Emigrants and expatriates! Milan Kundera’s
novel “
Ignorance” tells the
story of Irena and Josef, who both left Prague in 1969 after the Russians had occupied their
country. After the ‘Fall of the Wall’ in 1989 they decided to return
home.
Irena and Josef are burdened by nostalgia and ignorance. By linking these two etymologically the author suggests that Irena and Josef suffer of the pain of ignorance, “not knowing what is happening in my home country” and distorted memories. Having lived a long time ex patria Irena and Josef remember their past events in their home country only vaguely and interpret them differently than their compatriots, who had preferred to stay home..
What can they expect of their homecoming? Will they experience the same fate as Odysseus, who after twenty years of an adventurous journey realised that his compatriots did not show any interest in his life outside of Ithaka?
Nobody in their home country wants to know about Irena’s and Josef’s lives ex patria. Both experience the painful truth that life goes on without you when you emigrate and that the only thing people are interested in, when you come home, is their common past experiences. They do not want to accept that Irena and Josef have changed, and they refuse to see them for who they are now. Ironically, even Irena and Josef themselves, when meeting, falling in love and separating, stay strangers to each other.
The topic of disenchantment of home, homesickness and nostalgia is not all what this
book is about. As in his previous books Milan Kundera takes a voyeuristic perspective. He comments on the thoughts and actions of the novel’s characters, exposes their contradictions and ambiguities, and leads the reader with an ‘unbearable lightness’ into the topics of politics, history, sex and death, all somehow relating to the story and its characters. By using an ironic tone throughout the book Milan Kundera has created a novel that is far from pessimistic. The book is a homage and love-story about people who have emigrated.
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