_The Unbearable Lightness of Being_Day Five: Lightness and Weight, Part 2

Post your discussion questions here.

_The Unbearable Lightness of Being_Day Four: Back to Soul and Body

Tereza's existential heading, "Body and Soul," returns with all its vertiginousness (a verifiable word) and weight. Please post your question on Book 4 here.

_The Unbearable Lightness of Being_Day Three: Words Misunderstood

Please post a question about "Words Misunderstood," Book 3, which divides its sympathies between Franz, Sabina and the narrator. Make sure to keep up your motif log for group discussion. Tomorrow you'll meet with your group members to share your individual findings.

_The Unbearable Lightness of Being_Day Two: Soul and Body

In today's class, we explored the narrator's philosophical framing of the novel between Nietzsche, Parmenides, and Beethoven; chance, fate, and eternal recurrence; lightness and weight; emotional non-attachment and the ethical burden of the Other.

We also began to discuss eternal recurrence as a philosophical idea and as a structural principle of the novel...which brought us to the motif. Since tomorrow you'll be meeting for the first time in your motif groups, try creatively reappropriating tonight's blog entry to send messages to the other members of your "secret brotherhood" of the book (to borrow a turn-of-phrase from Kundera). Otherwise just use your question as usual.

Those of you who are doing a critical literature presentation or leading the class discussion are exempted from posting a regular discussion question tonight. If you can, please tell us what themes or passages to concentrate on for tomorrow's class conversation.