Kundera, Milan (Milan Kundera). Milan Kundera, "The Unbearable Lightness of Being"

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Kundera, Milan - the most famous Czech writer. He started his career in poetry, then found his calling in prose.

Career start

Kundera was born in the Czech city of Brno. His father was the rector of the university and a good specialist in music. The future writer graduated from school in 1948. During his studies, he composed poetry, tried the pen. But, oddly enough, after graduation, he entered the Faculty of Philosophy, where he was actively engaged in musicology. After studying for one year, he is transferred to the Faculty of Cinema, where Kundera subsequently worked. Milan has always had a difficult and confusing relationship with politics. As a department lecturer and member of the editorial boards of two literary magazines, he was expelled from the Communist Party for his individualistic views and anti-Party activities. However, he was soon rehabilitated.

The first published work appeared in 1953. Fame comes to him after the release of a collection of poems. At this time, Milan Kundera, whose books are gradually gaining popularity, is very much involved in dramaturgy and essay writing. The real success was brought by the collectionstories "Funny Love".

The writer's first novel

The political views of the author were reflected in his first novel "The Joke". Milan Kundera speaks in it about Stalinism, speaking with harsh criticism of this phenomenon. For 1967, the book was quite topical. The novel was translated into many languages and immediately became popular. With the incredible brightness of Kundera, Milan shows the story of human torment mixed with the denunciation of the political system. The theme of jokes and games is organically woven into the outline of the novel. Ludovic Jan - the hero of the novel - jokes unsuccessfully, his joke changes life. Kundera brings his story to the point of absurdity. The book looks rather gloomy and gray, but it is very vital.

Kundera, Milan: "The Unbearable Lightness of Being"

Kundera's incredibly profound novel. Perhaps it is the author's most popular and highly acclaimed book. In it, he tries to philosophically comprehend the freedom of man, his happiness. The writer again attempts to depict a turning point in history through the fate and traditional relationships of ordinary people. Some readers perceive this work negatively: there is too little action in it. The novel is filled with the author's inventions, his reasoning and lyrical digressions. However, therein lies the charm of this work. The novel has two storylines. The first is connected with the fate of Teresa and Tomas, and the second - Sabina and Franz. They live, as it seems at first glance, the most ordinary lives. Love, break up, engage in professionalactivity. However, in 1968, such political events take place that change everything. Now only those who love Soviet power can live as before and feel comfortable. As you know, in 1968, Soviet tanks drove through Czech cities. Mass protests began, in which Kundera himself participated. Milan was deprived of the right to teach for this. The feeling of lack of freedom, pressure permeates the novel of the writer through and through. The novel has been translated into many languages and filmed.

Characterization of some novels

One of the most wonderful novels that Milan Kundera wrote is "Farewell W altz". It has seven main characters. These are ordinary women and men, it is not clear how their fate will turn out. The author, through some unthinkable mathematical calculations, mixes up and mixes the characters, gradually bringing them together. The novel is full of passions, intrigues, feelings. It can be defined as a psychological novel with an admixture of crime (detective) genre and drama.

A masterpiece of intellectual prose - a novel created by Milan Kundera - "Immortality" (1990). This book is built as a chain of associations that arose after a single gesture of the heroine. By the way, this is the last novel written by Kundera in Czech. In French, he wrote such novels as "Slowness", "Authenticity". The novel "Slowness" is several combined plots, inwhich it is difficult to find one topic (since there are many topics). A novel about how people strive to achieve something, not realizing that they are only passionate about the process of achieving the goal, but not the goal itself. There are in it motives of a thirst for recognition, evaluation. The novel "Authenticity" opens before the reader endless labyrinths of reflections and inventions, when it is difficult to understand what is actually imaginary and what is genuine. This work actualizes the themes of friendship, memory, memories.

The later life of a writer

As noted above, after the occupation of Czechoslovakia by Soviet troops, Kundera was deprived of his position at the university. He continued to work on his novels, but none of his works were published. Constant surveillance and harassment force him to leave the country. Even after so many years, the writer has some distrust of the Russians (as Kundera himself says). Milan goes to France. He has lived there since 1975. In 1981 he became a full citizen of this country. For a long time he writes his novels in his native language, and essays and articles in French. In an interview, Kundera noted that, unlike other writers - forced emigrants - he does not feel separated from his native soil, so he can create at full strength.

Kundera Milan on Literature

Like any writer, Milan Kundera is an ardent admirer of literature. According to the writer, the works of such great masters of the word as Francois Rabelais and Denis Diderot had a great influence on him. In the works of these authors, Kundera is attracted by play, irony, "freedom,turned into a novel. "Of course, he does not bypass Kundera and his compatriot Franz Kafka. He rightfully calls him a symbol of the era. Disbelief in progress, some disappointment, the illusory nature of improvements in society, irony - this is what Kundera admires in Kafka's novels.

In Russian literature, the writer especially highlights the work of L. N. Tolstoy. In his opinion, Lev Nikolaevich succeeded better than other authors in capturing the present, feeling the peculiarities of the time. Tolstoy's special merit is in creating an internal monologue. Milan Kundera believes that it was Tolstoy who became the forerunner of the "stream of consciousness" literature, developed further in the work of Joyce and other modernist and postmodernist writers.

Famous statements by the author

Deeply philosophical, intellectual novels of the author can be literally "cut" into quotes. However, there are some statements by the author that were not included in his works.

"I hate to participate in politics, although politics delights me as a show, a spectacle." This quote was made by the author about the elections in France and about his departure from his native country. Certainly, for Kundera, politics is a tragic sight.

"Life when you can't hide from the eyes of others is hell." Everything is contained in this quote: both his attitude towards a totalitarian state, and his attitude towards his own glory. Milan once said that he would like to become invisible. Writernever stuck out or advertised his personal life.

"The true humanism of society is manifested in its attitude towards the elderly." According to the writer, one should not judge a society only by its attitude towards children. After all, the true future of man is old age.