Many moons ago, when I was a young literary journalist living in Paris, I happened to meet two American writers at the Café Flore. Their names were William Styron and James Baldwin, and they were at the height of their fame, but Baldwin nevertheless gave me the time of day, and I wound up interviewing him for the International Herald Tribune and then traveling down to Baldwin’s home in Saint Paul de Vence, where I interviewed him for a second time, for the Paris Review.
What does this have to do with Milan Kundera — whose novels at the time, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting and The Unbearable Lightness of Being, were widely read and admired? Well, it so happened that I wrote Milan Kundera a letter, proposing that I interview him for a literary review called Salmagundi. I referred him to my Paris Review interview with James Baldwin as a reference, to demonstrate the seriousness of my proposal. Kundera was a notorious recluse; he was known to be cantankerous about his translations and rarely gave interviews.
So I felt rather proud of myself when I received his letter in my mailbox, inviting me to come over to his Montparnasse apartment, which he shared with his wife Vera. On the appointed morning of the interview, I entered his building, walked up two flights of stairs, and knocked on his door. His wife Vera answered and I greeted her with a smile — but not too big of a smile, because smiley Americans were frowned upon in a serious city like Paris. Vera looked me up and down, and said, and I quote: “You’re Jordan Elgrably?” Reflexively, I looked down at my shirt, pants and shoes, as if I, too, were evaluating if I were really me, or perhaps I had stepped in dog excrement on the way over and hadn’t noticed.
“Yes, I am,” I replied quietly, uncertain as to her skepticism. Vera gestured at me to wait right there, on the threshold, and she went to fetch her husband. Milan Kundera came to the door and repeated his wife’s question: “You’re Jordan Elgrably?” They looked at each other, I don’t know, as if I were an imposter.
I fidgeted, feeling uncomfortable. “Yes, yes,” I said.
Finally, Kundera shook his head as if terribly surprised, and said, “Well, you’re so young. I was expecting someone much more…” Accomplished? The truth is I was in my 20s and had already interviewed a number of major authors, from Styron and Baldwin to John Fowles and Nadine Gordimer. I was no spring chicken!
But I looked like one. Judge for yourself from the above photographs, taken the year I talked to Milan Kundera, in 1985. After what seemed like forever, the Kunderas ushered me into their large, airy flat, and Kundera and I drank coffee and tea and talked for hours, in French. I found him funny at times, playful, and rarely, a bit difficult. The man was rather like his work.
Milan Kundera died on Tuesday, July 11, 2023 at the age of 94. We are fortunate that we have his work, a large body of fiction and essays, with which to appreciate his legacy.
For a limited time, let me share with you the bulk of our conversation, in this attachment, as it appeared in Salmagundi.
Addendum, July 13, 2023
Memory is a tricky thing. Most of us have a hard time remembering what we had for lunch or dinner earlier in the week; sometimes we can’t recall what we ate the night before. I’m afraid my memory didn’t serve me yesterday; my interview with Milan Kundera took place not in 1985 but on August 29, 1984, from about 10:30 in the morning until sometime in the afternoon. Here is a note in my journal from that day. (Notice that I did not write down the awkward encounter at the door.) I also misremembered a number of other details.
I arrived at the appointed hour and was greeted by Vera Kundera, whom I found attractive and gay and bright. She bade me enter their charming little apartment — and it is really small for people of their wealth. Kundera came out rubbing his eyes (I exaggerate) and excusing himself. ‘I got to sleep at six. Drank too much last night!’ I offered to come back later, but he waved off that suggestion. We drank a few cups of espresso and then began to talk, but after a few minutes, he looked at his watch and suggested we break for lunch. We walked across the street to a modest little Pekinese restaurant, where we skipped the hors d’oeuvres and got right into special beef, chicken citronelle and vermicelli with shrimp. I drank a quarter liter of red, while he had tea. We packed it in with a kiwi sorbet for me and candied ginger for him.
The trite details can be spared. I was interested to hear from him on his readers. He said he received relatively few letters, usually from older women. He answers these letters out of politesse but commented that such readers make for poor mistresses. They are too demanding and melancholic, he said; they always expect too much…Does this mean Kundera entertains a mistress now and then? I don’t know, but I can say that he is quite interested in women as real people and not only as the characters with whom he exercises his own fantasies.
I also managed to find my old Kundera file and this exchange regarding Vera, which was not kept in the interview text published in Salmagundi:
JE: Every now and then we catch sight of Vera Kundera in the interviews you’ve granted, although we still know little about her. What role does she play in her husband’s writing life?
MK: Vera handles my affairs in the English-speaking world, organizes rendez-vous, and knows where everything is, here in my workspace.
JE: Is she an appreciative or critical reader of your work? Does she herself write?
MK: Oh, no. Vera is not a writer. Do you know the story of Gustav and Alma Mahler? Alma was very ambitious and wanted to be a composer. Mahler said to her one day, “My dear, it would be ridiculous if both of us were composers.” He was right, and Alma relented, although she never forgave him. For Mahler she sacrificed her talent, and who knows but she might have been an even greater composer than her husband.
Kundera dealt with accusations of being a misogynist throughout his public life as a novelist, and we discuss that to some length in the Salmagundi interview, but he disagreed that women were poorly treated in his novels. At this point, I think we will have to return to his work as readers and decide for ourselves.
—•—