Volume 38, Number 10 · May 30, 1991
Selective Affinities
By Gabriele Annan
Immortality
by Milan Kundera, translated by Peter Kussi
Grove Weidenfeld, 345 pp., $21.95
Milan Kundera's new novel Immortality is a tragicomic jeu d'esprit stuffed with references and meanings, and even, you might say, ready-annotated. The story is set in Paris and very simple: Paul is a lawyer with a wife, Agnes, who works for a computer company. They have a grown-up daughter, Brigitte. Brigitte is closer to her father than Agnes is. Agnes has a lover, Rubens, whom she has known since she was seventeen and whom she sees only once every few years. Agnes's younger sister Laura is having an affair with Paul's friend Bernard, a radio commentator. When Bernard deserts her, she decides to love Paul. Agnes is killed in a motor accident, and Paul marries Laura. Laura starts an affair with Professor Avenarius, who is the friend of the narrator, who is Kundera, and who, in Chapter 1, invents first Agnes and then the rest of the story.
Review, 1844 words
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