The Kunderian narrative voice
By Dilshan Boange
The growing interest in postmodernist writings and literature as well
as postmodernist narrative styles and techniques amongst writers and
literature enthusiasts in Sri Lanka may benefit significantly by
exploring the work of Czech born novelist Milan Kundera.

Although not entirely of the populist literary traditions of the
West, this writer who is domiciled in France has become very much a name
of the mass market main stream in Western Europe.
The themes his work explores range from politics to sexuality to
norms and conventions that govern society and people in their everyday
lives, and much more. Sometimes thought of as a somewhat lurid portrayer
of matters related to sex and eroticism, by those with more conservative
outlooks, Kundera’s approaches may at times seem unorthodox or unusual
to the reader whose tastes are set on the more traditional types of
novels.
What I wish to discuss in this article is not so much the themes and
storylines/plots of Kundera’s fiction but the narrative voice he builds
in his style of ‘storytelling’ and how his fictions have a marked
uniqueness in terms of narrative technique. I wish to refer to three
novels of Kundera in this article, namely –The Book of Laughter and
Forgetting, Immortality and Slowness.
The essay in the novel
One of the main features that will distinguish this mater of
postmodern writing is how he has stretched the boundaries of the novel
as a work of fiction by devising means to make space of attributes of an
essay.
As we generally would conceive ‘the essay’ is a form of writing which
is very distinct to the types of writing that we call a work of
‘fiction’ (be it a short story, novelette, novella or novel). An essay
would generally not be intended as purely for entertainment but would
have a more educational purpose ingrained in it.
The outlaying of facts and analysis in a formal and pronounced manner
would distinguish an ‘essay’ as opposed to the general form of a work of
fiction. Looking at the two separate genres traditionally, one would
think it is highly unlikely the two forms (and for that matter the
contents) could be successfully merged to be a single piece holding the
integrity of a harmoniously flowing singular narrative.
When one speaks of ‘the essay in the novel’ relating to Milan
Kundera’s works it must be understood that the idea of the essay and its
objectives is what is most focal and not the detailed intricacies such
as souring and referencing that is found in standard academic essays.
If the objective of the essay is to impart factual details to further
the knowledge of the reader on the topic it presents, deals with then
one can say Kundera’s approach has found great success in terms of
fictions that can also perform the role of an essay rather pronouncedly.
When dealing with, for example, themes like ‘politics in Europe’ one
may find the narrative of the text which is presumed to be a novel (and
thereby purely ‘fictional’) performing an educative role spelling out
historical incidents and facts and also elaborating the author’s own
analytical perspectives on the given matter(s).
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting which is a quasi-biographical
work has several subplots along with its central plot and theme.
The essayist mode Kundera has built into the text of this novel
achieves the objectives of educating the reader about the plight of the
city of Prague under communist oppression by the Soviets while narrating
very compellingly fictional stories of characters located within such
political landscapes.
Kundera’s own plight as a victim of communist persecution is brought
out with biographical sketches narrated alongside the fictional to
present a thematically common ground.
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting in my opinion is a great
accomplishment of how themes of politics and political history can be
presented in the essay mode within the larger construction of the
narrative of a novel which meanders with its own host of characters and
their lives and the numerous plots and subplots.
The novel Slowness is one that carries a central theme of love and
sensuality and how they translate as in the modern context of society
compared to how it was in relation to French society in the latter part
of the 18th century.
What is relevant in terms of ‘the essay in the novel’ is how Kundera
embarks on his story by making references to a French novella titled No
Tomorrow which has a very simple plot of a night of courtship and lust
shared by an aristocratic lady (known as Madame de T.) and a young
Chevalier (a French Knight) who both in their union commit indiscretions
–the woman to her husband and the young man to his ladylove.
The essences of this novella is what spins into a pathway for Kundera
to begin his own analysis and commentary of the work and further the
story of No Tomorrow by speculating what would have happened between
those characters and what may have been going on in their minds that the
text of that novella does not overtly say.
Kundera gives the reader much insight about the novella and what its
origins were from its publication in 1777 with its author’s real
identity being withheld and over time even being obscured with different
‘nom de plumes’ being associated with different editions.
In the novel Immortality Kundera presents his essayistic elements in
several ways. The famous German poet Johann Von Goethe is a central
character who is portrayed with some biographical aspects in the novel.
