Sunday, October 11, 2015

The Farewell Party by Milan Kundera



Ruzena sleeps with a trumpet player one night and then she is pregnant.  His name is Klima and he thinks it’s impossible that he made her pregnant.

His friends threaten to say they are the father just to stir up an even bigger scandal and they all convince him to convince her to have an abortion.  Then it is mentioned in the story that he has a wife.

Ruzena doesn’t even remember much from the night she spent with Klima.  She doesn’t remember what he really looked like or how sex was with him. How sad!

That is story number one.  Ruzena is a nurse working in a fertility spa run by Dr. Skreta who is impregnating his female patients with his own sperm and their husbands believe it is their sperm that was injected…..That is story number two.

Dr. Skreta has a friend, Jakub, who thought at some point in his life, he may want to kill himself.  Dr.Skreta gives him a tiny blue pill for when he is ready.  Somehow that pill ends up in the hands of Ruzena.

I have heard that in most fiction there is a small amount of truth.  Perhaps the author uses experiences from his past to embellish story lines!  This is one crazy story! 

Kundera’s writing is witty, funny and keen!   His symbolism of people and their struggles and politics and the like are quite perceptive. 




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