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Milan Kundera's the Joke." Philosophy and Literature 34, No
University of Richmond UR Scholarship Repository Languages, Literatures, and Cultures Faculty Languages, Literatures, and Cultures Publications 4-2010 Baring the Brain as well as the Soul: Milan Kundera's The okJ e Yvonne Howell University of Richmond, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarship.richmond.edu/mlc-faculty-publications Part of the Russian Literature Commons Recommended Citation Howell, Yvonne. "Baring the Brain as Well as the Soul: Milan Kundera's The Joke." Philosophy and Literature 34, no. 1 (April 2010): 201-17. doi:10.1353/phl.0.0085. This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at UR Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Languages, Literatures, and Cultures Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of UR Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Yvonne Howell BARING THE BRAIN AS WELL AS THE SOUL: MILAN KUNDERA’s THE JOKE I ilan Kundera’s first major novel, The Joke, was written in M1961–1965, before he made the decision to leave Czechoslovakia and take up residency as a political exile in France.1 With a few note- worthy exceptions, critics of the work focused on its political message in a Cold War context. This was easy to do: its plot revolves around an avid young Czech communist (Ludvik), who writes an ironic postcard to his overly earnest girlfriend while she is away at a political training camp. The year is 1950, and among intellectuals, enthusiasm for a new era of Soviet-mediated socialism is a genuine response to the chaotic disintegration of old certainties after the Nazi occupation of the coun- try. -
Language, Memory, and Exile in the Writing of Milan Kundera
Portland State University PDXScholar Dissertations and Theses Dissertations and Theses Spring 6-13-2016 Language, Memory, and Exile in the Writing of Milan Kundera Christopher Michael McCauley Portland State University Follow this and additional works at: https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds Part of the French and Francophone Language and Literature Commons Let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Recommended Citation McCauley, Christopher Michael, "Language, Memory, and Exile in the Writing of Milan Kundera" (2016). Dissertations and Theses. Paper 3047. https://doi.org/10.15760/etd.3041 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of PDXScholar. Please contact us if we can make this document more accessible: [email protected]. Language, Memory, and Exile in the Writing of Milan Kundera by Christopher Michael McCauley A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in French Thesis Committee: Annabelle Dolidon, Chair Jennifer Perlmutter Gina Greco Portland State University 2016 © 2016 Christopher Michael McCauley i Abstract During the twentieth century, the former Czechoslovakia was at the forefront of Communist takeover and control. Soviet influence regulated all aspects of life in the country. As a result, many well-known political figures, writers, and artists were forced to flee the country in order to evade imprisonment or death. One of the more notable examples is the writer Milan Kundera, who fled to France in 1975. Once in France, the notion of exile became a prominent theme in his writing as he sought to expose the political situation of his country to the western world—one of the main reasons why he chose to publish his work in French rather than in Czech. -
Milan Kundera's Slowness
Vol. 1, No. 2 Review of European Studies Milan Kundera’s Slowness – Making It Slow Tim Jones PhD Candidate School of Literature and Creative Writing, Faculty of Arts and Humanities University of East Anglia Norwich, Norfolk, NR4 7TJ, England Tel: 44-798-087-7751 E-mail: [email protected] Abstract The Czechoslovak author Milan Kundera’s first novel in French, Slowness, compares the heady speed of contemporary life unfavourably with the slowness of the eighteenth-century, epitomised for Kundera’s narrator by Vivant Denon’s novella No Tomorrow. A deconstruction of Slowness’ arguments reveals that its narrator is complicit with the trends he decries and so his own rhetoric is as malignly influenced by speed as that of the twentieth-century characters he denounces. His representations of both No Tomorrow and the eighteenth-century phenomenon of libertinism are little more than deceptively happy soundbites. By glorifying the qualities of slowness but failing to demonstrate them, however, the novel encourages a transformation within its implied ideal reader that allows her to rise above the problematic conceits of its narrator and make of his work a genuinely slow text. Keywords: Milan Kundera, Slowness, Vivant Denon, No Tomorrow, Point de Lendemain, Libertinism 1. Introduction Francois Ricard’s postscript to the French 1998 edition of Milan Kundera’s Slowness documents the ‘two traits’ (Kundera, 1998: 185) that separate the work from the artistic norms of the six Czech novels that Kundera had written in the previous decades, namely its remarkable brevity and the simplicity of its structure. Despite these obvious variations, to which we can add the use of a language that Kundera had previously reserved for his non-fiction, Slowness continues his familiar project demonstrated throughout his earlier Czech novels and specifically attested to in both the fictional The Unbearable Lightness of Being and the theoretical The Art of the Novel, that of investigating ‘the trap the world has become’ (Kundera, 1984/1994: 215; Kundera, 1986/1988: 26). -
