SOURCE: “All Booked,” in New York, July 1-8, 1985, pp. 130-32.

In the following review, Koenig offers praise for The Unbearable Lightness of Being.

Love looms large in summer reading, along with angry gods, Hollywood parties, and nervous breakdowns. Many interesting times await you between the covers of paperback books, first published last year and longer ago.

At once clever and somber, joyous and harrowing, The Unbearable Lightness of Being is Milan Kundera's profoundly touching novel about love and freedom. The liberty in question is both personal and political. Tomas, a Prague surgeon, makes love to a waitress who yearns for “something higher,” lets her move into his flat, and, finally, “to assuage Tereza's sufferings he married her.” Though Tereza's sufferings are caused by Tomas's infidelities, he will not give up his mistresses; all he can offer his wife is the right to be jealous and a warm embrace...