Writers: Milan Kundera

I found Milan Kundera in prison thanks to Joel C. He had me read The Joke. Until this point, I doubted a male writer unlikely to write a female character. Then I read The Unbearable Lightness of Being. I was hooked for sure after the interlibrary loan program brought me The Art of the Novel. Recently I ran across a mention of Kundera and thought I should write up this note.

One thing I learned was Kundera had slipped in cachet. For more biographical information check out this or this or this. The Los Angeles Review of Books published A Strange Equality in His Grandiosity: On Craft and Milan Kundera:

...Almost a name-drop calling card for lit intellectuals in the 1990s, Kundera has more recently fallen out of favor among contemporary readers for a host of reasons ranging from allegations of his having turned in a colleague to the communists prior to his exile from Czechoslovakia, to his portrayals of women that — although his central characters are often female and exquisitely nuanced — can suffer at best from an outdated sexism and ageism and at worst full-on woman-fearing misogyny. His shift from writing in his native Czech to writing directly in French, beginning in 1993, arguably also contributed to the lesser relevance of his work, as none of his French-penned novels has ever been as critically well received as his earlier masterpieces, and are generally seen as heralding a sharp decrease in ambition and scope. Kundera is among those writers.

This article provides a long disquisition on Kundera as stylist:

"One of the unfortunate results of Kundera’s seeming to fade away as a literary great, even while he is still living, is that he may actually be the most interesting long-term practitioner of the “editorial omniscient” point of view: the perspective from which Kundera overwhelmingly wrote after his debut (first-person ensemble) novel, The Joke. An under-recognized and often poorly understood point of view, to begin with, not commonly used in contemporary literature (though there are outstanding exceptions like Jess Walter and Zadie Smith), a tour through Kundera’s career is essentially a master course in the variations, progressions, and ultimate contradictions of editorial omniscience....

I suggest reading the essay. I read it as a solution to the "show, don't tell" problem. 

An essay from the marginalian discusses Kundera's Art of the Novel, a book I count as s very big influence on me. The Unbearable Lightness of Being Opaque to Ourselves: Milan Kundera on Writing and the Key to Great Storytelling by Maria Popova is too detailed for easy excerpts. I think she makes s hood case. Go read the whole essay.

Kundera may not be as chic as he was 40, 30 years ago but he inspired a Kundera wiki.

Juan Herranz describes his attraction to Kundera in 3 Best Books by Milan Kundera. Then there is Why Read Milan Kundera? by Daniel Gueorguiev:

But seriously, though, why read Kundera? For those of us who flatter ourselves by thinking we belong to the non-conformist camp, Kundera's witty experimental style gives us some of that rebellious woomf enriched by inimitable irony, metaphysical reflections, and philosophical mind games. We read Kundera because we want to be Kundera, or perhaps, because we were Kundera at some point of our lives. Each of Milan Kundera's books is a personal experience. We read them because we do not want to be told what to do—because we despise being told what to do.

They might be the best advocates for reading Kundera.

As for me, Kundera gave me not only ideas on what to write about but also how to put together a novel.

sch

12/29/21