Slowness
Milan Kundera
 The novel is a meditation on the effects of modernity upon the individual's perception of the world. It is told through a number of plot lines that slowly weave together until they are all united at the end of the book. * Kundera, as narrator, visits a chateau on vacation and tells a story that seems to be a combination of fiction and fact. * A Chevalier from eighteenth-century France visits the chateau and experiences a night of carefully orchestrated sensual pleasure with its owner, Madame de T. * Vincent, Kundera's friend, visits the hotel and pursues a romance with a girl met in a bar. * Berck, a "dancer", meets a woman who once scorned him at the same conference and shows his emptiness to her. * Immaculata, the woman who scorned Berck, must deal with her disappointment at learning Berck's apparent perfection is actually a facade. Each plot shows a different point-of-view into Kundera's concept of the dancer and provides a perspective on modernity, memory and sensuality. By the end of the book, all of these plots have been brought together in a single location and the characters interact, showing how the ideals they represent interact in the world. Kundera even manages to tie the modern to the past by having Vincent meet the Chevalier as they both depart. By having these characters meet, Kundera again illustrates how the idea of sensuality and pleasure have changed as technology provides humanity with tools that speed us to our destination and demand our attention.