媚俗的另一特质就是绝对。如果说是‘重’就是个人的Es muss sein（是不是下面还得另加讨论），那么媚俗就是群体加在个人上的Es muss sein. 那种无可争辩的必然性、那种非此即彼的二分法、那种绝对的道德高地，都使个人失去了自主选择的余地。世界只剩下了一个标准：签名的是勇者，不签名的是懦夫；游行的是政治正确，不游行的是反革命。只有一种评判标准被允许。也许这种评判标准本身是正义的，它不是1984里的绝对荒谬绝对谎言，它是纯洁的革命，它是无私的解放全人类的理想，它是公平，它是正义。但是，它是唯一。它是绝对。于是，它成为了媚俗。
“Es muss sein！非如此不可！”在本书中反复出现。出于为了理解“Es muss sein！非如此不可！”在本书中的旋律意味，带着异常纠结的心情找来这出自贝多芬最后一首弦乐四重奏（《大赋格》作品133号）的最后一个乐章的两个主题。老贝的心情也许更为纠结，带有强烈冥想式疑惑：非如此不可？非如此不可！非如此不可！如同书中情节所提，“贝多芬在最后一个乐章上方标注了如下字眼：‘Der schwer gefsste Entshluss’——细加掂量的决断”；配合这一引用，书中描述“（院长）他带着清澈的笑容，轻轻地用嗓子模仿贝多芬的曲调：‘Muss es sein?’非如此不可？托马斯又说了一遍：‘对，非如此不可！Ja，es muss sein！’书中多次出现这句话，而这句话出现的形式或许也符合赋格的形式，短小的一句主题旋律，循环重复对位。可以说《不能承受的生命之轻》便是赋格体。“Es muss sein！非如此不可！”便是”细加掂量的决断“。非如此不可？是提问；非如此不可！是决断。这种逻辑上的死循环，所表现出的矛盾与挣扎，存在于书中的每一个段落，带有沉重的普世哲学味道。
P9 人永远都无法知道自己该要什么,因为人只能活一次,既不能拿它跟前世相比，也不能在来生加以修正。没有任何方法可以检验哪种抉择是好的，因为不存在任何比较。一切都是马上经历，仅此一次，不能准备。好像一个演员没有排练就上了舞台。如果生命的初次排练已经是生命背身，那么生命到底会有什么价值？正因为这样，生命才总是像一张草图。但“草图”这个词还不确切，因为一张草图是某件事物的雏形，比如一幅画的草稿，而我们生命的草图却不是任何东西的草稿，它是一张成不了画的草图。Einmal ist keinmanl，这是一个德国谚语，是说一次不算数，一次就是从来没有。只能活一次，就和根本没有活过一样。
P282 所有这一切与爱情有什么共同点么？没有。如果托马斯脑子里的一个齿轮跳了一个槽儿，如果他只会看到燕子的时候兴奋，那么这就一点都没有改变他对特蕾莎的感情。如果兴奋时造物主用以取乐的一种机制，相反，爱情则是只属于我们的，我们凭借着它逃脱造物主的控制。爱情，就是我们的自由。爱情超越了“es muss sein”。
来自: 豆瓣作者: 眉尺间$ 时间: 2012-8-28 13:48
This is either a book of philosophy masquerading as a novel, or a novel about the lives of four or five characters with pretensions to be a book of philosophy. Either way, it's an amazing work. Since it is well-known and no doubt, well-reviewed, I might not be able to say anything new here. Kundera deals with his characters in a rather sketchy way, using them to pose a number of questions, rather than to go into great psychological depth. Yet, even there, the characters Tomas and Tereza do come through well. Their moods and motivations, even their dreams, hold a reader's attention. A couple of the others, Sabina and Franz, maybe Franz' wife, are very light indeed. Kundera is interested in sex and love, in the fact that they tie people down, in the fact that they are so fickle, so gosssamer light, yet so important. In a time when ideology and/or political oppression create craziness or stupidity and the common sense of daily life is overthrown---as in post-1968 Czechoslovakia and maybe pre-Gulf War II America---love and sex are more or less what is left for people to hang on to. Kundera also ponders the choices that people make, and the extremely haphazard way these choices come about, based perhaps on endless strings of coincidence.
This is not a novel long on plot. Rather it is a vehicle for some very intelligent musings. When living under oppressive rulers "is it better to shout and thereby hasten the end, or to keep silent and gain thereby a slower death ?" What is the nature of love ? Have you ever read the philosophy of excrement or kitsch ? You can find them here. Man is a cow parasite, he tells us, (though he's probably talking about a certain percent of humanity only) and goes on to say that attitude towards animals is a fundamental moral test of Man. We've failed. As you live, you write the story of your life. You don't get the chance to "write" an alternative story; there are no comparisons for you. History is the same, he says, as light as individual human life. There is no possibility of comparison of chances either in history or life. These are only a small sample of the interesting thoughts and ideas Kundera mulls over. If that sort of book is your bag, you're going to love this one. The choice you make by reading it, may evolve into something completely different in your life, have totally different repercussions sooner or later. Will you recognize that ? After all, each book of any consequence you read leaves an imprint. THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING will definitely do so.
