The Book of Laughter and Forgetting

The Book of Laughter and Forgetting (1979) by Milan Kundera is a  Postmodern novel that blends fiction, essay, and memoir to interrogate memory, history, and personal identity in the shadow of political repression. Structured as seven interconnected parts, the book combines satire, eroticism, and philosophical digression to illustrate how forgetting shapes both private lives and collective history. Although Kundera wrote the novel in Czech, it was banned in his homeland and was first published in French in 1979, followed by an English translation in the United States in 1980. 

This study guide uses 2024 Faber and Faber edition of The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, translated by Aaron Asher.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of sexual content, sexual violence and harassment, rape, illness, death, gender discrimination, suicidal ideation, physical abuse, child abuse, substance use, and emotional abuse. 

Plot Summary

The Book of Laughter and Forgetting is made up of seven sections. The narrator (who may be Kundera himself) appears in every section and connects the parts.

Part 1, “Lost Letters,” begins with an anecdote about two well-known Czech political figures: Gottwald and Clementis. Gottwald was the first communist president of Czechoslovakia and Clementis was a high-ranking official who fell from grace. When Clementis was deemed an enemy of the state, the propaganda department removed his image from a popular photo of him with Gottwald. This act of political censorship introduces the story of Mirek, a Czech dissident who takes a road trip to retrieve his old love letters from Zdena, a former lover. Though Mirek fears the secret police, he is most desperate to get the letters and erase any evidence that he once loved Zdena since he now finds her unattractive. His mission mirrors the state’s obsession with controlling the past. When he returns home, however, he finds that the secret police have raided his apartment. They arrest him, his 17-year-old son, and a group of Mirek’s friends.

Part 2, “Mama,” focuses on Karel, his wife Marketa, and their lover Eva. Though Marketa does not have a good relationship with Karel’s mother, she visits the couple. Karel’s mother has been difficult and domineering in the past, so they tell her she can only stay for a short while. Though she agrees and is pleasant to them, she ends up unexpectedly staying longer than they planned. Eva arrives, and Marketa is annoyed that Karel’s mother is still in their house. When the mother mentions that Eva reminds her of an old friend, Nora, Karel becomes excited by the comparison. After Mama sleeps, he makes love to both Marketa and Eva, imagining that Eva is Nora. Later, Eva invites Marketa to visit her without Karel, and Marketa debates whether to accept. Karel, seeing his mother off at the station, has only fond memories of his mother now.

Part 3, “The Angels,” centers on two American students studying in France who are preparing a report on Ionesco’s Rhinoceros. The students, Gabrielle and Michelle, are named after archangels, as is their teacher, Madame Raphael. Gabrielle and Michelle do not quite understand the play, though they know it is comical. The narrator discusses the theory that laughter was invented by Satan, though angels learned it to mock him. Because of this, it is impossible to tell if laughter is angelic or demonic. He explains that he is in his exile and that, back in his home country, his friend R. risked her own livelihood to help him get a job after he lost his. However, she was found out, interrogated, and fired. The narrator admits to a disturbing desire to rape her. The story returns to Gabrielle and Michelle, who present their report while wearing cardboard rhino horns. A student ridicules them, and they begin to cry. However, the teacher, Madame Raphael, assumes their tears are a commentary on the play, and she laughs as she forms a circle with them and joins them in a dance. The three then begin to ascend to heaven through a hole in the roof.

Part 4, titled “Lost Letters,” is about Tamina, a Czech woman in exile who has settled in Western Europe and works as a waitress. She fled Prague with her husband, Pavel, but Pavel has since died, leaving Tamina clinging to her memories of him. She longs to retrieve a parcel of old notebooks and letters that she left in Prague, hoping they will help her keep her memories of Pavel, which are quickly fading. Since she is in exile, she fears the secret police and cannot return. She asks Bibi, a customer who plans to visit Prague, to retrieve them for her. When Bibi’s plans change, Tamina turns to a younger man named Hugo for help, and she sleeps with him despite finding him physically repulsive. However, he, too, cannot cross the border into Czechoslovakia. Tamina despairs, hoping she can retain her memories of her husband as they begin to fade.

Part 5, “Litost,” follows Kristyna, who is married to a butcher and has a mechanic for a lover. One summer, she meets a young student who enthralls her with his talk about Schopenhauer. She does not have sex with him, however, because another pregnancy could kill her. Though the student is frustrated about this, he invites her to visit him in Prague. The narrator explains the concept of litost, which is an untranslatable Czech word that describes the torment of seeing one’s own misery. This is played out later when Kristyna arrives in Prague. The young man is invited to a meeting of poets—where the poets have grand names like Voltaire and Goethe—but he cannot go because Kristyna is in town. He is doubly displeased when he notices that she looks provincial in the big city. He convinces her to let him go to the meeting, where he meets Lermentov, Goethe, and Petrarch. Goethe tells him that poets need someone like Kristyna, and when the poet signs a book for her, the young student’s desire for her is renewed. However, when she later reveals that she cannot have sex with him, he experiences litost. Kristyna writes him a love note before she departs, and when Petrarch sees it, he reads it aloud as if it were poetry. 

In Part 6, titled “The Angels,” the narrator meditates on how Kafka described Prague as a “city without memory” (215) since, in Czechoslovakia, people and history are constantly erased. He then talks about his father, who in his last days also suffered from a type of memory loss that symbolizes the entire state of affairs in the country. He then returns to Tamina, who meets a man young named Raphael. He tells her he can help her get away. Under his instruction, she goes to an island inhabited by only children. Tamina is forced to take part in their games and bathe with them. She soon finds that her naked body fascinates them; she, in turn, comes to accept being touched and prodded by them. When one of the children hurts her, however, she refuses to let them continue. This angers the children, and they chase her and punish her. Their wrath toward Tamina increases, and she decides to flee the island. She tries to swim away, but she cannot make any progress. Finally, she drowns as the children watch.

The last section, “The Border,” follows Jan, a 45-year-old who is about to relocate to the United States. He is tired of sexual encounters that don’t satisfy him and is annoyed that his partner, Edwige, doesn’t emote or speak during sex. Jan longs for innocent eroticism, as symbolized by his obsession with Daphnis and Chloe. Visiting friends before he leaves, he first meets up with Hanna. She tells him about their mutual friend, Passer, who is in the hospital dying of cancer. Next, Jan meets up with the Clevis family, who are having a debate about the sexual objectification of women. Papa Clevis implores Jan to see Passer, which Jan does right before Passer dies. At Passer’s funeral, Papa Clevis’s hat blows away and lands on the coffin in the open grave, causing the mourners to laugh. Earlier, Jan had run into his friend, Barbara, who invited him to an orgy. He attends, but she throws him out since he finds the whole thing absurd and begins to laugh. Later, he goes to a nude beach with his partner, Edwige. Again, he finds the experience absurd and thinks longingly of a relationship like Daphnis and Chloe’s.