One of the remarkable things about the stories in Milan Kundera’s Laughable Loves is how he can create such an array of despicable, shallow, self-centred characters! They’re so easy to despise!
Perhaps that’s what makes the stories funny, but I can’t help but take them literally / seriously – which probably makes the characters all the more shocking.
These are stories about misshapen ‘love’, about the pursuit of sex and the gratification of carnal desire. They are also stories about ego, what drives people on, motives and ambitions. I would say that sympathy is relatively thin on the ground – though it is there in one or two of the characters.
I hadn’t read any Kundera in a while and, perhaps perversely, I enjoyed this. I may have to dive back in…
Ian Gouge - Writer 