来自: 豆瓣作者: 圆蛋儿$ 时间: 2012-8-28 13:48
178 On Communism:
Anyone who thinks that the Communist regimes are exclusively the work of criminals is overlooking a basic truth: the criminal regimes were made not by criminals but by enthusiasts convinced they had discovered the only road to paradise.
到后来，他们发现没有天堂。可是他们却在过程中如此英勇地实践这条路以至于双手沾满了鲜血，变成了杀人犯。虽然被指责，他们却用不知无罪为自己辩护。
Yet Tomas thought there was no one more innocent than Oedipus, and that the Communists should put their eyes out and wander away from Thebes.
143 Flirtation:
One might say that it is behavior leading another to believe that sexual intimacy is possible, while preventing that possibility from becoming a certainty. In other words, flirting is a promise of sexual intercourse without a guarantee.
【Tomas】Love and lovemaking were two different things.
【Tereza】Books-emblem of the secret brotherhood
155
For what made the soul so excited was that body was acting against its will; the body was betraying it, and the soul was looking on.
156 Toilets:
...We are happily ignorant of the invisible Venice of shit underlying our bathrooms, bedrooms, dance halls, and parliaments.
160 The moment love is born:
The woman cannot resist the voice calling forth her terrified soul; the man cannot resist the woman whose soul thus responds to his voice.
161 Tereza's screams during intercourse:
It was meant to be blind and deafen the senses. With time she screamed less, but her soul was still blinded by love, and saw nothing.
161
The blotch, which until then she had regarded as the most prosaic of skin blemishes, had become an obsession. She longed to see it again and again in that implausible proximity to an alien penis.... She had no desire to see another man's organs. She wished to see her own private parts in close proximity to an alien penis. She did not desire her lover's body. She desired her her own body, newly discovered, intimate and alien beyond all others, incomparably exciting.
167 the omnipresent roof:
Only a few weeks earlier, she had scoffed at Prechazka for failing to see that he lived in a concentration camp, where privacy ceased to exist. But what about her? By getting out from under her mother's roof, she thought in all innocence that she had once and for all become master of her privacy. But no, her mother's rood stretched out over the whole world and would never let her be. Tereza would never escape her.
169 loves are like empires:
What would happen if Tomas were to receive such a picture? Would he throw her out? Perhaps not. Probably not. But the fragile edifice of their love would certainly come tumbling down. For that edifice rested on the single column of her fidelity, and loves are like empires: when the idea they are founded on crumbles, they, too, fade away.
170 物是人非:
She wanted to see the Vltava. She wanted to stand on its banks and look long and hard into its waters, because the sight of the flow was soothing and healing. The river flowed from century to century, and human affairs play themselves out on its banks. Play themselves out to be forgotten the next day, while the river flows on.
175
..., he had the irrepressible feeling that she was a child who had been put in a bulrush basket and sent downstream to him. Metaphors are dangerous. Love begins with a metaphor. Which is to say, love begins when a woman enters her first words into our poetic memory.
184 Overwhelmed by the unbearable:
People talked about him inside and outside the hospital; although he knew about it, he could do nothing to stop it. He was surprised at how unbearable he found it, how panic-stricken it made him feel. The interest they showed in him was as unpleasant as a elbowing crowd or the pawings of the people who tear our clothes off in nightmares.
185 Maintaining nonbelief:
How defenseless we are in the face of flattery! Tomas was unable to prevent himself from taking seriously what the Ministry official said... When you sit face to face with someone who is pleasant, respectful, and polite, you have a hard time reminding yourself that nothing he says is true, that nothing is sincere. Maintaining nonbelief requires a tremendous effort and the proper training-in other words, frequent police interrogations. Tomas lacked that training.
193 Categorization of ppl?
The surest criterion is the deep-seated desires that orient them to one or another lifelong activity... An actor is someone who in early life consents to exhibit himself for the rest of his life to an anonymous public. Without that basic content, which had nothing to do with talent, which goes deeper than talent, no one can become an actor. Thus, a profession is determined by an inner desire.
199 Small gap of the unimaginable:
When he saw a woman in her clothes, he could naturally imagine more or less what she looked like naked, but between the approximation of the idea and the precision of reality there was a small gap of the unimaginable, and it was this hiatus that gave him no rest....The individual "I" is what differs from the common stock, that is, what cannot be guessed at or calculated, what must be unveiled, uncovered, conquered.
