"Kundera, master of the twosome, finds erotic and existential threads everywhere in daily behavior. Like his previous books, Identity is a cluster of jeweled observations. . . . But Identity has a special charm: suspense. . . . [It] gets us turning the pages in excitement and alarm, and Kundera's wit keeps us turning them to the very end." — San Francisco Chronicle
In a narrative as intense as it is brief, a moment of confusion sets in motion a complex chain of events which forces the reader to cross and recross the divide between fantasy and reality.
Sometimes—perhaps only for an instant—we fail to recognize a companion; for a moment their identity ceases to exist, and thus we come to doubt our own. The effect is at its most acute in a couple, where our existence is given meaning by our perception of a lover, and theirs of us.
With his astonishing skill at building on and out from the significant moment, Milan Kundera has placed such a situation and the resulting wave of panic at the core of this novel. Hailed as a "a fervent and compelling romance, a moving fable about the anxieties of love and separateness" (Baltimore Sun), it is not to be missed.
"Arresting. In its brevity and unity of plot it surpasses even his previous book, Slowness." — Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, New York Times
"Curiously absorbing, with a melancholy charm." — Wall Street Journal
"[Kundera's] way of imagining himself into the minds of women in a state of love and desire is remarkable." — Boston Globe
"A beguiling meditation on the illusions of self-image and desire....meant to be savored, pleasurably and thoughtfully, like a fine cognac." — Time Out New York
"Kundera, master of the twosome, finds erotic and existential threads everywhere in daily behavior. Like his previous books, Identity is a cluster of jeweled observations. . . . But Identity has a special charm: suspense. . . . [It] gets us turning the pages in excitement and alarm, and Kundera's wit keeps us turning them to the very end, through love's dark night of the soul and out again into a precarious sunlight." — San Francisco Chronicle
"Its allegory of love left me shivering with an ambiguous, indefinable, yet strong sense of evil." — Washington Post Book World
"A fervent and compelling romance, a moving fable about the anxieties of love and separateness." — Baltimore Sun
"A twisting, teasing labyrinthine story of detection." — Times Literary Supplement
"Insightful. . . Kundera lucidly discloses the psychological obsessions of the two lovers and shows how these obsessions lead to repeated miscommunications between them." — New York Times Book Review
