Word: milan
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...UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING by Milan Kundera, translated by Michael Henry Heim; Harper & Row; 314 pages...
...MILAN KUNDERA SEEMS to have the best interests of his readers at heart. He begins The Unbearable Lightness of Being, his latest and rather ridiculous-sounding novel, with a direct statement of authorial concerns. This beginning, although a formidable piece of structural clumsiness, represents a kindly attempt to save the reader's time; while one does not get an explicit statement of Kundera's theme, one receives an engaging and straightforward account of what the author thinks. No grubbing about in the text for the Kundera reader...
...project with half a dozen young followers. His oddly hued, plastic-laminate-covered Carlton room divider, whose bookshelves extend at eccentric angles, is intentionally haphazard-looking. Since books tend to settle on an incline anyway, reasoned Sottsass, why force them to stand at attention? With a core committee in Milan, Sottsass informally reviews proposals and commissions plans from like-minded designers. "We are explorers out in unmapped places," he says. "We are not trying to define truth. We just want to keep exploring...
...Memphis quest, claims Sottsass, "implies an optimism that the body is always winning. The puritanical, Catholic approach of 'less is more' is wrong because we know that all Catholics are sinners." Yet Sottsass's domestic décor is far more spartan than hedonistic. His Milan apartment and office are simply furnished, with plain tables and black plastic chairs. Says he: "I have to be free of any outside information to concentrate. I would like to live in a monastery...
Will Memphis' innovation trickle down from the trendy heights? The one who seems least curious is Sottsass. "We are not designing for eternity. For me obsolescence is just the sugar of life." With the orders picking up in Milan, the immediate future of Memphis looks sweet indeed. -By J.D. Reed. Reported by Roberto Suro/Milan