![]() He believed, instead, in what he called the “polyhistorical” novel. Broch thought-as you do-that the age of the psychological novel had come to an end. You have said that you feel closer to the Viennese novelists Robert Musil and Hermann Broch than to any other authors in modern literature. That is the purpose of this discussion on the art of composition. Refusing to talk about oneself is therefore a way of placing literary works and forms squarely at the center of attention, and of focusing on the novel itself. “Disgust at having to talk about oneself is what distinguishes novelistic talent from lyric talent,” Kundera told Le Nouvel Observateur. Kundera’s wish not to talk about himself seems to be an instinctive reaction against the tendency of most critics to study the writer, and the writer’s personality, politics, and private life, instead of the writer’s works. Fame consumes the home of the soul.” Once, when I asked him about some of the comments on his novel that were appearing in the press, he replied, “I’ve had an overdose of myself!” Sudden fame makes him uncomfortable Kundera would surely agree with Malcolm Lowry that “success is like a horrible disaster, worse than a fire in one’s home. This interview was conducted soon after Kundera’s most recent book, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, had become an immediate best-seller. Gradually, amid discarded scraps of paper and after several revisions, this text emerged. We held several free and lengthy discussions in French instead of a tape recorder, we used a typewriter, scissors, and glue. On one of the walls, two photographs hang side by side: one of his father, a pianist, the other of Leoš Janácek, a Czech composer whom he greatly admires. With its shelves full of books on philosophy and musicology, an old-fashioned typewriter and a table, it looks more like a student’s room than like the study of a world-famous author. We worked in the small room that Kundera uses as his office. Our meetings took place in his attic apartment near Montparnasse. This interview is a product of several encounters with Milan Kundera in Paris in the fall of 1983. Michael Cunningham Murder at the Beau Rivage. ![]() Boris Akunin The Man in the Back Row Has a Question VIII.Dabney Stuart Santa Claus in the Desert.Lawrence Raab Why It Often Rains in the Movies.Timothy Donnelly His Long Imprison'd Thought. ![]()
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