[Joseonggwan's Global Humanities Journey] Three Codes for Reading Milan Kundera... Music, Praha, and French

After the Prague Spring froze into winter, Milan Kundera (1929?2023) found himself completely bound and restricted. In Czechoslovakia, he could neither publish books nor find them in libraries. Kundera worked as a jazz caf? waiter while writing his second novel, Beyond the Borders of Life.

At this point, French publisher Claude Gallimard enters the scene. Gallimard, whom Kundera met during a visit to Paris in 1968, often visited Prague to meet him. He secretly took the manuscript of Beyond the Borders of Life to Paris and published it in Czech there in 1973.

Milan Kundera

In 1975, Kundera received an invitation as a visiting professor from the University of Rennes in the Brittany region of France. Since he had some knowledge of French, this was an opportunity for him. Based on this invitation, he successfully obtained a "three-year residence permit in France" from the authorities. Loading his clothes and books into a ?koda car, he crossed the French border with his wife and headed westward to Brittany. There, at the University of Rennes, he taught students in his imperfect French.

Map of the Brittany region. The area to the left of Normandy is Brittany. Photo by Wikipedia

Although his three-year contract ended, he did not return to Czechoslovakia. Instead, he moved to Paris. It was exile. The Czechoslovak Communist Party revoked Kundera’s citizenship. With no connections in Paris, he devoted himself to writing for survival. In 1979, his novel The Book of Laughter and Forgetting was published in Paris. Written in Czech, it was immediately translated into French. Five years later came the novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being. It was translated into French right after its Czech release. This work became a global bestseller. From then on, Kundera’s name began to be known domestically as well.

First edition cover of "The Unbearable Lightness of Being," translated and published in French in 1984. Photo by Wikipedia

He lived stateless for about three years before finally obtaining French citizenship in 1981. As is well known, he was repeatedly mentioned as a candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Although he was a top interviewee for major global media, very few outlets actually interviewed him.

He was extremely reluctant to expose his private life. This was true even during his Prague days. Only a very few knew the location of his Paris home. Despite living in Paris for over 40 years, his daily life was never revealed to the media. This is why I had no choice but to title the Kundera chapter in Geniuses Loved by Prague as The Veiled Bohemian.

He disliked having his confessions appear under the guise of novels.

He was wary of readers approaching his novels through the lens of the author’s life. In this regard, Kundera contrasts with Annie Ernaux, the 2022 Nobel laureate, who wrote novels based on all her romantic experiences and openly disclosed them.

Title of the Kundera episode in "Geniuses Loved by Prague." Photo by Seonggwan Jo

Kundera only agreed to three or four written interviews. He was concerned that face-to-face interviews often risked being inaccurately conveyed. His written interview with Antoine de Godmar was translated into Korean. This interview has become a valuable resource for those studying Kundera’s literature.

Kundera first experienced the French provinces before later living in Paris. Brittany is located west of Normandy, facing the Atlantic Ocean. From Paris’s perspective, it is very rural. He believed that his three years in Brittany helped him become more French. Regarding Paris, he said in the written interview with Godmar:

“In my case, the most insightful interpretations of my work were made in France. Only here could my work shed its political shell and be understood from the most literary perspective. Paris was long the brain of Europe and today has become something more than just the capital of France.”

He left his homeland in 1975 at the age of 46. Even if he had left home in his twenties, the age when one begins to long for home, he had to turn his back on his country. Although his body left the Bohemian plains, his spirit never left Prague for a single moment. Opening The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, one reads:

“...After enduring for two or three years, I drove my car as far west as I could. In the village of Brumont near Rennes, I discovered that the door of the tallest apartment faced east, toward Prague. Now, from my tower, I look at them, but the distance is too great. Fortunately, the tears in my eyes act as a telephoto lens, allowing me to see their faces closely. Now, without a doubt, I can recognize the great poet who is the focus of my attention. Though over seventy, his face is still handsome and his eyes shine wisely... I go back fifteen years to a night in Prague, seeing the same scene reflected in the lights. Before the poets’ books were locked away in government warehouses, they all gathered around a large table full of bottles, spending happy and joyful times...”

Panoramic view of Prague Old Town Square. Photo by Wikipedia

He longed for the Prague he could no longer visit. And in Paris, he imagined Prague. Taking The Unbearable Lightness of Being from the bookshelf and opening it to any page, the scenery of Prague unfolds. The same is true for The Book of Laughter and Forgetting. Most of his works are elegies for Prague exile.

Immortality, published in 1999, was written by Kundera in French. After 24 years of exile in France, at the age of seventy, Kundera completed a novel in a foreign language rather than his mother tongue. Only with Immortality did the setting and narrative shift to Paris and France. This is why the French call him a “French writer.”

Now it is time to talk about his works. When readers encounter novels like The Unbearable Lightness of Being, they often feel confused. At first, they wonder what kind of novel this is. It sometimes feels like an essay. The perspectives and narrators seem jumbled. This is because the narrative style is very different from what we are used to.

The narrative centers on Tom?? and Tereza but suddenly shifts to another pair of protagonists, Sabina and Franz. What is described in just a few lines in Tom??’s story is elaborated in detail in Franz and Sabina’s. Readers finally nod in understanding, realizing “Ah, so that’s how it was.” They are struck by the fact that different truths exist depending on the narrator.

This narrative technique is called polyphonic. It is an original style and charm of Kundera’s literature. We recall from the previous 195th episode, “Milan Kundera’s Confession,” that he systematically studied music as a child. Kundera’s father was a disciple of Leo? Jan??ek. Music was the first art form young Kundera encountered. His literature gradually grew under the blessing of music. Kvetoslav Hv?zdal?k, an authority on Kundera studies, wrote in Milan Kundera’s Literature:

“Piano playing was part of Kundera’s life from an early age. Music was the first artistic language he mastered. When closely observing the poetics of Kundera’s novels, especially the formal structure of his novel texts, one finds that this formal structure was strongly inspired by music... In this sense, Kundera believes that the lessons music teaches novels have not yet been exhausted.”

Literature and music. Though different genres, literature and music influence each other more deeply than one might think. Imagine Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, the “Choral,” inspired by Friedrich Schiller’s “Ode to Joy,” composed just before Beethoven lost his sight. Such examples are too numerous to list.

Hermann Hesse and Haruki Murakami, two writers active in different times and places, share a common appreciation for music. Both praised music and even wrote separate essays on it. However, the only person who incorporated musical characteristics into novel form and established it as a unique narrative style is probably Kundera.

The written interview Kundera had with Godmar is a valuable resource for understanding his literature and philosophy in many ways. Among the passages I underlined and quoted in my book is this:

“Only fools think they have all the answers. The novel is a wise genre because it questions everything. When Don Quixote opened his door and stepped into the world, the world transformed before his eyes into a series of questions. Cervantes’ message to his descendants is that novelists teach their readers to understand the world as a question. Novels cannot live in a world built on inviolable certainties. Otherwise, novels become stories that simply explain those certainties clearly. That is a betrayal of the spirit of the novel and of Cervantes. Whether Leninism, Islam, or anything else, totalitarian worlds are worlds of answers, not worlds of questions.”

Jo Seong-gwan Writer and Genius Researcher

Operator of 'Genius Table,' former editor-in-chief of Weekly Chosun

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.