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 with held 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.