An idol with feet of clay whose demolition is long overdue

December 13, 2023 2:31 AM

It is tempting to think that a career as long and productive as Kundera’s would finally assume a distinctive unity. But looking closely at the life and work has the opposite effect: what stands out are various ruptures and intimations of underlying incongruence, from Kundera’s disavowal of most of his early work in poetry and drama to his vacillation over the wording of his later texts, as well as his initial refusal to allow his late, French texts – from La lenteur (1995) to La fête de l’insignifiance (2013) – to be translated into Czech. from The Two Milan Kunderas by Alena Dvořáková

Kundera previously: [obituary thread]; [allegations thread]

posted by chavenet (5 comments total)

Thanks for posting!

Because I never liked Kundera, yet never found anyone in my reading circles who shared my dislike of him. Kind of hoping this thread gets more discussion!

In my middlebrow analysis, I always felt he'd put his fingers on the scales on the fiction part so he could "win" the philosophical argument he'd then advance. Which seemed like an odd complaint even as I thought it--of course you'd make up situations that validate you, know? But I guess it felt too artificial.

Pleasantly surprised to see this complaint better phrased by a critic giving it a closer read, in among her other points.

The three novels (for lack of a better term) seem to me marred by their puppetry (too many implausible characters and episodes), by the overbearing knowingness of the narrative commentary, and by the fact that they are so obviously directed at ‘uninitiated’ readers to whom everything must be explained. And yet these are the works of prose in which Kundera perfected his method of ‘polyphonic’ composition: a brief narrative episode or a dialogue is sketched out first, to be closely followed by a discursive explication that leaves hardly any space for disagreement or alternative interpretation. [ . . . ] To me, however, Kundera’s mature way of writing feels coercive, suggestive primarily of the author’s overwhelming need to control the reader’s response.

posted by mark k at 5:58 PM on December 13, 2023 [3 favorites]

Kundera was definitely a literary idol at some point of my youth, but even then it was clear that he had a misogynistic streak, and I have no doubt that if he were alive today he would be aligned with Orban and Putin, supporting Brexit, opposing support for Ukraine and other patriarchal crankiness.
posted by RandlePatrickMcMurphy at 8:36 PM on December 13, 2023 [2 favorites]

This article makes me remember Maciej Ceglowski's "Dating without Kundera". Here's a snippet to whet your appetite:

One of the terrors of dating is Milan Kundera, and specifically, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, the sexually-transmitted book that this Czech-born author has inflicted on a generation of American youth.
[...]
Milan Kundera is the Dave Matthews of Slavic letters, a talented hack, certainly a hack who's paid his dues, but a hack nonetheless. And by his own admission, this is his worst book. If you strip off the exoticism of Brezhnev-era Czechoslovakia (this rinses off easily in soapy water), you are left with a book full of vapid characters bouncing against each other like little perfectly elastic balls of condensed ego. And every twenty pages the story steps outside for a cigarette so that the author can deliver a short philosophical homily. Kundera has a sterile, cleanroom writing style meant to suggest that he is a surgeon expertly dissecting the human condition before your eyes, but if you look a little more closely, you see he's just performing an autopsy on a mannequin.
posted by Termite at 12:26 AM on December 14, 2023 [1 favorite]

OK, so I haven't yet read the whole article, but I'm just going to raise a flag in here to say I don't agree on the basic premise. But I do think there is something to discuss.

I still enjoy Kundera's writing, though not so much TULOB. And not at all that disgusting movie, what a disappointment.
The thing is, I like artifice in general. I don't mind props or stage lights in a text, that remind us that literature is formed, not (god-)given. I like the fact that the main body of Kundera's work is written in a second language, there are aspects of it that remind me of other immigrant writers, like Joseph Conrad or Joseph Brodsky. I'm not able to describe it, but I feel there is a common tone, that comes out of working with the language in a different way than those who write primarily in their mother tongue.
The fact that Kundera refused to translate or reprint the books he wrote in Czech and described himself as a French writer might be an indication that he himself felt that he found his literary voice in French, don't you think?

And then, there is the whole discussion of the relation between an artist's personal opinion and personality and their works. There are plenty of great artists who had terrible politics or were terrible people, and that shines through their work. You are free to avoid their art, but it is hard to say it isn't important. The first writer I thought of was Celine. Another artist I thought about was Leni Riefenstahl.. I haven't read Houellebecq yet, but that is just because of priorities, it doesn't mean I won't.
In my reading, Kundera was a misogynist and cynic with many weakness, which is very bad, but he was a misogynist and cynic with many weakness who was constantly exploring why that was with humor. His books are stuffed to the gills with unreliable narrators and ironic exposures of the pompousness and self-indulgences of some men. Tomas in TULOB is not a hero or even an anti-hero, he is just a broken and weak human being, caught up in history with no ability or desire to act. (I was fascinated by Tomas when I read the book, because I knew a Tomas who and wondered about his choices in life).
I hope we don't want our artists to be perfect human beings. That would take us in some unsavory directions.

Kundera saw himself as a humorist, not as a philosopher, similarly to Kafka, who expected his friends to laugh at his stories.

I have no doubt that if he were alive today he would be aligned with Orban and Putin, supporting Brexit, opposing support for Ukraine and other patriarchal crankiness.
Really? I'm surprised at that reading. I mean, you may be right, but I didn't get that impression of his thinking at all. Way back, he wrote two essays about Central Europe which have recently been republished, I haven't yet read them in their new shape. But they point in a different direction than what you suggest. (I'm pretty sure I read the -80s one when it came out, and that was what got me started with Kundera, but can't find it here). Obviously, he can have changed his views over those 40 years.

There are other more literary aspects of the article I also disagree with, but I'll have to finish reading before commenting on those.
posted by mumimor at 3:35 AM on December 14, 2023 [4 favorites]

OK, now read. Throughout the article, the author mentions "mystification", and my impression is that they expect writers to have some sort of obligation to tell the "truth", whatever that is. IMO, that is a romantic expectation that probably eradicates most of world literature. Because I'm old, I see it as an old-fashioned approach to criticism, but because I'm alive, I'm also aware that there is some sort of a revival of this approach going on.

Along the same line, I am strongly opposed to biographical readings of art in general. I mean, I am as curious as anyone about the lives of great artists, and lived experiences can often provide material for artists, but what makes their work art, rather than just random expression, is the way they form the material, regardless of wether that material is autobiographical or found elsewhere.
posted by mumimor at 4:27 AM on December 14, 2023 [3 favorites]