In a world in which lives are shaped by unalterable choices and by accidental events, a world in which everything occurs but once, existence seems to lose its substance, its weight. Hence, we feel "the unbearable lightness of being" not only as the consequence of our private actions, but also in the public sphere, and the two inevitably intertwine. The novel revolves around the idea of eternal return. A woman would rather be burdened by …showed first 75 words of 234 total…

…showed last 75 words of 234 total…heart completely without having to share it with anyone else and Toma! s struggles to overcome his fear and desire of women, which results in his continuous infidelities. The novel essentially is about philosophy and relationships. It is about how concepts come to mean different things to each of us and about the difficulty of really connecting with another human being, all set under the shadow of the communist government in Czechoslovakia. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ **Bibliography** none