A man and a woman meet by chance while returning to their homeland, which they had abandoned twenty years earlier when they chose to become exiles. Will they manage to pick up the thread of their strange love story, interrupted almost as soon as it began and then lost in the tides of history? The truth is that after such a long absence 'their memories no longer match'. We always believe that our memories coincide with those of the person we loved, that we experienced the same thing. But this is just an illusion. Then again, ...
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A man and a woman meet by chance while returning to their homeland, which they had abandoned twenty years earlier when they chose to become exiles. Will they manage to pick up the thread of their strange love story, interrupted almost as soon as it began and then lost in the tides of history? The truth is that after such a long absence 'their memories no longer match'. We always believe that our memories coincide with those of the person we loved, that we experienced the same thing. But this is just an illusion. Then again, what can we expect of our weak memory? It records only 'an insignificant, minuscule particle' of the past, 'and no-one knows why it's this bit and not any other bit'. We live our lives sunk in a vast forgetting, a fact we refuse to recognise. Only those who return after twenty years, like Odysseus returning to his native Ithaca, can be dazzled and astounded by observing the goddess of ignorance first-hand.
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Add this copy of Ignorance to cart. $5.26, good condition, Sold by ThriftBooks-Dallas rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Dallas, TX, UNITED STATES, published 2003 by Faber & Faber.
Add this copy of Ignorance to cart. $5.36, very good condition, Sold by HPB-Ruby rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Dallas, TX, UNITED STATES, published 2003 by Faber & Faber.
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Milan Kundera has a gift for putting into words the most minute feelings that all human beings have, a way to give name to that which we have felt but never been able to name. This is totally evident in Ignorance, a magical book dealing with the concepts of exile and memory - its flaws, its shared nature, it's capacity to both give us a home and detach us from progress. In its two main characters, and their surrounding circle of friends and family, Kundera is able to show us how most of us relate to the experience of being away from the place where we were known and grew up, and the possibilities and pitfalls of any return to it - having lived away from my country of birth for 10 years now, I found myself on the verge of tears at various points, and recognized many of the wonderful and infuriating traits we all develop in this situation.
A magical book, even if towards the end it unravels a little. A most recommended read.