In fact, Tomas defines "sexuality" as a strongbox hiding the mystery of a woman's "I", and it was a desire not for pleasure (which to him was a bonus), but for the possession of the world that drove him in his pursuit for woman.
208 poetic memory:
A part of our brain that records everything that charms or touches us, that makes our lives beautiful. His adventure with Tereza began at the exact point where his adventures with other woman left off. He had no desire to uncover anything in her with the imaginary scalpel. Before he wondered, he loved her.
219
And now she (Tereza) was with him (Tomas) again. He saw her pressing the crow wrapped in red to her breast. The image of her brought him peace. It seemed to tell him that Tereza was alive, that she was with him in the same city, and that nothing else counted.
219 the one criterion:
She, born of six fortuities, she, the blossom sprung from the chief surgeon's sciatica, she, the reverse side of all his "Es muss sein!"-she was the only thing he cared about.
221 how characters are created:
Characters are not born like people, of woman; they are born of a situation, a sentence, a metaphor containing in a nutshell a basic human possibility that the author thinks no one else had discovered or said something essential about... I (author) have known all these situations, I have experienced them myself, yet none of them has given rise to the person my curriculum vitae and I represent. The characters in my novels are my own unrealized possibilities. That is why I am equally fond of them all and equally horrified by them. Each one had crossed a boarder that I myself have circumvented. It is that crossed border which attracts me most. For beyond that border begins the secret the novel asks about.
223:
What happens but once might as well not have happened at all. The history of the Czechs will not be repeated, nor will the history of Europe. The history of the Czechs and of Europe is a pair of sketches from the pen of mankind's fateful inexperience. History is as light as individual human life, unbearably light, light as a feather, as dust swirling into the air, as whatever will no longer exist tomorrow.
236 the clockwork of the head:
two cogwheels turn opposite each other. On the one, images; on the other, the body's reactions. The cog carrying the image of a naked woman meshes with the corresponding erection-command cog. But for some reason or the other the wheels go out of phase and the excitement cog meshes with a cog bearing the image of a swallow in flight, the penis rises at the sight of a swallow... Tomas thought: Attaching love to sex is one of the most bizarre ideas the Creator ever had... a world where man is excited by seeing a swallow and Tomas can love Tereza without being disturbed by the aggressive stupidity of sex. Then he fell asleep.
238 Plato's myth:
People were hermaphrodites until God split them in two, and now all the halves wander the world over seeking one another. Love is longing for the half of ourselves we have lost.
248 categorical agreement with being:
Behind all the European faiths, religious and political, we find the first chapter of Genesis, which tells us that the world created properly, that human existence is good, and that we are therefore entitled to multiply. Let us call this basic faith a categorical agreement with being.
Kitsch:
Kitsch functions by excluding from view everything that humans find difficult with which to come to terms, offering instead a sanitized view of the world, in which "all answers are given in advance and preclude any questions". In its desire to paper over the complexities and contradictions of real life, kitsch is intimately linked with totalitarianism. In a healthy democracy, diverse interest groups compete and negotiate with one another to produce a generally acceptable consensus; by contrast, "everything that infringes on kitsch," including individualism, doubt, and irony, "must be banished for life" in order for kitsch to survive. Therefore, whenever a single political movement corners power we find ourselves in the realm of totalitarian kitsch. Kitsch causes two tears to flow in quick succession. The first tear says: How nice to see children running on the grass! The second tear says: How nice to be moved, together with all mankind, by children running on the grass! It is the second tear that makes kitsch kitsch.
254:
The true opponent of totalitarian kitsch is the person who asks questions. A question is like a knife that slices through the stage backdrop and gives us a look at what lies hidden behind it. In fact, that was exactly how Sabina had explained the meaning of her paintings to Tereza: on the surface, an intelligible lie; underneath, the unintelligible truth showing through.
268:
There are situations in which people are condemned to playact. Their struggle with mute power is the struggle of a theater company that has attacked an army.
287 man the cow parasite:
Man is as much a parasite on the cow as the tapeworm is on man: We have sucked their udders like leeches. "Man the cow parasite" is probably how non-man defines man in his zoology books.
289 true human goodness:
We can never establish with certainty what part of our relations with others is the result of our emotions-love, antipathy, charity, or malice-and what part is predetermined by the constant power play among individuals. True human goodness can come to the fore only when its recipient has no power. Man's true moral test, its fundamental test, consists of its attitude towards those who are at its mercy: animals. And in this respect mankind has suffered a fundamental debacle, a debacle so fundamental that all others stem from it.
290:
Tereza keeps appearing before my eyes. I see her sitting on the stump petting Karenin's head and ruminating on mankind's debacles. Another image also comes to mind: Nietzsche leaving his hotel in Turin. Seeing a horse and a coachman beating it with a whip, Nietzsche went up to the horse and, before the coachman's very eyes, put his arms around the horse's neck and burst into tears.