When Kundera explores this element in Immortality the reader is
provided with notable facts and figures that enhances the reader’s
historical knowledge from a narrative style (and structure) that keeps
the reader moving along a narrative of a story which also pronouncedly
takes on the tone of presenting details and focuses which extra to the
interplay between characters and the events and incidents they are
involved in.
The mode of the essayist is one key characteristic which defines the
form and structure of a Kunderian work and its narrative. Exploring this
avenue within the folds of literary studies in universities can
certainly help advance the understandings of what purposes postmodernist
writers and their work(s) seek to accomplish through literature.
Philosophising
Kundera is a philosopher as I see him (through his work) and has
clearly found a medium of disseminating his beliefs through the literary
form of fiction. As a practitioner of the craft of fiction writing, his
works of non-fiction–The Art of the Novel, Testaments Betrayed, The
Curtain, and the latest (published in 2010) Encounter are essays that
expound his experiences with literature and how he developed his
outlooks as a writer.
These works also bring forward Kundera’s views and beliefs of the
novel and its historical background and how it has evolved into an art
form. To an extent there is some sense of good advice given to those who
may wish to develop newer styles of writing and explore new ways to
devise narratives that allow greater freedom for the authorial voice to
course the form of the narrative.
Milan Kundera is a literary philosopher who has brought out his views
on many issues ranging from art to politics to love, sex and society to
the individual and conceptions of reality and rationalism and much more.
In a Kunderian work one is very likely to see that the narrative is
not merely constructed to ‘tell the story’ of a given set of characters
and the roles they play through a series of dialogues and events.
The essayist mode takes on a significant role that seems to imply
that when the writer’s consciousness conceives a story it connects with
numerous aspects that provide an understanding of how exactly the story
came into being in the writer’s head, and what meanings may be read into
the characters and their doings when they are placed in a larger context
of aspects such as society, politics history which weaves the larger
fabric in which the work will find its place in the literary sphere.
In Immortality the central theme of the novel is immortality which
Kundera believes is the obsession of artists and politicians who wish to
eternalise their names after their demise.
The use of literary figures like Goethe and Ernest Hemingway as
characters in this novel builds stimulating episodes, (especially when
Goethe and Hemingway meet in the afterlife) and also brings out much
philosophical discussion which is still worded in very mundane sort of
easy to approach language. Another noteworthy matter discussed is the
concept of ‘Imagology’ which Kundera presents in one chapter of the
novel.
The impact of media and commercial advertising in shaping the
outlooks and politics of the present age is what Kundera elaborates to
the reader relating to how the soviet propaganda machinery replaced
Marxist ideology with symbols and signs to create ‘images’ that were
meant to ‘represent’ to the masses certain ideals and political goals.
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting builds a marked line of
philosophical ponderings which finds most of its ground in the author’s
own life which is presented as vignettes (and not so much a biography
per se) and philosophises much on what the ‘past’ means to him and the
characters he builds in the novel who have similar socio-political
backgrounds and thereby similar experiences linked to communist
oppression in eastern Europe. One of the most memorable lines I came
across in The Book of Laughter and Forgetting –“We want to be masters of
the future only for the power to control the past.”
Unabashed appropriations
What may be seen as a salient tenet in Kundera’s novels is the ease
with which personalities and objects are appropriated for the purpose of
the story. Speaking along the conventional forms of novels one finds
works of fiction based on historical figures, but rarely is it seen
where a historical figure is brought into the present day context and
made to act out episodes that play a part in the larger scheme of the
novel’s narrative.
In part five (titled Litost) of The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
Kundera presents the reader with several venerated figures of literature
whose diverse nationalities and more importantly the difference in the
respective time periods of the existence of each in history would make
it impossible (from a point of ‘realism’) for all of them be sitting
down together at a Writers Club.
Yet it happens in a tone most naturally as though it could be the
most simple of things to happen on a given day. Lermontov, Boccaccio,
Petrarch, Voltaire, Goethe are ‘appropriated’ in a very ‘unhistorical’
context for the purpose of the novel’s narrative as they have become
intermingled with the storyline of a graduate student whose research for
his MA thesis benefits by being invited to the meetings at the Writers
Club.