Thesis Tim Jones
Slowness , Identity and Ignorance : Milan Kundera’s French Variations Tim Jones Thesis submitted 2012 for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy: School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing, University of East Anglia 2 Abstract This thesis explores in detail three academically neglected novels by Milan Kundera: Slowness (1995), Identity (1998) and Ignorance (2002). Originally written in French, the author’s second language, after six novels, a short-story collection and a play originally written in Czech, these texts are often bracketed off from the rest of his writing and seen as something of an inferior addendum. This is despite clear thematic similarities that cross the linguistic divide and that I demonstrate here are of central significance to the author’s entire novelistic project. This exploration not only reveals that these three French novels place in the foreground themes that have rippled in and out of focus across Kundera’s earlier Czech work and so are of central importance to Kundera as a novelist. It also shows that the lateness of the variations on the themes of slowness, identity and ignorance within these three French novels does not hold everything in common with the lateness that Adorno locates in late Beethoven. It is true that like late Beethoven, Kundera’s late variations on these themes demonstrate the manoeuvres of an oeuvre sensing its death across the horizon. But through the specific nature of the late variations on slowness, identity and ignorance, the oeuvre works hard to pull its readers down into the textual spaces of these three late novels with a fresh urgency, rather than truculently push them away, so that Kundera’s audience might be adequately prepared to continue its own voyages once the oeuvre has played its final notes. -
(De)Presenting the Self| Milan Kundera's Deconstruction of the Public Persona Through Paradox
University of Montana ScholarWorks at University of Montana Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers Graduate School 1997 (De)Presenting the self| Milan Kundera's deconstruction of the public persona through paradox Paula S. DelBonis-Platt The University of Montana Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd Let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Recommended Citation DelBonis-Platt, Paula S., "(De)Presenting the self| Milan Kundera's deconstruction of the public persona through paradox" (1997). Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers. 1452. https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd/1452 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at ScholarWorks at University of Montana. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks at University of Montana. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 1 1 yj Maureen and Mike MANSFIELD LIBRARY The University of IV ^ O N T A N A 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 Author's SignatureÇ^uCLu Q -PCgUtf- Date O 1 I ^ ^ ~7____________________ Any copying for coimnercial purposes or financial gain may be undertaken only with the author's explicit consent. (De)Presenting the Self: Milan Kundera’s Deconstruction of the Public Persona Through Paradox by Paula S. -
Identity Books by Milan Kundera the Joke Laughable Loves Lifeis Elsewhere Farewell Waltz
identity Books by Milan Kundera The Joke Laughable Loves LifeIs Elsewhere Farewell Waltz (EARLIER TRANSLATION: The Farewell Party) The Book ofLaughter and Forgetting The Unbearable Lightness of Being Immortality Slowness Identity Jacques and His Master (PLAY) The Art of the Novel (ESSAY) Testaments Betrayed (ESSAY) MILAN KUNDERA Translated jimn the French �y Linda Asher HarperFlamin go An I mprim of HarperCollinsPublishers This book was originally published in France under the title L'identite. IDENTITY. Copyright © 1997 by Milan Kundera. Translation copyright © 1998 by Linda Asher. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information address HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., 10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022. HarperCollins books may be purchased for educational, business, or sales promotional use. For information please write: Special Markets Department, HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., 10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022. FIRST EDITION Designed by Elina D. Nudelman Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Kundera, Milan. [Identite. English J Identity : a novel I Milan Kundera ; translated from the French by Linda Asher. p. em. ISBN 0-06-017564-8 I. Asher, Linda. II. Title. PQ2671.U4713413 1998 891.8'68354-dc21 97-31907 98 99 00 01 02 •:•/RRD 10 9 8 7 6 543 2 1 A hotel in a small town on the Normandy coast, which they found in a guidebook. Chantal got there Friday night and would spend a night alone, without Jean-Marc, who was to join her on Saturday around noon. -