295 paradise:
Life in paradise was not like following a straight line to the unknown; it was not an adventure. It moved in a circle among known objects. Its monotony bred happiness, not boredom...But most of all: No one can give anyone else the gift of the idyll; only an animal can do so, because only animals were not expelled from paradise. The love between dog and man is idyllic. It knows no conflicts, no hair-rising scenes; it knows no development. Karenin surrounded Tereza and Tomas with a life based on repetition, and he expected the same from them.
314:
The sadness meant: we are at the last station. The happiness meant: we are together. The sadness was form, the happiness content. Happiness filled the space of sadness.
“同巴门尼德不同，贝多芬似乎将 ‘重’ 当成某种正面的东西。‘Der schwer gefasste Entschluss’，细加掂量的决断与命运之声（‘es muss sein!’）联系在一起；重、必然和价值是三个有内在联系的概念：必然为重，重者才有价值。”（p.040）
──也许是略懂德语的缘故，这句话我有比较原始的理解。其实每个人在问 “ Muss es sein? ” 的时候都是知道必然为重的，生命之重者回答：“ Es muss sein. ” 生命之轻者在 “ Muss es sein? ” ， “ Es muss nicht sein.” 和 “ Es vielleicht sein.” 间徘徊不定。
想通了这点，人生就变得有些搞笑。我们的由无数过往build起来的现在，其实却在时间消磨中不断的缩水，再丰满的影像最终变成一张依稀可辨的书签。脚下的基石时时刻刻被侵蚀，腐坏，慢慢我们仿佛空落落地飘在天空，仿佛是那个搭梯子去摸月亮的皇帝，梯子倒下，还短暂悬空的我们，失重的迷惑，how did I get here? 从前的我们在哪里？过去种种都不可靠了，那现在的我是不是也像个肥皂泡一样，突然的破碎。慢慢的过去爱的不爱了，过去恨的不恨了。
《生命之轻》的大背景为二战时期的捷克。作为本书的第一男主角的托马斯，是位风流多情的医生，年轻有为。早期经历过一段不愉快的婚姻生活生下了一个孩子，但是由于各种不适他与前妻离婚，而后他以一种大多数男人都羡慕的方式生活在布拉格。他不愿谈恋爱却同时与几位女性保持着情人关系，萨比娜就是其中之一。然而这样的生活的却由于一些列托马斯认为是“es muss sein”的巧合而使她相遇了特蕾莎之后戛然而止。特蕾莎从小生活在一个母亲专制压迫下的家庭里，这种长时间的生活导致了她柔弱自卑的性格，直到碰见托马斯之后，她忽生了一种逃离的勇气，独自一人来到了布拉格。其实托马斯有一种对女性又爱又怕的心理，他爱着女性的美以及肉体上给他带来的快感，但是却害怕被女人捆绑后失去自由；由于这种矛盾所以他始终不让女人在他家过夜。我相信很多男性都会有这样的心理，但是托马斯来的比我们更强烈一些。其实作者在文中也暗示了很多，他借托马斯的身份倾诉自己的内心，所以这也很有可能是昆德拉的真实生活。但是当特蕾莎独自前往布拉格并来到托马斯家中的时候，托马斯却发生了极大的转变。他竟让特蕾莎在他家过了夜，而他解释的理由则是“对这个几乎不认识的姑娘，他感到了一种无法解释的爱。对他而言，她就像是个被人放在涂了树脂的篮子里的孩子，顺着河水飘来，好让他在床榻之岸收留她。”或许每个人的生命中都有一个注定的伴侣，当我们一但相遇时，任何理性的思维都无法解释。所以对于托、特两人感情的开始，昆德拉也无法给出一个逻辑性的理由，而是借波里布斯收养俄狄浦斯的典故作比喻。托、特两人在一起之后，故事便真正展开。
在《不能承受的生命之轻》中，生命的偶然和无意义同样被如此精准而又无情地揭示出来。在人类只有一次的生命过程中，充满了随机和偶然。一连串的偶然可能导致了另一些事情的发生，最终组成了人的整个命运，使得人的生命中不可能真正存在“必然”和“经验”。但我们无法接受和承认这一事实，而是走向相反的方向——为短暂且唯一的生命赋予意义。人们将名称、性质、价值、重量赋予所有事物，相信它们能够决定命运，并高喊着“Es muss sein（非这样不可）！”一路行进下去，并且发明了媚俗这一工具。媚俗源于对生命的绝对认同，它的使命是给这轻飘飘的生命加以重量。由此，我们终生都在媚俗的包围之下难以脱离——崇高的理想、激动人心的伟大进军、顾影自怜的姿态、强烈的对同类的悲悯——这些（并且还远不止这些）都是媚俗的不同化身。在它的推动之下，我们坚信自己做着一件又一件非这样不可的事情，从而完成自己丰盈、沉重的一生。