In Immortality the appropriations of Goethe and Hemingway are not in
any way for the purpose of a historical novel. The very incongruity such
a scenario with conceptions of reality seem to be the very boundaries of
imaginative writing that Kundera pushes and does very successfully I
believe.
The novel one may suggest, in Kunderian conceptions is an art form
that need not necessarily be reined with restrictions of realism. In
Slowness the Chevalier who is spoken of having spent a night of sensual
pleasure with Madam de T., is described at the end of the novel as
walking in the garden of the château (where Kundera with his wife Vera
spend a night) and meeting Vincent (another central character who
presents another storyline) before each part ways, the former in a
chaise and the latter in a motorcycle.
The sheer absurdity of such a scenario would show, if one were to
compare these episodes within the context of realism, suggests that
Kundera is unabashed in his ways of experimenting with the possibilities
of fictionalising events that may possibly offer a ‘rereading’ of
historical figures, events and history in general, which in fact is very
much an objective of the postmodern movement.
Conversational tone and authorial presence
One does not find a tonal disjointedness in a Kunderian fiction
narrative that alters between the story and the essay.
How does Kundera weave a textual narrative that harmoniously blends
the ‘essayistic’ with the ‘storytelling’ elements? Looking at the
‘whole’ of a Kunderian novel it is evident that the author constructs
the narrative within the realm of the authorial (author’s) ‘voice’,
meaning that the ‘tone’ of his fictional narratives take a highly
conversational tone.
The reader will find that the author does not ‘hide’ his presence by
presenting a text that narrates from the third person or the first
person voice of a character; but rather the author presents himself very
overtly as the voice that narrates the story to the reader.
The common ground therefore which blends the story with the essay to
create a unitary narrative is the author’s own consciousness creating
its voice of a speaker who addresses his reader/audience as though he
were imagining a conversation with you.
This liveliness in the narrative approach offers a novelty that
achieves much the conventional narrative modes may not be able to when
looking at what are perhaps the objectives of a Kunderian narrative
voice.
A conversationalist approach to storytelling that impresses on the
reader of an almost interactive sense build up between the reader and
the narrative voice which bares its identity as that of the author
himself may be almost an absurdity from the concentional perspective on
fiction. Yet it is very much a prominent feature in Immortality,
Slowness, and The Book of laughter and Forgetting that defines the
essence of the story.
In Immortality the story begins with Kundera narrating how he sees a
woman of a somewhat matured vintage at his health club waving in a
youthful exuberance to the young lifeguard at the swimming pool, and how
it sets off a chain of thoughts that gives rise to create the central
character of the novel –Agnes, and even posits himself –Milan Kundera
who has dealings with some of the characters in the story.
In The Book of Laughter and Forgetting he tells the reader how he
sees from his apartment in Paris how the poets in the Writers Club argue
amongst themselves. And Slowness is a story narrated as Kundera and his
wife Vera go on an excursion to spend a night in an old château where
even the conversations he has with his wife are part of the narrative to
the extent that Vera even asks him if he is developing a novel?
The presence of the author in the narratives of the three novels
referred to in this article all carry the presence of the author in a
way much more than signature stylistics in diction and phraseology and
such.
The presence of the author is one that crosses the boundaries between
fiction and reality (one might even say) to the point the author both
plays the role of telling the story to the reader as well as becoming a
player in the scenes.
How acceptable are the Kunderian narratives which are structured with
the elements that were discussed afore? Can a text which attempts to
blur boundaries of genre between essayistic writing and fiction
narrative, present characters known in history in contexts that negate
the demarcations of time (and space), assigns himself roles in the
interplay between characters in the story really qualify as a novel?
Kundera has been labelled amongst other things as a ‘dissident writer’.
From a point of political commentary certainly he appears to be one
who rebels against oppressive, institutionalisms that injure the spirit
of individual liberty.
However on another level perhaps Kundera is a dissident when it comes
to the prevalent norms and forms of fiction narrative styles? Perhaps
the technique he devises is the only way to reach a reader to convey
what he has to communicate through the art of the novel.
Certainly his boldness of technique in allowing himself liberties
that may make him seem utterly ridiculous have show how the primacy of
the consciousness of a writer becomes very much the ground that
manifests itself unselfconsciously as a narrative voice with its own
distinct identity.
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