Book Review || Ignorance (2000)
"A man and a woman meet by chance while returning to their homeland, which they had abandoned twenty years earlier when they had chosen to become exiles."
: 🌕 : SPOILER ALERT : 🌕 :
Dispensed from home, the soul of the dreamer wanders through nightfall, soothing doves sprinkling the sky with an off-white reminiscent of the catacombs of comfort. When positioning the self to reflect, the mind advertises its ability to weave succulent behaviour, craven lore, & sentiments flagrant with the wound of neglect, past the heart & into the mind where they take shape & remain alive like the desecrated beast of man.
“She had meant to become an eternity that would abolish the whole future, and instead, the future was back again, invincible, hideous, repugnant, like a snake writhing in front of her and rubbing against her legs and slithering ahead to show the way.”
Readers who ponder the nature of one’s perpetual sense of longing arrive at the precipice of this story haunted by vernacular they are unequipped to define. The severed oozing of nostalgia presents itself with familiar coils to the palms held up to its spine. Yet, throughout the tales of murderous displacement, voyages over seas, strange & new, the reader like every person alive today & gone tomorrow, remembers the feeling most known to them, that which the mind masticates in the dark.
Perhaps for readers who remain detached from their inner workings, the tinge of their spine as described by Kundera via his twin characters, will not reveal anything out of the ordinary.
Too few individuals question & prod the behaviour of forgetful longing; the mind wanders past realities to revive what has been assassinated on the steps of a life lived. Certainly, artistic language may offer the reader the crux to lean on, a tool that will prevent them from nearing the mirror’s edge. It is my opinion that to become a visitor of Kundera’s work, one must promise to revoke the card of turbulence & soften the skin of a man whom they’ve no longer opportunity to meet.
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Kundera writes from a perspective of inner overwhelm. As the world develops & the modern age evolves to include connectivity via different & complex mediums, the human species is permitted the chance to move past that which has led them to where they are. Somewhere along the line, a person longed for another; someone once sang to the night to bring love back to them; someone once cried for the home they could never return to; once upon a time humanity longed for itself.
Now, the world has grown cold. Although this is an oversimplification, the overexposure we have to one another—the fondled details that reveal us to be distraught & gory, timid & disgusting—forget that secrecy is a promise of love.
Of course, no truth exists without the courage needed to speak it. No lie exists without the bricks built to house it. Where in our time & kin exists the nucleus we need to survive ourselves? Who will save the world from the frost impaled into homes & rivers?
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This book offers readers the opportunity to rummage around a world they will not recognize as their own. The plot focuses on two adults as they return to the country of their birth, following the dismantling of the Communist Party in Czechoslovakia.
Weaving the dual narrative between literary reflections, Kundera presents readers with the fond & quaint reality of the political refugee. Neither character lends themselves to the narrative more than is necessary, leaving the flow of the story to feel nearly cold. For this alone, Kundera engaged me intimately & I found much to admire in this book.
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Certainly, the proclivities of a political party, one that may or may not have used democratic means to obtain power, liberalizes a people from the pools of their bliss. Such a community necessitates bashful awareness, their lives require it. Freedom is no longer given to the wishing well as it is Tiny Tim, the poor child who longed for the basic good he needed to survive. Here parallels may be drawn & for the dramatically ignorant reader, their desire to swing opposite the truth may prove devastating for their spine.
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In terms of quality, there is little to say regarding this novella. Kundera’s style is flawless. Stories told by the author have a particular flare that renders them as miraculous as the mountain kissed by the morning sun. His efforts towards purging his soul of words that nestled regarding his own experiences leaving his homeland, voyaging to France, & living a life while the first one roamed into oblivion add a tang to the flow that feels utterly hopeless when gifted to the reader.
Indeed, although a reader may meet Kundera in these pages or those of his other novels, one will note that the galivanting freedom of their imagination regarding fiction will be compromised by the mere indication of the landscape of their world. For this, Kundera strikes a chord melodiously deafening. His characters describe, nearly apathetically, the world they have come to know. I should hesitate to say that this will come as no surprise to readers but, the world of ignorance knows no bounds, therefore a moment of pause here for this, in particular.
The security felt by both characters as their agency permitted them to begin anew in a different country evokes the sullen reality of what they left behind & how their new compatriots viewed their person.
Today one notes the ever-surviving cruciality of representation; Kundera’s characters are happy to have escaped that which stifled them & yet, existing within the crevices of the dictator are members of their family, their friends, the neighbourhood where they were raised, the streets they knew like the backs of their hands. Life evolved to encumber the truth of their circumstances; they could leave but never fully detach themselves from whence they came.
Perceptions towards & about refugees—immigration at writ large—perturbs this book. During the opening sequence, one notes the friend who encourages one to return to her homeland as there could now be no reason for her to stay. Why would she stay? Who wants her around?
This exchange is harsh & difficult to read. Kundera formats dialogue in such a way as to ensure the reader understands that these are real opinions & real conversations. It is at once curious to see a person so intently long for the repatriation of another, one who has spent two decades away from what was once their home. One might be left wondering if the defining factor of home alters per culture, per century, or whether the term simply means whatever one chooses, on any given day.
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As the characters do visit their homeland they are met with troubles. What was once the familiar has become transformed & is now a twilight zone of faces that have aged & architecture that reflects a lifetime that they could not understand. A reader may choose to find no fault in this. Life moves on, this is one constant in the sea of uncertainty. Yet, perhaps one might wonder why we are so drawn to the shadow when our eyes are perpetually maladapted to seeing in the dark.
Notes of unchained melody weep over the landscape that Kundera wanders with the reader. A position of nescience that one cannot intervene, riddles the fingertips of those who hold dearly to the page on which the silent heart trembles.
Within these truths, one notes the need to understand who the characters are, thereby lending one the sight to understand who they have become. No intimate encounter will be gifted to the reader; their participation remains one of a voyeur, uncouth in their need to peer into the groves of wrinkled smiles & dimpled frowns, beyond the words spoken, into the secret bemused murmur of intimate vulnerability.
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Ultimately, though I could write a tale old as time & rave about Kundera’s work forever, I shall repent in my own time the nature of my admiration. This book offers readers the required reading needed by all. Linking Homer’s “The Odyssey” (8th Century BCE), Kundera classically bespells the tremendous longing found in the human heart to become more than what one life can offer.
The very nature of a person’s essence has been crucially crafted in the closed walks of their home, behind doors & visible in window frames, we often meet each other as people missing a key component, puzzling the clock that reminds us of the boat’s departure from shore.
I suppose that when all is said & done, the marvellous talent of Kundera’s words reminds me of the life that is lived in secret behind every blinking eye I meet. In his book he has crafted the world in his palm, reminding it that it is as small & insignificant as black ink, yet as powerful & moving as the story he tells.
One may be in a position to forgive the amputated ear, the sexual infidelity, the artifact of the painting, the ambitions, & the fantasy all intermingled before one’s eyes, pretending to forget & remember, all at once, the life of one who chose the road open to them, turning their backs on the life they were born to lead.
C. 💌