The Farewell Waltz

infobox Book |
name = The Farewell Waltz
title_orig = Valčík na rozloučenou
translator = Peter Kussi


image_caption =
author = Milan Kundera
illustrator =
cover_artist =
country = Czechoslovakia
language = Czech
series =
genre = Novel
publisher =
release_date = 1976
media_type =
pages =
isbn = 0060997001
preceded_by =
followed_by =

"The Farewell Waltz" ( _cs. Valčík na rozloučenou) is a Czech-language novel by Milan Kundera published in 1972. French edition in 1976.

This novel mostly deals with love, hate and accidents between eight characters who are drawn together in a small spa town in Czechoslovakia in early 1970s.

Like most Kundera's work The Farewell Waltz is a book of many layers. On the surface it is a comedy or a burlesque. Still the comedy is just at the top of this story which involves much darker and ambiguous tones [ [http://www.kundera.de/english/Bibliography/The_Farewell_Waltz/the_farewell_waltz.html Review at kundera.de] ] .

Characters

Ruzena

A young and pretty nurse who has become pregnant from Klima.

Frantisek

A guy with a motorbike who believes that Ruzena is his girlfriend. He is willing to marry her even knowing that she's pregnant from another man.

Klima

A trumpeteer from a big orchestra, a donjuan who had a one-night stand with Ruzena and completely forgot about her until she informed him that she would be having a baby.

Kamila

Formerly a popular songstress, Kamila had to end her career because of health problems. She is Klima's wife and is extremely jealous of her husband and always suspects him of having affairs.

kreta

A gynecologist at the spa who wants to be adopted by Bertlef so he could become an American citizen, and who has an original method for helping couples that can't have babies (in cases when he suspects that the man is infertile, he uses injections of his own sperm)

Bertlef

A rich American with poor health who has to spend most of his time in the spa town. Thanks to Skreta he and his wife were able to have a baby (it is presumed that this was a case of Skreta's sperm treatment).

Jakub

Jakub is a former political prisoner, who now has received a permission to leave Czechoslovakia. He is paying his last visit to his friend Skreta, who once gave him a pill of poison for committing suicide if he felt that all hope was lost.

Olga

Jakub's "ward" Olga is the daughter of a man who once betrayed Jakub. She believes (because Jakub has told her so) that her father was Jakub's best friend.

References