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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. Why does Marketa begin to write her mother-in-law?

2. In what is Mirek reveling?

3. Why do Michelle and Gabrielle break out in laughter?

4. For whom does Kundera give a personal astrological reading?

5. What does Mama forget?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Kundera's loss of his friends in the dancing circle affect him later?

2. What is the larger meaning of the letters which Mirek is supposedly seeking to have back?

3. What is remembered about Clementis?

4. What does this Kundera say about our collective past?

5. What does Mirek think of Zdena when they first meet and then become lovers?

6. Who is Mirek going to visit and why?

7. What is Zdena response to Mirek's request for his letters and do you think she is being fair to Mirek?

8. What is the difference between how Mama views memory versus how Karel and Marketa do?

9. What do Kundera and other students do around 1948 and why? Do you think Kundera is speaking metaphorically or actuality.

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

In Part 3, "The Angels," Kundera is hired to write astrology columns for a political magazine after he is banned from working by the government. While on the job, he is asked to give the personal astrological reading of a Communist in secret. He gives him the "reading" and the editor of the magazine tells him the powerful man becomes a much nicer, softer man after reading it. Discuss the following:

1. How do you think Kundera's story about astrology fits in with the rest of this novel?

2. Why do you think an astrology reading changes a man? Do you think this is a true anecdote?

3. Do you think Kundera is suggesting that astrology has as much a reason for what happens in the political arena of Czechoslovakia as anything else? Explain.

Essay Topic 2

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 3

In Part 1, the narrator says that Mirek has always been ashamed of Zdena for the simple fact that she is ugly. Much of this book deals with sexual relationships. Discuss one of the following:

1. Do you think Mirek's attitude about a woman's attractiveness is fairly universal? Why or why not? Discuss his attitude and then expand on that.

2. What do you think is the basis of the relationship between Marketa and Karel? Do you think they have a fairly "typical" relationship?

3. Do men base relationships on different criteria than women? Use examples from the book and your personal knowledge.

(see the answer keys)

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