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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. In what is Mirek reveling?

2. What does distance do for Marketa's attitude toward her mother-in-law?

3. How does Mirek feel about Zdena's advice?

4. After leaving the ring, what does Kundera do?

5. What does Mama later say about Eva?

Short Essay Questions

1. How is the fur hat symbolic?

2. Why does Mirek want his old love letters back from Zdena and do you think his goal is possible?

3. What is upsetting about Mama's visit and why doesn't Marketa do anything about it?

4. What happens when Mirek arrives back home and how is this somewhat ironic?

5. Who is Mirek going to visit and why?

6. What is the meaning of laughter in part 3?

7. What are Michelle and Gabrielle doing and what is their response?

8. What is it that Marketa does not know about Eva and do you think Marketa would care at this point if she learned this?

9. Why does Kundera quit dancing and what does he imagine about the dancing? Of what do you think his imagining about the dancing is symbolic?

10. What happens when Karel receives a phone call and how is the outcome ironic?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

This "novel" is more a text of ideas than action. Discuss one of the following ideas:

1. In part 6: "The Angels," Kundera writes that Hubl remarks that you can "liquidate its people" by erasing their memory of their previous culture. Discuss this idea in context of the book.

2. In part 6: "The Angels," Kundera blurs the historical moments of Clementis and Gottwald, Kafta and the President heretofore referred to as the Presdient of Forgetting, Svoboda. Discuss this blurring of historical moments in context of the book.

3. Discuss the idea that despite hundreds of thousands of lives being influenced and changed, the history of the world is easily forgotten. (From Part 1: "Lost Letters")

Essay Topic 2

In Part 2, Mama is an older woman and her loss of memory embarrasses her. While Marketa and Karel want to selectively forget pieces of their relationship, Mama is desperately trying to cling onto some of her memories, which are blurring together and becoming lost. Discuss one of the following:

1. Compare Mama's unintentional forgetting with the forgetting Kundera writes about concerning selective parts of history.

2. Compare Mama's blurring together of parts of her memory to the blurring Kundera does of Czech history in Part 6.

3. Discuss memory and how memory depends on several factors as to its accuracy.

Essay Topic 3

THE BOOK OF LAUGHTER AND FORGETTING could be considered a collection of short stories related thematically. Discuss one of the following:

1. Discuss the theme of laughter as it occurs in three of the parts. Analyze the theme and create a thesis about laughter with which you think Kundera would agree.

2. There is a saying, "Laughter is the Best Medicine." Agree or disagree with this statement as far as this book is concerned.

3. Discuss for which of the characters laughter is important and why. Give specific examples.

(see the answer keys)

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