So

Today I started reading The Unbearable Lightness of Being, which had been recommended by a friend who touts it as The Book He Would Have Wanted to Write Himself -- maybe the highest honor that can be bestowed upon a book. So far, I've read to about page 20 and it has made me feel so sad. The main character has so carefully constructed his life to have made no emotional attachments to women, and many affairs, with rules involved so that he does not become attached. He calls it the rule of threes: either be with a woman three times in what he calls rapid succession and then never see her again; or carefully schedule engagements with a woman so that at least three weeks pass by before each encounter. That is the story of the successful lothario/womanizer. I suspect the reason my friend likes this book is not directly related to this character's womanizing habits, but more based upon the quality of the introspection and placid analytical style this author has exhibited that I have observed so far. I perused through a few of this author's other books, and I find similar womanizing themes in at least one of them. I wondered what it's like to be inside the head of someone who has no feeling, no emotion, no attachment to women and creates this state of being on purpose. But to read about it makes me feel used, abused and kicked around. I don't like it. None of the qualities of the women being used must matter much to that person who seeks no emotional attachment. That's a horrible feeling. This is a problem I have with some of the other books I've read. And they have one thing in common. Male authors. They know this stuff.