The Story Archive

Immortality

Milan Kundera · 1990 CE · Novel · Czech · Contemporary

A woman of sixty at a swimming pool turns and waves in a way that belongs to a girl of twenty, and the narrator, named Kundera and drinking with a friend called Professor Avenarius, invents a character called Agnes out of the gesture. Her marriage, her sister and her daughter share the book with Goethe fending off Bettina von Arnim's designs on his afterlife. An essay on what people will do to be remembered, carried by characters who admit they are being made up.

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Attributes

Genre
PsychologicalSatire
Theme
Fame & GloryIdentity & SelfMemory & TimeVanity & BeautyArt & Creation
Archetype (Jung / Campbell)
CreatorLoverEveryman
Plot structure
MetafictionPolyphonicNonlinear / Fractured
Symbol / motif
The MirrorThe Portrait
Conflict
vs Selfvs Society
Mode / tone
IronicMetafictionalSatirical
Culture / tradition
Czech

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