Milan Kundera, a twentieth-century literary hero, was born in Brno, Czechoslovakia, in 1929. His life and career were intricately linked to his homeland's turbulent past, leaving an indelible mark on his novels and essays. Kundera's early works, such as "The Joke" and "Life is Elsewhere," established him as a master storyteller, delving into existential questions of love, betrayal, and the absurdity of life under totalitarian regimes. Readers dissatisfied by the oppressive communist regime in Czechoslovakia were enthralled by his sharp wit and insightful observations. Kundera was exiled in 1979 after the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, and was stripped of his citizenship and resigned to exile. He settled in France and continued to write prolifically, resulting in masterpieces such as "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" and "Immortality." In a world devoid of grand narratives, these novels cement his reputation as a leading voice in european literature, exploring themes of identity, memory, and the elusiveness of meaning. 

Kundera's books continue to captivate readers around the world, with them being translated into over 40 languages. He has received numerous awards for his intricate plots, philosophical depth, and lyrical prose, including the Jerusalem Prize and the independent Foreign Fiction Prize. He is a defining figure in contemporary literature, his timeless insights into the human condition providing poignant reflections on the challenges of life in a world beset by existential fears.

Art of the Novel: "The Art of the Novel" by Milan Kundera is a collection of essays that explore the essence and craft of the novel. Kundera delves into the novel's history, examining its development and the unique challenges it poses. He addresses the relationship of characters, space, and narration, stressing the novel's ability to convey human complexity. Kundera also examines the influence of politics and religion on storytelling, giving insight into his own creative process. Overall, the book is a thought-provoking account of the novel's intricacies and artistry.

The opening essay, "The Depreciated Legacy of Cervantes," was first published in The New York Review of Books in 1984 under the title "The Novel and Europe"—traces the evolution of the european novel. Kundera traces the transformations that the novel has made over the past four centuries, adaptations that were made in response to a changing world.

The Depreciated Legacy of Cerventes  (section wise summary) 

1.
In the first section of Milan Kundera's "The Depreciated Legacy of Cervantes," we explore Edmund Husserl's concern for a new era in European history. Husserl gave lectures in 1935 expressing worry about Europe's future in the face of significant challenges. He used the term "European" to describe a spiritual identity rooted in ancient greek philosophy that extended beyond geographical Europe.

Husserl traced the crisis back to the early modern age, citing Galileo and Descartes as examples. He slammed the one-sided nature of European sciences, which emphasized on numerical and mathematical investigation while neglecting the "die Lebenswelt" of life. Specialization followed the advancement of science, dividing people into narrow fields and distancing them from a holistic view of the world and themselves.
Descartes' elevation of man to the "master and owner of nature" resulted in a reversal. Human beings are now subjected to the influences of science, politics, and history. They've evolved into mere things that can be ignored, overpowered, and possessed by these forces. These overpowering influences devalue and forget the concrete being of man, his "world of life."

Heidegger, Husserl's pupil, characterized this as "the forgetting of being," highlighting how the pursuit of knowledge detachs individuals from a complete awareness of their existence and the world. Husserl's encounter with the crisis cast doubt on europe's ability to endure. The section examines the benefits of a scientific emphasis on the subject while neglecting the intrinsic and existential dimensions of human life.

2. 

The author, Milan Kundera, explores Edmund Husserl's worry about a 1930s human crisis in Europe. Husserl argues that europe's spiritual identity is rooted in ancient greek philosophy, emphasising the need for knowledge. He is afraid of a serious crisis, tracing its roots to Galileo and Descartes, criticizing the one-sided focus of European sciences on scientific and mathematical aspects while neglecting the practical world of life (die lebenswelt).

According to Husserl, the rise of sciences led to specialization, limiting a holistic understanding of the world and oneself. The Heidegger's term "the forgetting of being" describes how increasing knowledge distances individuals from their own existence. Kundera examines this period's ambiguity, recognizing both stagnation and progress. Cervantes, not just Descartes, played a vital role in shaping the modern age, according to him, although philosophy and science neglect human essence. Kundera argues that the novel, especially through Cervantes and subsequent writers, became a powerful tool to investigate the lost being, exploring existential questions over four centuries.

He explains how the novel explores the nature of adventure, secret feelings, man's spiritual roots, the mundane, irrationality, time, and myths. Kundera argues that the novel, which has been accompanying humanity since the modern era's inception, is fueled by a "passion to know," defending against the forgetting of being. He agrees with Hermann Broch's conviction that a novel's sole purpose is to discover previously unknown aspects of existence, thereby revealing the novel's morality. Kundera also refers to the novel as an artistic expression of Europe, with findings contributing to the European novel's supranational history. The value of a work lies in its contribution to this collective discovery of existence.

