Milan Kundera’s
latest novel is just like all his other novels, a masterpiece. An illustrative
mingling of history, philosophy, critique of society and individualism, but
also downthrown of ideas we thought were invariable. Even from the first Milan Kundera's novel I read, I have always admired his extraordinary talent
of making history and its main actors present in the unfolding of current
affairs, or in the explanation of current affairs. Thus, historical actors
acquire a right to be seen in a totally new light, and not in order to excuse
themselves, over years, to the current generations, but to explain themselves.
It is the case, in this novel, of Stalin and the story of the twenty-four
francolins.
The scenery or the places where the action takes place have
little or almost no significance, and only those elements important to the
story are described. Again, another thing I truly admire in Milan Kundera’s
narration is that it lets the readers invent their own setting (if necessary),
stressing more on the action. Thus, mom’s portrait of one of the four main
characters of the novel is described as hanging on a wall, and then we find out
about its significance.
Significance or insignificance? There are a lot of elements
in the narration that present both of them. In a most democratic way, both the
characters and the reader can choose one of the two values in order to bring
themselves peace. Sometimes, even both of the values.
I cannot remain insensible to the description of the
gigantic tree. It is so beautifully described that I’d be inclined to take it
as irony addressed to the feminine. But I take the democratic right mentioned
above and I choose to see the description as a frank and unbiased one. As for ‘
the army of apologizers’, I tend to think there are more of them out there then we’d
expect.
