The Unbearable Lightness of Being

First, I love the title of the book. Second, I am happy, finally I could finish this Milan Kundera novel. It took quite sometime since the story's a bit serious. Talking about emptiness, despair and all those negative feelings.

Set in 1968 Prague. The novel details the circumstances of life for artists and intellectuals in communist Czechoslovakia and the invasion by the USSR. The characters appear in the novel are Tomas, a well-known, successful surgeon, who criticizes the Czech communists and resultantly loses his position, and his wife, Tereza, a photographer who suffers from Tomas' affairs with a lot of women.

At first, I thought I couldn't finish this novel, just like "My Name is Red" Orhan Pamuk novel, since the story moves very slowly, but I didn't know, I just got into this book's flow and eventually enjoy it. Although I feel so sad thinking about the characters appears in the novel, they are mostly unhappy people. They actually just want a simple life, but they're too busy with their own thoughts and end up with eternal suffering. Is it that difficult to have happiness?