Parody of a Life Which Is Elsewhere Momeni, Javad
www.ssoar.info Parody of a life which is elsewhere Momeni, Javad Veröffentlichungsversion / Published Version Zeitschriftenartikel / journal article Empfohlene Zitierung / Suggested Citation: Momeni, J. (2015). Parody of a life which is elsewhere. International Letters of Social and Humanistic Sciences, 55, 35-43. https://doi.org/10.18052/www.scipress.com/ILSHS.55.35 Nutzungsbedingungen: Terms of use: Dieser Text wird unter einer CC BY Lizenz (Namensnennung) zur This document is made available under a CC BY Licence Verfügung gestellt. Nähere Auskünfte zu den CC-Lizenzen finden (Attribution). For more Information see: Sie hier: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.de International Letters of Social and Humanistic Sciences Online: 2015-07-01 ISSN: 2300-2697, Vol. 55, pp 35-43 doi:10.18052/www.scipress.com/ILSHS.55.35 © 2015 SciPress Ltd., Switzerland Parody of a Life Which Is Elsewhere Javad Momeni MA in English Language and Literature Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures University of Tehran,Tehran, Iran E-mail address: [email protected] Keywords: parody, identification, fantasy, being, symbolic, imaginary, Lacan, Bakhtin ABSTRACT. Life Is Elsewhere is a reflective introspection into the life of a young poet and of his demanding mother. Kindera depicts the mother as a woman feeling unworthy of love who relishes the fantasy of being Jaromil’s ethereal mother in order to escape from her actual bodily deprivation and resolve her psychological tensions. On the other hand, Jaromil’s portrait as a young poet involves his consonant, in Lacan’s terms, imaginary and symbolic identifications which lead him to an unending alienation in the context of a socialist system. -
Conversation with Milan Kundera on the Art of the Novel Author(S): Linda Asher and Milan Kundera Source: Salmagundi, No
Conversation with Milan Kundera on the Art of the Novel Author(s): Linda Asher and Milan Kundera Source: Salmagundi, No. 73, Milan Kundera: Fictive Lightness, Fictive Weight (Winter 1987), pp. 119-135 Published by: Skidmore College Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40547920 . Accessed: 29/06/2014 11:19 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Skidmore College is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Salmagundi. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 82.12.176.78 on Sun, 29 Jun 2014 11:19:50 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Conversationwith Milan Kunderaon theArt of theNovel (Translatedfrom the French original by Linda Asher) ChristianSalmon: I'd liketo devotethis conversation to theesthetic of yournovels. But whereshall we begin? Milan Kundera:With this assertion: My novelsare notpsychological. More precisely,they lie outsidethe estheticof the novel normally termedpsychological. C.S.: But aren'tall novelsnecessarily psychological? That is, con- cernedwith the enigma of thepsyche? M.K.: Let us be moreprecise: All novels,of everyage, are concerned withthe enigma of the self. As soon as youcreate an imaginarybeing, a character,you are automaticallyconfronted by thequestion: What is theself? How can theself be grasped?It is one of thosefundamental questionson whichthe novel,as novel,is based. -
Sexual Politics in the Joke
Sexual Politics in The Joke MICHAEL WILDING* When racist jokes were outlawed in Britain by the race relations act, Idi Amin, that British-trained officer who had turned on his colonial master, became the focus of their survival The ugly tradition persisted with an explicit political target: it was tacitly deemed legitimate, patriotic, to concoct obscenities about the big black man who defied British imperialism. Now that sexism is notionally taboo its reservoirs have likewise found their outlets in a political guise. Attitudes, values, concepts that are inexpressible amongst the literary political intelligentsia within the western alliance find displaced location in works that can be hailed for their opposition to the communist world. Whatever the role of the sexual in Milan Kundera's work in its original Czechoslovakian context, translated into English it offers illiberal satisfactions for those who can protest that they appreciate it for its politics: much as people allegedly protested that they bought Playbo.v for the fiction The central incident of The Joke, the celebration of sex for hatred, sex for revenge on the unwitting, unknowing victim who is a woman, is the celebration of a variety of rape, of degradation of a horrific contempt for woman There are a number of'jokes' in The Joke. Each leads to another, with the ultimate joke being the way the jokes backfire on the jokester. The initial joke is the postcard Ludvik Jahn sends to his girlfriend Marketa: Optimism is the opium of the people! A healthy atmosphere stinks of stupidity! Long live Trotsky! Ludvik [ The consequences are unfunny.