Review: 89 Words followed by Prague, A Disappearing Poem

89 Words followed by Prague, A Disappearing Poem by Milan Kundera
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is an audiobook that should be listened to twice through. It is somewhat dense for audio listening, and may do better reading the words. However, that was the copy that I had and did not have the opportunity to listen through twice. The work is short enough that it can be read entirely in one day.

The introduction gives a very brief biography of Milan Kundera. The second section is the essay 89 Words. These are the words Kundera found important or significant, and often appear in his novels.
The last section is the essay/poem called: Prague, A Disappearing Poem. It does start out like poetry but ends up more similar to an essay. It discusses Prague and some of its history.

It was said this is a good introduction to Kundera’s works. I have read three of his books, although it was quite some time ago, they are not fresh in my memory. However, I believe one would do better having familiarity with Kundera’s novels. Often he refers to characters and situations located in his books and it would help to be acquainted with those.

Kundera speaks often about the words in his translations. Sometimes the translator gives a different word or phrase than what Kundera was trying to get across in his writings. Also, how some translations were done from another translation, and meaning there got distorted at times. Certainly this can be a problem with all translations.

Book rating: 3.5

Thanks to HarperAudio Adult, William Morrow and NetGalley for an advanced audio copy of this book.


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