3.
The author, explores the impact of God's departure on the world and the emergence of the modern age. Don Quixote enters a world that is no longer governed by a single divine truth as god withdraws from directing the universe. The absence of a supreme judge leads to a terrifying ambiguity, bringing us to the modern era, as depicted by the novel. Kundera contrasts Descartes' heroic attitude of seeing the universe alone, based on the thinking self, with cervantes' perspective. Cervantes embraces the world's ambiguity, rejecting not one absolute truth but a slew of contradictory truths expressed in fictional characters. To face fear, one must have courage.
According to Kundera, Cervantes' book's meaning defies simplistic interpretations. Some see it as a pragmatic critique, while others see it as a celebration of idealism. Kundera argues that both interpretations are flawed because they take a moral stance rather than considering the novel's subject matter as an investigation. The natural human desire for a world with clear boundaries between good and evil, which is rooted in the desire to judge before understanding, is explored. Religions and philosophies attempt to translate the novel's language of relativity into their dogmatic discourse, insisting on someone being correct or wrong in the story. 
Kundera introduces the term "either-or," which refers to an inability to accept human experience's inherent relativity. The novel's inability to accept the absence of a supreme judge makes it difficult to grasp the novel's wisdom of doubt. The section, on the other hand, emphasizes the struggle to accept and comprehend the novel's exploration of ambiguity and the absence of definitive conclusions in the human experience.


4.
Milan Kundera's "The Depreciated Legacy of Cervantes" explores the novel's history and its characters in this section. The early European novels were portrayed as journeys through a seemingly limitless universe, using don quixote as an example. Jacques le Fataliste lived in a timelessness space, with no concrete origin or destination, in an eternal europe. However, as time passed, the distant horizon disappeared behind the modern society's structures – the police, the judiciary, money, crime, the army, and the government, as shown by Balzac's writing. As time approached the train called history, Balzac's world marked a departure from cervantes and diderot's carefree idleness. This train brought adventure, fame, and fortune to its passengers. 
The prospect of characters like Emma Bovary becoming a constraining barrier as the years progress. Dreams and daydreams were crucial to the monotony of everyday life. The external world's lost infinity was replaced by the human oneness, thereby perpetuating the false image of the individual as an unavoidable uniqueness. However, as history, now dominated by the suprahuman force of an omnipotent society, took over, the promise of fame and fortune fell away. The character K., facing the court or the castle, is trapped in society's expectations. In the face of economic pressure, the dream of the soul's infinity becomes almost useless. His thoughts and feelings are consumed by questions about his case and his work as a land surveyor, overshadowing any potential dreams similar to Emma Bovary's. The section, explores the changing roles of characters in novels, shifting from a boundless exploration to the confines of everyday expectations.

5. 

Milan Kundera, reflects on the historical paradoxes that have arisen in the novel and the modern age. Since the novel's course is remarkably short and limited, he likens it to a parallel history of the time. Kundera imagines Don Quixote returning to his village after a three-century journey, now disguised as a land-surveyor, to the fate of adventure, the novel's initial grand theme. The adventure that once was a personal choice has now become a self-imposed squabble with the government over a bureaucratic error, hinting at a paradoxical turn.
Using "The Good Soldier Schweik" as an example, the author explores the paradox in war novels. He finds it odd that a comic book could also be a war novel, highlighting the transition from wars fought for comprehensible reasons, like Helen or country, to wars without rational arguments. As depicted in Kafka's novels, the force behind wars becomes a disinterested and pure irrationality. In "The Sleepwalkers," Kundera delves into the absurdity portrayed by Hermann Broch. As Cartesian rationality corrodes traditional values, pure irrationality takes center stage, driven by a will that cannot be defeated. This shift in the modern era leads to a fatal paradox: reason's triumph brings us to an age where reason is dominant by irrational force. The author concludes with another paradox involving the dream of global unity and everlasting peace. Although the world's history is now indivisible, it is paradoxically embodied and guaranteed by an ambulant and perpetual war, restricting anyone's escape from any place, resulting in a complex and thought-provoking discussion.

6.

Milan Kundera, the author discusses Edmund Husserl's philosophical testament, delivered in lectures on the European crisis and the potential disappearance of European mankind. Given in Central Europe, this region holds deep significance as it witnessed the amputation of a part of the West during the First World War when Warsaw, Budapest, and Prague were absorbed by the Russian empire, leading to an unbalanced and weakened Europe. 

