Milan Kundera, página 3 de 13

Un "romanzo in forma di variazioni" calamitato da un tema: "la lotta dell''uomo contro il potere e la lotta della memoria contro l''oblio".

In this entertaining and always stimulating collection of seven essays, Kundera deftly sketches out his personal view of the history and value of the novel. Too often, he suggests, a novel is thought about only within the confines of the nation of its origin, when in fact the novel''s development has always occurred across borders: Laurence Sterne learned from Rabelais, Henry Fielding from Cervantes, Joyce from Flaubert, Garcia Marquez from Kafka. The real work of a novel is not bound up in the specifics of any one language: what makes a novel matter is its ability to reveal some previously unknown aspect of our existence. In "The Curtain", Kundera skilfully describes how the best novels do just that.

This is the new novel from Milan Kundera. "Enchanting...it explores all aspects of a declining civilisation without taking any of them too seriously...In this novel of Flaubertian seduction, free of blame and guilt, insignificance is the very essence of life." (La Repubblica). Casting light on the most serious of problems and at the same time saying not one serious sentence; being fascinated by the reality of the contemporary world and at the same time completely avoiding realism - that's The Festival of Insignificance. Readers who know Kundera's earlier books know that the wish to incorporate an element of the "unserious" in a novel is not at all unexpected of him. In Immortality, Goethe and Hemingway stroll through several chapters together talking and laughing. And in Slowness, Vera, the author's wife, says to her husband: "you've often told me you meant to write a book one day that would have not a single serious word in it...I warn you: watch out. Your enemies are lying in wait." Now, far from watching out, Kundera is finally and fully realizing his old aesthetic dream in this novel that we could easily view as a summation of his whole work. A strange sort of summation. Strange sort of epilogue. Strange sort of laughter, inspired by our time, which is comical because it has lost all sense of humor. What more can we say? Nothing. Just read.

Thomas Maggs, the son of the local publican, lives with his parents and sister in a village on the Suffolk coast in 1914. He is the youngest child, and the only son surviving. Life is quiet - shaped by the seasons, fishing and farming and the summer visitors. Then one day a mysterious Scotsman arrives. To Thomas he looks for all the world like a detective, in his black cape and hat of felted wool, and the way he puffs on his pipe as if he's Sherlock Holmes. Mac is what the locals call him when they whisper about him in the inn. And whisper they do, for he sets off on his walks at unlikely hours, and stops to examine the humblest flowers. He is seen on the beach, staring out across the waves as if he's searching for clues. But Mac isn't a detective, he's the architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh, and together with his red-haired artist wife, they soon become a source of fascination and wonder to Thomas. Yet just as Thomas and Mac's friendship begins to blossom, war with Germany is declared. The summer guests flee and are replaced by regiments of soldiers on their way to Belgium, and as the brutality of war weighs increasingly heavily on this coastal community, they become more suspicious of Mac and his curious behaviour...In this tender and compelling story of an unlikely friendship, Esther Freud paints a vivid portrait of a home front community during the First World War, and of a man who was one of the most brilliant and misunderstood artists of his generation.

Casting light on the most serious of problems and at the same time saying not one serious sentence; being fascinated by the reality of the contemporary world and at the same time completely avoiding realism-that's The Festival of Insignificance. Readers who know Kundera's earlier books know that the wish to incorporate an element of the "unserious" in a novel is not at all unexpected of him. In Immortality, Goethe and Hemingway stroll through several chapters together talking and laughing. And in Slowness, Vera, the author's wife, says to her husband: "you've often told me you meant to write a book one day that would have not a single serious word in it...I warn you: watch out. Your enemies are lying in wait." Now, far from watching out, Kundera is finally and fully realizing his old aesthetic dream in this novel that we could easily view as a summation of his whole work. A strange sort of summation. Strange sort of epilogue. Strange sort of laughter, inspired by our time, which is comical because it has lost all sense of humor. What more can we say? Nothing. Just read.

Una novela sobre las trampas de la maternidad, el destino, las vidas equivocadas y las vidas no vividas.La madre de Jaromil es una mujer posesiva que mima a su hijo en exceso y que desprecia a su marido, un discreto ingeniero en cuyo interior se esconde un verdadero heroe. Alentado por la madre, que le rie todas las gracias, Jaromil entra en la adolescencia creyendose un poeta. Mientras su madre tiene con el profesor de dibujo de Jaromil una aventura que la llenara de remordimientos, su hijo conocera las dificultades de trabar amistad con sus compañeros de colegio y trata de ocultar en sus poemas sus primeras experiencias eroticas. Poco despues creara en su imaginacion a un personaje llamado Xavier, que vive lo que a el se le niega. Cuando acceda a la universidad y en 1948 se implante en el pais el comunismo con toda su dureza, Jaromil, convertido en un poeta del regimen, todavia ignora que su vida no es sino una eterna huida y, lo que es peor, que toda decision acarrea consecuencias mucho mas graves de lo que uno imagina.

