The ancient humanists taught us that the life of the spirit flourishes in the presence of a playful, relaxed, and carefully focused life of pleasure. Today, we have different ideas. This book is expatriot Czech writer Milan Kundera's first novel in French; it has been translated by Linda Asher. The sophisticated narrator visits a chateau-turned-hotel and yearns for the civilized pace of life unspooled in his two favorite 18th century novels — Les Liaisons dangereuses by Choderlos de Laclos and Vivant Denon's Point de lendemain. "Why has the pleasure of slowness disappeared? Ah, where have they gone, the amblers of yesteryear?" asks the narrator. In their place are the hustlers of the modern day who rush through everything. Kundera calls the exhibitionists of public life "dancers." And then there are crass individuals like Vincent whose time with Julia, an alluring woman, is sped through and quickly forgotten. Kundera is convinced that a link ties slowness and memory together. In his view, pleasure can only be reinstated in our lives when we luxuriate in our senses and revel in the arts of conversation and subtle seduction.