Truly excellent examination of these claims and concerns. Kundera wrote in a time, period, and place in which self-questioning about absolutist cultural claims was perhaps not as present to mind as for us. I wonder how confident we can feel, though, that it's universally so that the particular is always too particular to make some universal claim. Your questioning of Morrison suggests this to me. Once we define or at least describe some integral culture that stands in marginal opposition to a predominant culture, with its claims, have we not accepted some standing for making definitive cultural claims?
This is great. Upon his death, I've been reading passages of my Kundera books. And I see many of the strengths and weaknesses that you speak of. And I feel grief at the thought that we have in a short period lost two writers (McCarthy and Kundera) who "matter," though I'm having a difficult time defining what "matter" means.
Thanks! I agree with you—for me it's partially the sense that major novelists are no longer as central to the culture as they were even a short time ago.
I must mull this further: "If Jared Marcel Pollen is right, then what vanishes with Kundera is the possibility of a European or more broadly western fiction capable of believing in itself as a bearer of global and disinterested (if secular) truths rather than culturally particular claims." Certainly I felt some of the smugness that you reference in Kundera's work. He represents a kind of elitism that is fading for good reasons. But he will always have historical importance and may endure, as you suggest, because of The Art of the Novel. There can be a smugness and unique elitism to "culturally particular claims," too, and we're living through that moment. Thanks for this rich and text-driven reflection. It's refreshing to hear some critiques along with the more loving homages.
Truly excellent examination of these claims and concerns. Kundera wrote in a time, period, and place in which self-questioning about absolutist cultural claims was perhaps not as present to mind as for us. I wonder how confident we can feel, though, that it's universally so that the particular is always too particular to make some universal claim. Your questioning of Morrison suggests this to me. Once we define or at least describe some integral culture that stands in marginal opposition to a predominant culture, with its claims, have we not accepted some standing for making definitive cultural claims?
Good piece.
This is great. Upon his death, I've been reading passages of my Kundera books. And I see many of the strengths and weaknesses that you speak of. And I feel grief at the thought that we have in a short period lost two writers (McCarthy and Kundera) who "matter," though I'm having a difficult time defining what "matter" means.
Thanks! I agree with you—for me it's partially the sense that major novelists are no longer as central to the culture as they were even a short time ago.
I think yours is a good defintion of "matter."
I must mull this further: "If Jared Marcel Pollen is right, then what vanishes with Kundera is the possibility of a European or more broadly western fiction capable of believing in itself as a bearer of global and disinterested (if secular) truths rather than culturally particular claims." Certainly I felt some of the smugness that you reference in Kundera's work. He represents a kind of elitism that is fading for good reasons. But he will always have historical importance and may endure, as you suggest, because of The Art of the Novel. There can be a smugness and unique elitism to "culturally particular claims," too, and we're living through that moment. Thanks for this rich and text-driven reflection. It's refreshing to hear some critiques along with the more loving homages.
Thank you, and thanks again for the invitation!