What does that mean?

In this false novel there is no plot to speak of; the characters, on the whole, merely pass.
Chapters, as brief as numerous, are all episodes of a TV series that would focus on the life of Ph. Bowman (including his loves).

The problem with this book is that it is at bottom nothing more than the sum of its sub-parts, so that we recognize a great book to the fact that it is more than that. Here there are lots of free events, which seem to be there only to fill pages, and then the many characters (all pass) fail horribly substance.
The prologue is quite nice but it "resonates" not in the rest of the narrative: it does not integrate into the economy of the novel.

It follows therefore a drama well told, and at times interesting, but whose episodes are just for themselves without being at the service of a greater and deeper purpose than just storytelling. That's why I ended up diagonally browse the last 30 pages, when I realized that this novel was unfortunately devoid of interesting reflection on one or more substantive issues, and there was there, at best, a refined entertainment where the "spirit" of the novel, Kundera dear, do not blow.

In short, no offense to some Parisian critics impressionable blissful and happy when he is an "American writer," there has not really dealing with a literary, but a series of highbrow synopsis . There is the construction defect which is not, strictly speaking, a novel.