Reviews

La Vida Esta En Otra Parte by Milan Kundera

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ariadn_pn's review against another edition

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medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

jaymaboko's review against another edition

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4.0

You read a Kundera book and you're always left with a lot to think about. From his unique approach to writing, his plentiful, delightful philosophical musings and an uncanny eye for character motivation, with a fascination of the meaning behind gestures.

If I were to describe this book, I'd call it: The psychoanalysis of a Poet. In which, we see how a Poet becomes a Poet, how a Poet sees Life, Love and Death in relation to Poetry, and how a Poet dies.

luckthelady's review against another edition

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4.0

Kundera is perceptive and merciless. I like this book and am also afraid of it it was like having my hair stroked and my face slapped at the same time.

keithmac's review against another edition

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5.0

This book shook me to my very bones. I was a young man of about 25 working at a coffee kiosk in Victoria, BC, and reading The Unbearable Lightness of Being, when one of my customers suggested Life is Elsewhere as a Kundera book I'd probably like. It got me right in the jugular, and probably was a perfect storm for me. If I had read it a few years earlier or a few years later it may not have had the resonance it did have, and I don't even plan to read it again, because I know a re-read would ruin the first experience I had with this book.

Everyone has a "when I was young and impressionable" experience with culture - for me, Kundera and Vonnegut were those, and Life is Elsewhere and Cat's Cradle are the two books that opened two new worlds for me.

tylermcgaughey's review against another edition

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4.0

The beginning of this promises for it to be a more traditionally formed novel than Kundera's well-known, more free-form books, like [book: The Unbearable Lightness Of Being] or [book: The Book Of Laughter And Forgetting.] The book deals with the main character's adolescence, although the first section lingers on all the "David Copperfield shit," as an infamous fictional teenager put it. However, the introduction of a seemingly tangentially related dream subplot slowly reminds the reader of Kundera's signature style. [book: Life Is Elsewhere] ponders many of the same elements that pop up in the author's other works; namely, literature, love, sex, revolution and the Soviet presence in 20th century Czechoslovakia. But the tone is much more satiric than in any other Kundera novels I've read, which makes for an interesting, unexpected change of pace. This book also has the added bit of interest in that it was written almost concurrently (it was finished in 1969) with the Soviet reappearance in Czechoslovakia, mentioned here and further explored in his later [book: The Unbearable Lightness Of Being].