The book describes 1968, when the Soviet Union invaded the Czech Republic, the atmosphere of democratic reform turned into a wave of arbitrary oppression. Thomas, the hero of the novel, is a surgeon. Because his marriage failed, he longed for and feared women, so he made an affair code to deal with his many mistresses.

One day, he fell in love with Teresa, a waitress in a restaurant. Teresa often wakes up in extremely uncomfortable nightmares, often accompanied by doubts and horrible imagination. At this time, the Czech Republic is in political turmoil. Under the call of an authoritative doctor in Zurich who wanted Thomas to go there for development, they decided to live there. The painter sabine was once one of Thomas' mistresses and the envy of Teresa. Sabine has been choosing betrayal and irresponsible suicide all his life.

Extended data:

theme

In this novel, Milan Kundera focuses on the different experiences of several characters, and introduces the novel to the philosophical level through their choices of life, thinking about many categories such as return, kitsch, forgetfulness, time, contingency and inevitability. The author's concern for the fate and value of life is the theme of this book. No one can escape the existence and value of life, life is just a process.

In his view, life is a kind of pain, which comes from people's wrong choice of life goals and wrong judgment of life value. Everyone in the world is striving for his own goal, but the goal itself is a kind of emptiness.

Life has become vulgar because of "pursuit", and human beings have become slaves to "pursuit". In the name of "pursuit", whether it is depravity or conformity, it will only repeat the predecessors endlessly. So there will only be two words left in human history-"kitsch".