Sweet post! I think you make a lot of observations a lot of Kundera commenters miss out on, without neglecting those ones. (After all, we are writing for the Anglosphere) And I second the importance of his essays: if Unbearable Lightness doesn't make you a fan, his essays will. (Though as I'll tell everybody in this young, post-Kundera age, don't only read Unbearable Lightness: read his early stuff too)
The reason I classify Kundera as a dissident novelist even though very few in the former Eastern bloc would agree with me (though not always for rational reasons) is partly because of the role of The Joke as the Prague Spring novel alongside Ludvik Vaculik's The Axe: The Joke is a dissident novel whether Kundera intended it to be or not; but because in his intro to Jacques and His Master (a short but essential essay to add to the reading list) he describes himself as "a hedonist caught between political extremes." Though not to my knowledge autobiographical Tomas reflects that reality very well in Unbearable Lightness. He reasserts a part of himself that no political extreme - including those of the West, which he began exploring in The Book of Laughter and Forgetting - can take away from him. (Let us remember that stripping one of their citizenship as the Communists did to Kundera is a very extreme act of disowning in the modern world: I don't think Americans can understand what that's like since it has almost never happened) With that in mind - since, as you said, he didn't only criticize Communism - I wonder if that's why Kundera attracts so many haters and uncharitable reviewers in the West. It's something I've wondered, seeing some of the more critical reactions. (Including the one you mentioned at Inner Life from your friend) On one hand, so many people read Unbearable Lightness; presumably, they like it or it has a big impact on them, the way you recollect so wonderfully here. So why then this struggle? (Though I'm a seasoned fan, I did not have this experience with him so I do not understand it) The best literature should of course question people's worldview, but this struggle has a different flavor to it.
I think that Kundera's 'hedonism' is equally indigestible to the West as it was to the Communists; even more so, given the promiscuous character of the post-1969 'normalization' period. Kundera's novels are very relatable, but they do not willingly lend themselves to any narrative, if at all. Even a pro-hedonism advocate in the West will do so in a moralistic way, where it's not just about giving a free pass but accepting that hedonistic behavior with the totality of one's heart: we see that with gay culture, for instance, which used to be a seam in the fabric of the hedonistic margins. The West today expects - in the sinister Marcusian framework of "tolerance" - that we not only tolerate gayness, but formulate a 100% positive moral opinion about a formerly hedonistic practice without question, and to express "repressive intolerance," to use Marcuse's term, against those who even slightly disagree. In this sense, the West (or America at least) inhabits a matrix of Marcusian logic.
While it's true, as you mention, that Kundera's stance is not as amoral as some may think - in my view, morality is as inescapable as eating, drinking and shitting but it does have shades of grey the way food has flavor - Tomas has nothing to do with that Western moralism either. And also doesn't give a rats ass about it; like you said, Tomas simply has a practical routine to his love life that is as far removed from that "I've got lots of bitches" attitude we celebrate in the West as can be. It is both completely accessible yet insufferably (to Americans) foreign; I remember how struck I was by it when I first read Unbearable Lightness. And because they can't handle or process that, haters instead come up with narratives about him being a misogynist because in doing so, the haters transmogrify what they don't understand about Kundera into safe, tame concepts that make sense, even if that characterization is cracked up. (This domestication of "otherness" is an accepted psychological phenomenon in translation studies; a good example is Stanislaw Lem whose artistry is incredibly multifaceted, and yet the Anglosphere can only define him as a science fiction author because it is the only cross-cultural overlap Anglo-America has with which to process Lem's artistry in a comprehensible manner)
Anyway, Kundera's passing is a great loss. I think you did a splendid job at reflecting upon his legacy. While Unbearable Lightness is great, I do hope those revisiting Kundera will give his other works more attention. He's not just a one-hit wonder.
A terrific post, Sam, that leaves me breathless on how well you describe the power of Kundera's work. I have read everything he wrote, except perhaps the last book--was obsessed with his writing style, with his play with form and his use of what I like to call "modules" in his novels: _The Unbearable Lightness of Being_, a superb example that never left me. I suppose some might call this “fragmentary design.” I could see the importance of form and meaning, how inseparable the two are in all narratives. I don’t dare compare myself to him, but I know his style inspired my short story “Sine Die”—probably the best I ever wrote. My point is that his experimentation and use of tying form and meaning were breakthroughs for me and gave me courage to experiment with form.
On another note, I hold this quote dear from _Testaments Betrayed_: “Of course, every novelist, intentionally or not, draws on his own life; there are entirely invented characters, created out of pure reverie; there are those inspired by a model, sometimes directly, more often indirectly; there are those created from a single detail observed in some person; and all of them owe much to the author’s introspection, to his self-knowledge. The work of the imagination transforms these inspirations and observations so thoroughly that the novelist forgets about them.”
