A young woman in love with a man torn between his love for .her and his incorrigible womanizing; one of his mistresses and her humbly faithful Iovcr--these are the two couples whose story is told in this mastcrful novel. In a world in which lives are shaped by irrevocable choices and by fortuitous events, a world in which cverything occurs but once, existence seems to lose its substance, its weight. Hence, we feel “the unbearable lighmess of being” not only as the consequence of our pristine actions but also in the public sphere, and the two inevitably intertwine.

PART ONE Lightness and Weight

PART TWO Soul and Body

PART THREE Words Misunderstood

PART FOUR Soul and Body

PART FIVE Lightness and Weight

PART SIX The Grand March

PART SEVEN Karenin's Smile