This is Part 4 in a series examining Friedrich Nietzsche’s concept of eternal recurrence through film and literature. Expect spoilers.
If
popular culture can employ Friedrich Nietzsche’s concept of eternal recurrence
(or eternal return) to meaningful effect, then certainly high culture can do
the same. Milan Kundera’s novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being is a stunning
example. It begins with an unconventional take on eternal recurrence that is
the novel’s central theme.
In
The Gay Science, Nietzsche describes belief in eternal recurrence as “the heaviest
burden,” for the thought of endless repetition would give weight to every
thought and every action. Kundera reverses the idea:
Putting it negatively, the myth of eternal return states that a life which disappears once and for all, which does not return, is like a shadow, without weight, dead in advance, and whether it was horrible, beautiful, or sublime, its horror, sublimity, and beauty mean nothing.
As
the characters of the novel make the decisions that determine the course of
their lives--in matters both historical (the Soviet invasion of
Czechoslovakia) and personal (numerous romantic rendezvous)--they are
frequently gripped by a feeling of lightness, like Franz is after he tells his
wife about his lover Sabina:
A while later he met Sabina at the airport. As the plane gained altitude, he felt lighter and lighter. At last, he said to himself, after nine months he was living in truth.
Unfortunately
for Franz, the spice of the affair for Sabina came from its secrecy. Once it
becomes public, she soon shuts out Franz, leaving him without wife or lover.
The unpredictability of life and the knowledge that there are no do-overs can
induce a light-headed, dizzy feeling familiar to anyone who has fallen in love,
started a new job, or taken a principled stand despite the threat of negative consequences.
Confronted
with Nietzsche’s and Kundera’s views of life, we need not choose one over the
other, for Nietzsche’s is merely a thought experiment and Kundera’s merely a
playful reversal of it. Neither is intended as fact. Eternal recurrence is
undoubtedly a strange idea, so the lightness of being that comes with non-recurrence
may seem more familiar to our customary ways of viewing the world, but surely we are also familiar with the weightiness of
existence. Precisely because our decisions incur irrevocable consequences,
being is often unbearably heavy whether it repeats or not.
Either
way, we are all just atoms swerving through the void (to paraphrase Roman poet Lucretius in De reum natura), and do we not swerve in search of greater
well-being? Nietzsche chose to invest every moment of his life with the weight
of endless repetition so that he would awaken to life’s preciousness. By
contrast, Kundera uses the transitory and finite nature of life to highlight
its beauty. As there is little difference between the two in effect, it seems to me that we may
adopt whichever works--or both or neither as we deem appropriate for our own circumstances.
Previous
posts in this series:
Eternal Recurrence and Nietzsche (1/4)Eternal Recurrence and Edge of Tomorrow (2/4)
Eternal Recurrence and Groundhog Day (3/4)