A landmark essay about the value of the novel from the superstar author of The Unbearable Lightness of Being.A magic curtain, woven of legends, hung before the world . . . Cervantes sent Don Quixote journeying and tore the curtain. The world opened before the knight errant in all the comical nakedness of its prose.For Kundera, this curtain represents our individual, ready-made, pre-interpreted perceptions of the world. The job of the novelist, he argues, is to rip through it to reveal what it hides.In this outstanding essay, one of world literatures most distinctive thinkers celebrates the history and value of fiction in Western civilisation. Too often, a novel is thought about only within the confines of the language and nation of its origin, when in fact its development has always occurred across borders: Fielding learned from Cervantes, Joyce from Flaubert, Marquez from Kafka. The real work of a novel transcends locality by revealing a previously unknown aspect of human existence, asking lifes biggest questions - and in his extraordinary prose, Kundera describes how the greatest novels do just that.Magnificent.ObserverThoughtful and thought-provoking. We owe Kundera thanks.Sunday TimesFull of insights, which show Kundera to be a wonderful critic . . . His tone is seductive, sly and, above all, personal.Financial Times

An invigorating novelistic essay, rich in literary wisdom, from the international superstar author of The Unbearable Lightness of Being.A masterpiece.IndependentNothing so much as a gauntlet, thrown down by Kundera for both novelists and their readers to pick up - if we dare. ObserverStravinsky and Kafka meet with their friends Ansermet and Brod; Hemingway with his biographer; Janacek with his little nation; and Rabelais with his heirs. In Kunderas unique essay written in the form of a novel, our greatest novelists become characters who repeatedly cross paths, shedding light on the great aesthetic questions of our time along the way. Through their wise encounters, we explore the moral trials of twentieth century culture; the boundaries between past and present; the twilight of individualism; and the betrayed testaments of European art. Characteristically rich in revelatory ideas about the time in which we live, eloquently exposing how we have become who we are, this is a landmark work from a legendary writer and critic.

Tal vez por haber sido escritas en el periodo (entre 1959, y 1968) más feliz de la vida de Milan Kundera, según sus propias palabras, estas narraciones son las más alegres, las más seriamente desvergonzadas y las mas reflexivamente divertidas de su obra. La farandula de personajes hedonistas que desfila aqui ante nosotros en busca de los juegos multiples y contradictorios de la amistad, el amor y el sexo no puede sino incitar a la risa, atrapados como estan en el mundo loco de severidad, hermetismo e inquisicion que les rodea. Una risa autentica, traviesa ; un humor sabio, sagaz y gozador, al que ya nos tiene acostumbrados el autor de La insoportable levedad del ser.

En un balneario algo trasnochado convergen temporalmente ocho personas cuyas circustancias se van entretejiendo paulatinamente hasta formar, con la precisión de una telaraña, una trama en la que todos, directa o indirectamente, acaban viendose atrapados : el musico celebre y la hermosa enfermera que quiere quedarse embarazada ; la celosisima esposa del musico y el joven mecanico enamorado de la enfermera ; el ex convicto, victima de las purgas de su pais, que va a despedirse de la muy cerebral Olga ; el ginecologo, con sus fanfarrones proyectos demograficos ; el rico excentrico, una version de santo moderno. La despedida tiene la ligereza y la magia de un vals, de un sueño de una noche de verano. Pero, tras esta forma intencionadamente frivola, se oculta la pregunta mas grave : ¿merece el hombre vivir en esta tierra ? ¿Acaso no hay que liberar el planeta de la garras del hombre ? En este sentido, cuesta imaginar algo mas glacial y mas profundo que la aparente ligereza de Kundera.

En 1972, el joven director de teatro frances Georges Werler fue a ver a Milan Kundera a Praga y a su regreso consiguió, pese a los controles de la frontera, introducir en Francia el manuscrito de su obra de teatro Jacques y su amo. Kundera la habia escrito despues de la invasion sovietica, cuando toda su obra, pasada y futura, habia quedado borrada de las letras checoslovacas. aa Jacques y su amo relata tres historias de amor que se entrecruzan durante el viaje que emprenden Jacques y su amo: la del amo, la de Jacques y la de Madame de la Pommeraye; tres historias que se entremezclan polifonicamente, donde cada una es, a su vez, variacion de la otra, y juntas conforman una comedia sobre los problemas existenciales de la pasion amorosa.

Kundera, oeuvre, coffret en 2 volumes. «La seule chose que je désirais […] profondément, avidement, c'était un regard lucide et désabusé. Je l'ai trouvé enfin dans l'art du roman. C'est pourquoi être romancier fut pour moi plus que pratiquer un "genre littéraire" parmi d'autres ; ce fut une attitude, une sagesse, une position ; une position excluant toute identification à une politique, à une religion, à une idéologie, à une morale, à une collectivité ; une non-identification consciente, opiniâtre, enragée, conçue non pas comme évasion ou passivité, mais comme résistance, défi, révolte. J'ai fini par avoir ces dialogues étranges : "Vous êtes communiste, monsieur Kundera? — Non, je suis romancier." "Vous êtes dissident? — Non, je suis romancier." "Vous êtes de gauche ou de droite? — Ni l'un ni l'autre. Je suis romancier."» Milan Kundera, Les Testaments trahis.