Rereading THE BOOK OF LAUGHTER AND FORGETTING by Milan Kundera: the beguiling absurdity of the eroticism of the mind
In the chapter ‘Border’ of this book, Kundera writes about two kinds of eroticisms: one where the arousal happens without the climax, and the other where the climax occurs with no arousal at all. With a similar thought-pattern, I’d say that while some writers fascinated me after I read their books, Kundera fascinated me even before I had read any of his books. Stumbling upon his books, as I’ve talked about it before, and being attracted to them so much that I stole them right away without having had to wait for my pocket money to suffice the books’ prices, was one of the pure unknown happenstances of my literary journey.
I discovered Kundera myself, without ever hearing his name or receiving recommendations about his books. Yet the reason for the discovery of Kundera on my own was also because I was too early in my literary journey; it could mean that I found Kundera too early – and without much awareness, which could be dangerous in this case! Upon rereading my reviews of Kundera’s books when I read them the first time, there’s a visible a clear contradiction between my eagerness of like, or in other words understand, Kundera and my miserable failure of being unable to understand him at all.
As I revisit the still unforgotten memories of reading this book for the first time in 2019, I can recollect the mild irritation, mixed with disappointment of course, of finding this book too different, difficult, and vague for my keen yet untuned mind. Yet I stood firm with my shaken and disproven fascination with Kundera and his books, for I might’ve known that the difficulty isn’t on his part but on my part, that I’m too early on this journey of mindful adventures to unlock the beguiling islands of Kundera.
The climax of loving Kundera I felt without the arousal was finally redirected to its correct sequence of the arousal leading to the climax, when in 2020 I read two of Kundera’s books and finally understood what makes Kundera so unique a writer that I couldn’t resist the temptation of admiring him. And I think with rereading this book, where Kundera has stunted me the most, and most importantly understanding it with all its depths and heights, I believe I’ve fully unlocked the beguiling islands of Kundera and have now the license to wander there as long as I can take it.
‘The Book of Laughter and Forgetting’ is a collection of distinct yet unified stories, which against the intellect, come together to seem like a novel, as Kundera himself promises. Based on seven parts and six distinct stories, one of which repeats, this book is a collection of fictional and autobiographical tales about Prague, the Czech city, and its invasion by the USSR in the 1960s.
Part one named ‘Lost Letters’ is about a man named Mirek who is under the strict surveillance of police for his parting ways with the ruling puppet-party. Mirek has had an affair with an ugly woman with big nose named Zdena and wrote her letters; now he wants them back so that the police don’t get their hands on them. Coming out of those letters in public would be a great shame to Mirek. Part two ‘Mama’ is about a couple who now live away from the husband’s mother, mama, because his wife didn’t get along with her. Mama comes to visit her son and his wife on a weekend where the wife’s lady-friend, who also sleeps with the husband, is also there for an orgy. In part three ‘The Angels’ we read about Kundera’s journalist lady-friend who asks him to write astrology columns for the magazine she works under a fake scientist’s pen name. We also read about the origin of laughter and how there are two kinds of it: evil and angelic. Part four, also named ‘Lost Letters’ is about Tamina: the proclaimed protagonist of this novel of jointed-stories. Kundera writes that I either write about Tamina directly or talk about her through the other stories in this novel; she is the person this novel is about. Tamina has some diary-notebooks in her mother’s drawers back in Prague, which mainly consists of the journals she wrote about her life with her, now deceased, husband. She wants them back in order not to forget her husband.
In ‘Litost’, part five, we meet a young student in affair with a thirty-year-old, ordinary looking, country woman, who is also a big poetry fan. He gets invited into a Poets-Club night by his professor, where we meet the great poets of Czech with their stories and light, empty laughters. Part six, also named ‘The Angels’, we revisit Tamina story and read how she has failed to recover the letters and has run away from her job and is now stranded on an island full of children and small animals who rape her. Part seven ‘Border’, the last part, is about a couple, Edwig and Jan, who face cannot talk while making love. They have a lady-friend Barbara who is famous of arranging orgies in her house. The theme here is that of nakedness and the liberation of human bodies from clothes.
In case you haven’t noticed, all of these innocent and rather simple-sounding stories have really weird, provocative, and absurd narratives attached to them. My finding that Kundera is easy to read but harder to understand stands true in novel through and through. But should you, with a degree of difficulty and effort depending on the age of your mind and as well as your reading timeline and taste, become bendable and mend yourself with the fascinating thinking of Kundera, a most unique and amusing reading experience is guaranteed with this book.
Kundera, for those who don’t know him or haven’t read him, is a writer of some of the most outlying, unsettling, progressive, novel, incredibly insightful and equally as absurd stories and ideas you might ever come across. Yes, he is an unapologetic hedonist, and yes, he can be bold and unsettling, but more often than not, in his deceivingly simple prose and his sneaky creeping stories, you’d find some of the most mind-bending, unthinkable, and profoundly amusing ideas.
Yet Kundera, despite being so beguiling, can also be defined in simpler terms: that he is nice, lovable, sad or even tragic, that he is funny and put simply ‘just a great writer’. Kundera’s lightweight prose works like a deep sea that beautifully carries his rather heavy, uncommon, and chaotic ideas; the combination of such light prose and such uncommonly bold and unhinging ideas makes Kundera’s books utterly readable. It sucks you to its pages and you remain glued there for hours – or maybe minutes that seem like deep and long hours.
This book, despite its separate stories, fuse together in the end to make a culmination of ideas: from political satire to absurdities of laughter; from the tragedy of forgetfulness to the comedy of memories; from the origins of sexual desires to their exhaustion in a hedonistic world… its stories just so brilliantly and masterfully come together to paint this portrait that is not one thing but reflects an image of unity – probably a unity of exile, tragedy, passion, indifference, or just the absurdities of life and mankind’s doings.
It is also one of the more experimental novels that I’ve read, or reread. Kundera boldly talks about himself on the pages of this book as if talking about oneself in their fictional works is the common practice of writers. Not only that, but Kundera even takes us into his mind, not under the assumed veil of some character, but by naming himself, and once there, takes us through the intricate workings of knitting up different part of a story and most importantly, doing so in a manner that ultimately reaches a conclusion, a thought, a meaning, an understanding.
That classic question of how much of the novel is based on the author’s life is dismissively thrown out the window as Kundera with such un-afraid honesty and directness now talks about himself, and now about his characters – interchanging as if the fiction and the real are one, or even emphasizing on the point that they need one and the other to tell a complete story.
This has sharply impacted me with most of its mind-altering ideas and distinct, disturbing images: like the angel finding itself aghast in front of the devil or crowd of little children raping a young lady. And going away with such striking memories as well as the joyous remains of loving this book so deeply, I wonder how I’ll how back on this book and Kundera – maybe as something and someone that unshackled the restraints of my mind.
(March 30, 2022_)