num_pages: 432
description: Kundera 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 him a 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 sombre farce.
language: English
title: Life is Elsewhere
titlecomplete: Life is Elsewhere
characters: Jaromil
genres: 20th Century, Philosophy, Literary Fiction, Novels, Literature, Roman, Classics, Fiction, Contemporary, Czech Literature
ratings_count: 18654
awards: awardedAt: 94723200000
name: Prix Médicis Etranger, awardedAt: 157795200000
name: National Book Award Finalist
category: Translation
publisher: Harper Perennial