Kundera emphasizes the shift in literature's portrayal of external forces. The monster isn't the inner battle of the soul in Kafka, Hasek, Musil, and Broch's novels, but it comes from outside, identified as history. This shift marked the turning point for central european novelists in the modern age. The novelists, on the other hand, aren't political prophets; they are merely a reflection of how existential categories change under the conditions of these paradoxes. In the face of impersonal, uncontrollable, and incomprehensible historical forces, concepts such as adventure, the future, crime, solitude, and the distinction between public and private take on new meanings.
Kundera suggests that the period initiated by these Central European novelists, characterized by terminal paradoxes, is far from over. Just as Flaubert's exploration of the quotidian was fully developed by James Joyce seventy years later, the impact of the Central European novelists continues to resonate, shaping the ongoing narrative of the novel's history. 

7. 

The notion of the death of the novel has been a recurring theme in discussions, particularly among avant-garde movements like the Futurists and Surrealists. They envisioned the novel yielding to a radically new future, signaling the end of the Modern Era. However, if Cervantes is considered the founder of this era, the demise of his legacy implies more than a shift in literary forms; it signifies the end of an entire historical epoch. The author reflects on the frivolity of obituaries celebrating the novel's demise, drawing from personal experiences in a totalitarian world where the novel met a violent end due to bans, censorship, and ideological pressure.

In totalitarian environments, the novel's mortality becomes evident, as it clashes with a worldview founded on absolute Truth, devoid of relativity and ambiguity. While novels may be published in such regimes, they merely reaffirm established narratives, contributing nothing new to the exploration of existence. The author contends that the death of the novel has already happened in the context of Russian Communism, where the rich tradition of Russian novels, from Gogol to Bely, reached a halt about half a century ago. This death is characterized not by disappearance but by a quiet departure from the novel's historical trajectory, going unnoticed and without causing public outrage.

8.

Milan Kundera explores the idea that the novel is not inherently exhausted but has missed opportunities. He identifies four appeals that could have enriched its evolution. 
*Firstly, the appeal of play, seen in Sterne's Tristram Shandy and Diderot's Jacques le Fataliste, showcases novelistic grand games that later works neglected in favor of realism. 
*Secondly, Kafka awakened the appeal of dreams, merging dream and reality, a potential the Surrealists only called for. 
*Thirdly, the appeal of thought, as demonstrated by Musil and Broch, brought intelligence to the novel without turning it into philosophy, suggesting a potential intellectual synthesis. 
*Lastly, the appeal of time, beyond individual memory, explores collective and historical time, hinting at paths like spanning multiple historical periods.
Kundera tells that the novel's disappearance wouldn't be due to exhaustion but rather its struggle to fit into a world that has become estranged from its essence.

9.

Milan Kundera laments the modern era's reduction of life to social function, history to a biased interpretation, and social life to political struggle. In this whirlpool of reduction, the novel traditionally serves to keep the "world of life" illuminated and counteract the "forgetting of being." However, Kundera observes that the novel itself is now under threat from the termites of reduction. Mass media, as agents of global unification, amplify this reduction by disseminating oversimplified stereotypes worldwide. Despite superficial political differences, media outlets share a common spirit, contrary to the complexity and continuity inherent in the novel's essence.

The novel's spirit, defined by complexity and continuity, challenges the prevailing trend of quick, easy answers dominating the spirit of our time. In today's era, where the present overshadows the past and reduces time to the current moment, the novel is marginalized, seen as just another fleeting event rather than a lasting creation connecting past and future. Kundera emphasizes the need for the novel's spirit to counterbalance the reductionist forces at play in contemporary society.

10.

Milan Kundera questions whether the novel can coexist with the spirit of our time, expressing uncertainty about its future in a world increasingly distant from its essence. He ponders the possibility of the novel disappearing, leaving Europe engulfed in "the forgetting of being," replaced by an endless stream of novels that come after the historical trajectory of the genre. Kundera believes the novel cannot peacefully align with the contemporary spirit if it aims to continue discovering the undiscovered and progressing.

Contrary to the avant-garde's ambition to be in harmony with the future, Kundera criticizes the pursuit of the future as conformism, a flattering submission to the powerful. He reflects on his own past belief that the future should judge works and actions, realizing later that this chase after the future is a form of conformity. Kundera questions what he should be attached to if not the future, pondering options like God, country, the people, or the individual. The section highlights his skepticism about the novel's compatibility with the prevailing spirit and the pitfalls of conforming to the allure of an uncertain future.




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