num_pages: 311
description:  The author initially intended to call this novel,  The Lyrical Age. The lyrical age, according to Kundera, is youth, and this novel, above all, is an epic of adolescence; an ironic epic that tenderly erodes sacrosanct values: childhood, motherhood, revolution, and even poetry. Jaromil is in fact a poet. His mother made hima poet and accompanies him (figuratively) to his love bed and (literally) to his deathbed. A ridiculous and touching character, horrifying and totally innocent ("innocence with its bloody smile"!), Jaromil is at the same time a true poet. He's no creep, he's Rimbaud. Rimbaud entrapped by the communist revolution, entrapped in a somber farce.
language: English
title: Life is Elsewhere
titlecomplete: Life is Elsewhere
characters: Jaromil
genres: Literary Fiction, Literature, Fiction, Philosophy, Roman, Contemporary, Czech Literature, 20th Century, Novels, Classics
ratings_count: 18669
awards: awardedAt: 94723200000
name: Prix Médicis Etranger, awardedAt: 157795200000
name: National Book Award Finalist
category: Translation
publisher: Faber and Faber Limited