Quantcast Milan Kundera: Reading Guide: The Book of Laughter and
Forgetting: HarperCollins Publishers | More Fun Stuff Reading
Guide The Book of Laughter and Forgetting Plot Summary With its
seven interrelated parts--rich in story, character, and
imaginative range--The Book of Laughter and Forgetting (1978) is
the novel that brought Czech-born Milan Kundera his first big
international success. Aaron Asher's new translation,
commissioned and monitored by Kundera himself, conveys
beautifully into English the nuances and the tone of the
author's original text. "Part fairy tale, part literary
criticism, part political tract, part musicology, and part
autobiography" (as the New York Times described it), The Book of
Laughter and Forgetting is, above all, the wonderfully
integrated stories of men and women living in a world of public
oppression and private longings, a world in which history may be
rewritten overnight and in which love may fall victim to either
political intrusion or personal betrayal.  The seven par