This is the second of the three novels Milan Kundera has written in French since he published Immortality, which, like his earlier novels, was written in his native Czech.
Here, he speculates on the meaning of identity, and what can happen if, for a split second, we fail to recognise a friend or lover, or mistake a stranger for a loved one. Like his other two French novels, Identity is a model of concision and lightness – he has moved from the seven-part novels of his Czech language days to shorter, more focused single-part books.
As always with Kundera, we are presented with a dazzling display of his intellect and insight, a meditation in the form of a novel, ranging over an array of references, but never in an obscure way. Indeed, Kundera has been attacked for, in effect, dumbing down since his exile from his home country in the 1970s. But where others see simplification, I see precision and economy of expression, and a novelist saying exactly what they want to say, completely in command of his art.
I profoundly hope that we’ll see another of Kundera’s wonderful late novels before too long.
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