Williams’ Parallel to Kundera

While reading Williams’ Spring and All, I cannot help but liken it to Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being. They both have war and religious (or rather, sacrilegious) themes in them, presented in an exaggerated manner that is close to sarcasm. Both have the propensity to play the devil’s advocate and are not reserved in their criticisms. Moreover, their central messages seem to be interconnected with each other.

I was going to bring up this point during discussion today, but I seriously doubt that anyone—aside from Natalia—would recognize my reference. Furthermore, to anyone who has read Kundera’s book, it would all seem inappropriate and awkward to bring up such a point. Alas, I would need the courage from my other persona-- which exists only when I’m safe in front of the computer screen—to write out my thoughts.

Kundera compares two opposing traits—the lightness and heaviness in personality. Those who are “light” are carefree and frivolous whereas those who are “heavy” are serious and dramatic—but there is no indication that one is more profound than the other. Williams is on the lighter side, for he is criticized in the following way:

“You seem to neither to have suffered nor, in fact, to have felt anything very deeply… They are heartless, cruel, they make fun of humanity. What in God’s name do you mean? Are you a pagan? Have you no tolerance for human frailty? ... You have not yet suffered a cruel blow from life. When you have suffered you will write differently.” (pg.88)

The critic is of the heavy side, for he seems to understand suffering as an essential element of art. Everything must be serious-- must be melodramatic. I believe we have a colloquial term for people as such in the modern day: the critic is “emo”.

Why must Williams look at the bleak part of life? Why must he be pessimistic? He needs no sympathy to write about imagination and he certainly needs no sympathy to criticize people’s lack of imagination. He is not rigging people’s emotions—since, we all know, it’s kind of hard to criticize someone’s suffering. Instead, he dances around, writing down what is on his mind: what if—

Kundera, too, does not appeal to people’s sympathy; he is, after all, writing to make a philosophical point. Kundera, who is oppressed under Soviet Russia, has certainly had his fair share of suffering, probably more than many authors who write about pain and death but has never experienced such. But he is “light”, and so is his protagonist. Kundera makes his point about the conflict of heaviness and lightness with irony and sarcasm—but that does not detract from the value of his work. It is merely a different approach.

Well, I suppose it’s altogether fitting for a cynical person like me to appreciate Kundera and Williams more than others. It is ironic that many of the poems that appeal to the sense of pity come off as fake for me. Then, I suppose I can deem myself “light”—though by no means am I a frivolous womanizer or an insensitive jerk (I might concede to the latter, though).

Kundera and Williams both come off as insensitive, demonstrated by the following passages.

“Kill! Kill! The English, the Irish, the French, the Germans, the Italians and the rest: friends or enemies, it makes no difference, kill them all. The bridge is to be blown up when all Russian is upon it… I speak for the integrity of the soul and the greatness of life’s inanity; the formality of its boredom; the orthodoxy of its stupidity. Kill! Kill! Let there be fresh meat…” (Williams)

“Not until 1980 were we able to read in the Sunday Times how Stalin's son, Yakov, died. Captured by the Germans during the Second World War, he was placed in a camp together with a group of British officers. They shared a latrine. Stalin's son habitually left a foul mess. The British officers resented having their latrine smeared with shit, even if it was the shit of the son of the most powerful man in the world. They brought the matter to his attention. He took offense. They brought it to his attention again and again, and tried to make him clean the latrine. He raged, argued, and fought. Finally, he demanded a hearing with the camp commander. He wanted the commander to act as arbiter. But the arrogant German refused to talk about shit. Stalin's son could not stand the humiliation. Crying out to heaven in the most terrifying of Russian curses, he took a running jump into the electrified barbed-wire fence that surrounded the camp. He hit the target. His body, which would never again make a mess of the Britishers' latrine, was pinned to the wire… Stalin's son laid down his life for shit. But a death for shit is not a senseless death. The Germans who sacrificed their lives to expand their country's territory to the east, the Russians who died to extend their country's power to the west— yes, they died for something idiotic, and their deaths have no meaning or general validity. Amid the general idiocy of the war, the death of Stalin's son stands out as the sole metaphysical death.” (Kundera)

But the points are not about the dying soldiers in the Great Wars. Instead, it’s about the pointlessness of death—something emphasized by detaching ourselves with the initial shock of the horrible results of wars.

However, I still want to repeat the notion that those who are light are not less profound. Surely, Kundera and Williams both understand the importance of human lives and frailty. But, unlike others, they see no point in repeating the same thing over and over again.