Killer, concise piece. Thank you for saying The Thing about Kundera--his profound existentialism--which so many people ignore in their moralistic stance about the infidelities / politics / all of the other essences applied to his storytelling after the fact. I found his novel "Life is Elsewhere" to be the most affecting to my own heart/brain, which to your point came at a time in my life when I needed to read it. But then I pull up my typed-up notes from that reading experience and realize it's probably about time I re-read that work (and his many others) today:
"Xavier replied that a home is not a linen closet or a bird in a cage but the presence of the person we love. And then he told her that he himself had no home, or rather, to put it another way, that his home was in his pace, in his walk, in his journeys. That his home was wherever new horizons opened. That he could only live by going from one dream to another, from one landscape to another, and that if he stayed too long in the same setting he would die, as her husband would die if he stayed in the wardrobe more than a couple of weeks." Life is Elsewhere, transl. Aaron Asher, p. 94
Sweet post! I think you make a lot of observations a lot of Kundera commenters miss out on, without neglecting those ones. (After all, we are writing for the Anglosphere) And I second the importance of his essays: if Unbearable Lightness doesn't make you a fan, his essays will. (Though as I'll tell everybody in this young, post-Kundera age, don't only read Unbearable Lightness: read his early stuff too)
The reason I classify Kundera as a dissident novelist even though very few in the former Eastern bloc would agree with me (though not always for rational reasons) is partly because of the role of The Joke as the Prague Spring novel alongside Ludvik Vaculik's The Axe: The Joke is a dissident novel whether Kundera intended it to be or not; but because in his intro to Jacques and His Master (a short but essential essay to add to the reading list) he describes himself as "a hedonist caught between political extremes." Though not to my knowledge autobiographical Tomas reflects that reality very well in Unbearable Lightness. He reasserts a part of himself that no political extreme - including those of the West, which he began exploring in The Book of Laughter and Forgetting - can take away from him. (Let us remember that stripping one of their citizenship as the Communists did to Kundera is a very extreme act of disowning in the modern world: I don't think Americans can understand what that's like since it has almost never happened) With that in mind - since, as you said, he didn't only criticize Communism - I wonder if that's why Kundera attracts so many haters and uncharitable reviewers in the West. It's something I've wondered, seeing some of the more critical reactions. (Including the one you mentioned at Inner Life from your friend) On one hand, so many people read Unbearable Lightness; presumably, they like it or it has a big impact on them, the way you recollect so wonderfully here. So why then this struggle? (Though I'm a seasoned fan, I did not have this experience with him so I do not understand it) The best literature should of course question people's worldview, but this struggle has a different flavor to it.
I think that Kundera's 'hedonism' is equally indigestible to the West as it was to the Communists; even more so, given the promiscuous character of the post-1969 'normalization' period. Kundera's novels are very relatable, but they do not willingly lend themselves to any narrative, if at all. Even a pro-hedonism advocate in the West will do so in a moralistic way, where it's not just about giving a free pass but accepting that hedonistic behavior with the totality of one's heart: we see that with gay culture, for instance, which used to be a seam in the fabric of the hedonistic margins. The West today expects - in the sinister Marcusian framework of "tolerance" - that we not only tolerate gayness, but formulate a 100% positive moral opinion about a formerly hedonistic practice without question, and to express "repressive intolerance," to use Marcuse's term, against those who even slightly disagree. In this sense, the West (or America at least) inhabits a matrix of Marcusian logic.
While it's true, as you mention, that Kundera's stance is not as amoral as some may think - in my view, morality is as inescapable as eating, drinking and shitting but it does have shades of grey the way food has flavor - Tomas has nothing to do with that Western moralism either. And also doesn't give a rats ass about it; like you said, Tomas simply has a practical routine to his love life that is as far removed from that "I've got lots of bitches" attitude we celebrate in the West as can be. It is both completely accessible yet insufferably (to Americans) foreign; I remember how struck I was by it when I first read Unbearable Lightness. And because they can't handle or process that, haters instead come up with narratives about him being a misogynist because in doing so, the haters transmogrify what they don't understand about Kundera into safe, tame concepts that make sense, even if that characterization is cracked up. (This domestication of "otherness" is an accepted psychological phenomenon in translation studies; a good example is Stanislaw Lem whose artistry is incredibly multifaceted, and yet the Anglosphere can only define him as a science fiction author because it is the only cross-cultural overlap Anglo-America has with which to process Lem's artistry in a comprehensible manner)
Anyway, Kundera's passing is a great loss. I think you did a splendid job at reflecting upon his legacy. While Unbearable Lightness is great, I do hope those revisiting Kundera will give his other works more attention. He's not just a one-hit wonder.
Thanks for this wonderful essay that defends the lightness in Kundera's novels.
A profound take. Well done.
Beautifully written
A terrific post, Sam, that leaves me breathless on how well you describe the power of Kundera's work. I have read everything he wrote, except perhaps the last book--was obsessed with his writing style, with his play with form and his use of what I like to call "modules" in his novels: _The Unbearable Lightness of Being_, a superb example that never left me. I suppose some might call this “fragmentary design.” I could see the importance of form and meaning, how inseparable the two are in all narratives. I don’t dare compare myself to him, but I know his style inspired my short story “Sine Die”—probably the best I ever wrote. My point is that his experimentation and use of tying form and meaning were breakthroughs for me and gave me courage to experiment with form.
On another note, I hold this quote dear from _Testaments Betrayed_: “Of course, every novelist, intentionally or not, draws on his own life; there are entirely invented characters, created out of pure reverie; there are those inspired by a model, sometimes directly, more often indirectly; there are those created from a single detail observed in some person; and all of them owe much to the author’s introspection, to his self-knowledge. The work of the imagination transforms these inspirations and observations so thoroughly that the novelist forgets about them.”
We loved him. Rest peacefully.
Killer, concise piece. Thank you for saying The Thing about Kundera--his profound existentialism--which so many people ignore in their moralistic stance about the infidelities / politics / all of the other essences applied to his storytelling after the fact. I found his novel "Life is Elsewhere" to be the most affecting to my own heart/brain, which to your point came at a time in my life when I needed to read it. But then I pull up my typed-up notes from that reading experience and realize it's probably about time I re-read that work (and his many others) today:
"Xavier replied that a home is not a linen closet or a bird in a cage but the presence of the person we love. And then he told her that he himself had no home, or rather, to put it another way, that his home was in his pace, in his walk, in his journeys. That his home was wherever new horizons opened. That he could only live by going from one dream to another, from one landscape to another, and that if he stayed too long in the same setting he would die, as her husband would die if he stayed in the wardrobe more than a couple of weeks." Life is Elsewhere, transl. Aaron Asher, p. 94