The next morning Jean-Marc, alienated by the illogicalities of human existence and comfortable living only on the periphery, is consumed by an inexplicable yearning to be with Chantal and goes looking for her. He spots a familiar, known silhouette, with its characteristic chignon, nonchalantly taking in the seaside vista, oblivious of the sand-yachts zooming menacingly around her. Is she alive to the danger of being crushed? Horrifying images rapidly whir by: Chantal sprawled, dead. He calls out, cautions her, screams his torment as a seemingly inevitable bereavement grips his being. But all's well, Chantal continues to stroll along. And when he runs to her in relief, arms outstretched, why, it's not her! The chignon was in fact a bandana and the woman is ugly, old.
What happens when we fail to recognise a loved one, who ostensibly is our sole link to the world? Does he cease to exist? If so, can we miss a person sitting across the table? What of us? Suddenly, albeit momentarily, bereft of a significant other, does our selfhood take a battering? Milan Kundera's spartan new novel investigates and philosophises on the role of the human gaze in the definition of one's identity? Who gazes? How does it transform us? Is our gaze a relevant coefficient? Can a battery of observers obliterate our individuality? Does the absence of a companion inflict the same result?
After an uneasy reunion, Chantal finds herself blurting out: "Men don't turn to look at me any more." An odd complaint from a woman perpetually seeking freedom from the ubiquitous spying eyes; indeed, she has escaped a jolly family which does not believe in privacy, she interprets the death of a child as a gift, for it liberates her from the need to make peace with an imperfect world, and she justifies the exigencies of a materialistic career by saying she has two faces (that is, two gazes).
Chantal's lament, at any rate, is attended to, when letters from a secret admirer, who declares, "I usually follow you", begin appearing in the mailbox. Her self-esteem perks up, but not for long as she becomes hypersensitive and intrigued about the writer's identity. Could it be the stranger at the cafe or the beggar on the doorstep? Of course, it is actually Jean-Marc. But far from bestowing upon him the self-satisfaction of an altruistic gesture, his fraud results in doubt about the relationship. If Chantal can take an admirer in her stride, does it imply that she is promiscuous? It is but a logical step from there that Chantal no longer seems the Chantal he knew. Chantal, meanwhile, guesses the identity of her correspondent and is devastated by the deceit, which she takes to be a surreptitious test of loyalty. So the gaze of a companion becomes alien.
And as this postmodern novel of questions races towards a denouement resounding with evil and a haunting sense of deja vu, the line between dream and reality progressively blurs. Chantal is gradually stripped of her identity after a series of observers seize a determining power, till in an eerie climax, she is divested of the last vestige of her selfhood, her name.
Quantum physics has long established the supremacy of the observer, a literary feat Kundera almost accomplishes here. More importantly, he crafts a chiller to be read and reread, to be mulled over, to be painstakingly distanced from one's own existence. For otherwise, it will have served its purpose by leaving a nagging sense of loss, of emptiness.
