Slowness

"Slowness," Milan Kundera's seventh novel, tells, in parallel, my love stories; one in the eighteenth century, which witnessed an atmosphere of liberation and openness, is slow and flavorful, while the other, set in our time, is fast and sarcastic. The author, while glorifying slowness in this novel, invites us to awareness "of the secret connection that links slowness to memory, and speed to forgetfulness." In this world where the speed of everything continues to grow, Kundera sees that we have lost the memory that leads us to pleasure and enables us to feel enjoyment in living the present. Kundera highlights in this novel the concept of current love relationships that no longer embody intimate feelings between two selves, but are a kind of artificial display in front of others. In this sense, the novel "Slowness" is a reflection on re-drawing the boundaries between the spaces of intimacy and privacy on one hand, and the public on the other, in a world where everything has become governed by speed and haste. In this work, we again find elements of strangeness, lightness, and humor, which are the elements that shape Kundera's style, as well as opinions on the world, politics, intellectuals, media, love, desire, and sexual liberation...; these are the favorite topics of this great writer.