Milan Kundera · The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Author: Milan Kundera
Publisher:
Publication Date: 2003-01-01
Features: In my opinion, great works can only be born within the history of the art they belong to and participate in this history. Only in history can people grasp what is new, what is repetitive, what is invention, and what is imitation. In other words, only in history can a work exist as a value that people can discern and cherish. For art, I believe there is nothing more terrible than falling outside its history, for it would then fall into a chaotic state where no aesthetic value can be discovered anymore. For me, becoming a novelist is not just practicing a certain "literary genre"; it is also an attitude, a wisdom, a stance; a stance that has queued for any assimilation with some politics, some religion, some ideology, some ethics, or some collective stance; an conscious, stubborn, and furious differentiation, not as escape or passivity, but as resistance, rebellion, and challenge.