Milan Kundera on Politics and the novel (original) (raw)
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The Political Impact of the Novel
This essay approaches the topic of the political impact of the novel from an unconventional angle. It argues that this impact, recently discussed by philosophers like Richard Rorty and Martha Nussbaum, should be considered the result of a special feature of this genre, namely that the novel is read solitarily and in silence. Reading a novel unplugs the reader from ordinary life and transports him to a world of the self, an individual world. From this position, which will be compared with the position of the subject in transcendental philosophy, the reader is able to see the world around him in a new, individualist and subjective perspective. This perspective may be regarded as at least one of the conditions of modern democratic citizenship.
(De)Presenting the self| Milan Kundera's deconstruction of the public persona through paradox
1997
Permission is granted by the author to reproduce dûs material in its entirety, provided that this material is used for scholarly purposes and is properly cited in published works and reports. ** Please check "Yes" or "No" and provide signature * * Yes, I grant permission _l No, I do not grant permission ' Kundera's works will be referred to in parenthetical citations by the following abbreviations: Risibles amours. RA: La plaisanterie. LP: Le livre du rire et de l'oubli. LRO\ La vie est ailleurs. VEA, La valse aux adieux. VAA\ L'insoutenable légèreté de Fèüs, AEE, L'immortalité. 7M: L'art du roman. AR. Les testaments trahis. TT\ La lenteur. LL\ Jacques et son maître. JM.
Critical Horizons 10.3, 2010
The question of the nature of the political and of what counts as thinking politically has in recent decades sparkled a fierce debate, involving not merely the discipline known as "political theory", but also spreading to the most diverse fields pertaining to the "human sciences", from literary theory to anthropology, from history to cultural theory. Davide Panagia enters this debate with two books, which propose to emphasize the "aesthetics" and "sensory" components of political action, first to challenge the dominance of moral and narrative paradigms, and then to propose a democratic ethos which derives from sensory and aesthetic experiences its political potential.
Political Narrative Fiction and the Responsibility of the Author
Art in general and fiction in particular have had close affinities with politics throughout history. When there is a close tie between a narrative fiction and political issues then critics may deem it as "committed fiction". Political fiction is at the crossroads of political science and the art of fiction. And more often than not, novelists are involved with politics but not all of them are dubbed as or even consider themselves to be political novelists. In this article I attempt to investigate political fiction as a distinct genre produced (un)consciously by a range of (politically committed) novelists and critics. The authors discussed in this paper demonstrate dissimilar perspectives on freedom and democracy. Also, regarding political fiction and the responsibility of author, we will see how divergent is the attitudes of critics such as
Milan Kundera and the Poetics of Novelistic Truth
Poetics Today, 2015
While not all literary fictions teach us valuable truths about life and the world, this expectation is what makes most of us read them. Literary texts communicate their truths in various ways, but what all of them have in common is that their truths are irreducible to unequivocal statements and propositions. The fact that narrative operation often implies a poetics of truth telling makes literary narratives — and complex novels, above all — a privileged genre for conveying insights about life and the world, especially at a time when we no longer believe in one absolute truth universally applicable to everyone. Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being is an exemplary case. Instead of telling us in what to believe and how to act, this novel obliquely offers a more general kind of truth and attitude toward life: it proposes that life is better lived if we dispense with the need to be recognized, accepted, and valued by others. Far from any didacticism, however, the way this truth is communicated underscores the individual process of reaching it in and even beyond the reading.
Czytanie Literatury. Łódzkie Studia Literaturoznawcze
The interview with Marek Bieńczyk covers, in general, the subject of the philosophy of novel by Milan Kundera and the reception of his works nowadays in Poland and abroad. Marek Bieńczyk – the French translator of Milan Kundera’s novels – talks about the history of his first translations and the beginnings of scientific thinking about Kundera. Moreover, he explains the problems connected with Kundera’s authorial and elaborate philosophy of novel: the conception of narrator, hero and composition. Bieńczyk also narrates his own memories with M. Kundera. What is more, he indicates the inspirations he draws in his own work from innovative prose by Czech novelist, who is celebrating his 91st anniversary this year.
Literature and Learning How to Live: Milan Kundera's Theory of the Novel as a Quest for Maturity
Comparative Literature, 2016
This essay discusses the implications of Milan Kundera's conception of the novel for literary theory and history. It presents Kundera's theory of the novel as a search for a type of didacticism that inscribes the reader in a process of learning that does not have a concrete content or object of knowledge, but instead activates the reader's faculty of reflection and self-reflection. Kundera addresses this reflective attitude to the text as maturity and applies it to life at large. Maturity is not about learning correct values or coming to terms with reality; it is not about attaining the ultimate moment of completeness and definitive truths. Rather, maturity is a process and practice that embraces change and the capacity to see life from different perspectives. The novel is a catalyst and medium of this practice because it stimulates our ability to think, question, and, as a result, change.