The first half of the novel is romance drama, and the second half is the same romance drama but now the implications of the Prague Spring in 1968 Czechoslovakia. The story bounces between four character's perspectives: Tomáš, Tereza, Sabina, and Franz (and Tomáš'/Tereza's dog: Karenin).

It features one of the zaniest philosophical introductions of any book I've ever read (which it returns to as interludes between POVs, or as character-defining soliloquoys), which looks at the intersection between Parmenides the 6th Century BC philosopher who split everything up into positive and negative poles, as well as Nietzsche's argument of infinite recurrence, where permanent things become dull and germane because of their inevitability, where is the ephemeral & transient things are weightless and novel. The question asks (and returns to, infinitely) the question which thing is positive or negative: weightlessness or lightness

He tried to design his life so that no one could move in with a suitcase

Tomáš did not realize that metaphors are dangerous. And that a single metaphor can give birth to love.

The etymology of the word compassion, meaning "with suffering" indicates or connotes a second rate emotion, which is not "love for" because requires the feeler to stoop

Only what is heavy has value. This is the conviction born of Beethoven. Who uses the word "Cheve" in the introduction to his sonatas in compositions

For Tomáš 'the love story of his life exemplified not Es muss sein! (It must be so), but rather Es konnte auch anders sein (It could just as well be otherwise)'.

Part six, which follows Tomáš again I think gets into the nitty-gritty of the secret police effort to suppress the nation internally and has him write. Some sort of testament to Gulag Archipelago

Only in sexuality does the millionth part dissimilarity become valuable because it is the last thing to be conquered. This proceeds from an analogy about dietary preferences and how they are mundane.

The worth of the conquered object [woman] is proportionate to the amount of time it took

Chapter 9 of part six (Tomáš's) narrative section is is so beautiful

Love begins the moment, a woman enters her first word into our poetic memory

The piece that the Dr. Tomáš published about Oedipus drew parallels between the guilty conscience of the titular character, Oedipus Rex, who, despite having every reason to have a clear conscience, punished himself in the fatigue, unlike the communists who blamed Stalin for misguided efforts, and murderers who could claim that their mothers didn't love them. This revelation is presented him by his own stammering son who points out that in the new checklists Slovakian Republic ruled by communist, police state: no one has a guilty conscience anymore.

Joseph Stalin's son painting both ends of human existence: God, and shit.

Such a very complete novel with immense texture. Philosophy, linguistics, politics, drama, love, meta-fiction. Perfectly captures the description of a dull book too - no individual chapter (barring maybe three, sexual encounters, police state interviews, Cambodian marches) are gripping in isolation, but together the movement of the novel they paint are near perfect

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