunate, we are able to temper our interpretations with our own accounts of ourselves, identities already formed and strengthened in the world we share with others. We also recognize that being loved, valued, and cared for is not dependent on perfection, and we may retain these gifts even as we become old, frail, and ugly.

If we are fortunate, we have others to whom we are close, with whom we interact frequently, who respond in ways that enable us to feel intelligent, attractive, effective, helpful, compassionate -- in a word, good. Otherwise, we may share the world with those whose responses we interpret, whether correctly or not, to mean that we are stupid, ineffectual, unattractive, and of no real value. If we are fortunate, however, we may also see the that the interpretations we attribute to unkind or indifferent others may be misunderstood, erroneous, and self-serving, and our established knowledge of ourselves may be out of synch with what we take to be others' dismissal or condemnation. We seek remedies through rebellion or escape, through seeking out and interacting with those who appreciate us.

Perhaps the least fortunate among us are those who are close to no one, forced to rely on incidental, passing responses, or lack of same, that provide a fragile, uncertain identity that is unstable, easily shaken, disagreeably malleable, and really non-existent.