Life Is Elsewhere

Milan Kundera

ISBN 10: 0394480104 / ISBN 13: 9780394480107

Published by Random House, New York, 1974

About this Item

Fine first American edition, first printing, in near fine dust jacket. Top of text block is dusty. Dj has a bit of shelf wear. His third book.

Seller Inventory # 1331

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Life Is Elsewhere
• Publisher: Random House, New York
• Publication Date: 1974
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0394480104
• ISBN 13: 9780394480107
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Printing: 1st Printing
• Condition: Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine
• Weight: 594.206 grams

About this title

Synopsis

The author initially intended to call this novel The Lyrical Age. The lyrical age, according to Kundera, is youth, and this novel, above all, is an epic of adolescence; an ironic epic that tenderly erodes sacrosanct values: childhood, motherhood, revolution, and even poetry. Jaromil is in fact a poet. His mother made him a poet and accompanies him (figuratively) to his love bed and (literally) to his deathbed. A ridiculous and touching character, horrifying and totally innocent ("innocence with its bloody smile"!), Jaromil is at the same time a true poet. He's no creep, he's Rimbaud. Rimbaud entrapped by the communist revolution, entrapped in a somber farce.