“Kundera Sucks”
Actually, I enjoyed The Unbearable Lightness of Being but that’s not so say I’m going to disagree Maciej. How can you disagree when someone with impeccable Eastern European street cred runs through a list of “date books” with such exuberence:
[The Unbearable Lightness of Being] has that sexy whiff of the Eastern Bloc to it (very effective on anyone who hasn’t been immunized by an actual relationship with an Eastern European), it’s full of young people having complex, turgid sex with one another, and since the first sentence of the book mentions ‘Nietzsche’, it is ipso facto philosophical.
I mean, he even goes to the trouble of worrying about the right translation for you, his gentle reader:
Picking the right translation is always a big deal, but it’s unusually important with [The Master and Margarita] – there are several versions in print, and most are either too sloppy or done from a censored 1967 version of the text. The Bergin/O’Connor version is what you want, it’s unabridged, meticulous and has invaluable endnotes. And what is sexier than invaluable endnotes?
The only thing sexier than invaluable endnotes, I reckon, are invaluable footnotes. Well, if like me you swing that way.
Er, I mean, what’s really sexy is when some Eastern European guy frets over the right translations for you. And it’s not like Maciej is some effeminate dandy. Not when he describes Pushkin as “still melting panties from beyond the grave nearly two hundred years after his death.”
You can’t get suggestions for a good Panty Melt on just any old blogspot.com, but Maciej, he knows what’s good for you. Thanks, chief!
