Just finished this, and I can’t really get my head around the ending right now. Tereza’s dream of Tomas turning into a rabbit appears to confirm the prior leanings towards natural instincts being more in tune with man’s potential intent. In the dream she seems to feel that she’s has at long last received what she has sought, that being, being loved.
As she watches Tomas from a distance, she realizes that her strength was in her weakness, and that it was what overcame Tomas’ strength.
Kundera seems to avoid any more discourse on theory, choosing to leave it up to his characters to clarify it by their lives. The ending scenario doesn’t leave a strong image, yet perhaps it is that fact that means the most; that even as Tereza and Tomas have come to realize what is important in life, what matters and what doesn’t, their lives will still follow a certain course that has been laid by all their prior choices, and of course, the events that arose that presented those choices.
More maybe tomorrow; right now my mind is trying to go over all the places I’ve been today and what I’ve done so that I have a better chance of finding a gold ring that is dear to me. What choices did I make that led me to a point where it was lost…
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology