The Ballad of the Sad Émigré

At first glance (and second sight), one might get the impression that Milan Kundera is none too keen on all this fall of communism stuff; after all, it did kind of fuck up his hustle.

Think about it: there he was, the celebrated Émigré, the toast of Paris - nay, the world - then - RIP! - the Iron Curtain is torn to pieces and his plight, his past, his very story becomes yesterday's news. Worse, with no more reason to be gone from his Bohemian homeland, everyone expected him to go back. And stay.

But everyone knows you can't go home again.

Or in Kundera's case, won't.

And why should he? He's got it goin' on in Gay Paree.

A better question then is, why shouldn't he?

IgnoranceIn a story, Ignorance (HarperCollins, $23.95); Ol' Unbearable's bearably beautiful answer to what it means to be an exile on easy street.

In Kundera's simple etymological two-step, ignorance is akin to nostalgia, and Ignorance is his "Emigrant Song" to and for those who would have him wallow in same. "You who know nothing of what it's like to have left and lost as I have," he seems to sing. "Now suddenly know what is to be gained by my return?" Ignorance, indeed.

Irena and Josef are two mopes with semi-parallel lives. Czech emigrants (natch) - he to Denmark, she to Paris - who both suffer from spousal subtraction, now have, against limited better judgment, succumbed to the external forces that would return them to there which they have fled. Their combined melancholy - as evidenced in a chance airport encounter - is so heavy I'm surprised it doesn't bring down their plane. It brings down everything else.

And as Kundera fans well know, the lower the vista the better the view. Neither Irena nor Josef (nor those few in their constellation) are particularly likeable, let alone laudable, but the truth of their matter - the duplicity, the depravity, the abject powerlessness in the face of history - is a guilty pleasure to behold.

As is the small entirety of Milada, herself a singular ballad of sad cafes. Here maestro Milan outdoes himself, writing into life a figure that represents not only the tragedy of Stalinism, but too of lover, both of which have left upon her indelible scars. When Milada is again "condemnedÖto eating her midday meal alone," for one brief, shining moment the world stops and poignancy takes a chokehold around its cold cruel neck.

Since Kundera is determined not to go back, I'll not hazard a guess on where next he'll go to. With Ignorance though, it's damn nice to know not only where he won't be going, but just where he is.

Note: This article was first published online in the now defunct Bully Magazine. Supplied with immense thanks to Ken Wohlrob.

 

 

 

 

 

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