"I'll tell you something: there was a clever and playful boy who lived in Geneva, when Calvin was in power there. His notebooks, filled with jokes about Jesus Christ and the Bible, fell into the hands of the authorities. No doubt this boy, who resembles you, wondered: Is there anything offensive here? After all, he had done no harm; he was just joking. Hatred? He never knew it. Surely, he only knew irony and indifference, and he was executed. Ah, don't think that I advocate such cruelty! I simply want to say that any major movement aiming to transform the world does not tolerate mockery or irony, as they are rust that eats away everything."

This novel portrays the struggle of the individual against the party institution when it becomes narrow-minded, canceling the individual's margin of freedom through its ideological hegemony and unilateral vision. In an analytical and satirical style, Kundera narrates the tragic condition of humans trapped within one of the cycles of Stalinist heritage under the socialist regime in Czechoslovakia.