Kundera’s “Ignorance” is a modern version of the Great Return, coming home after the Odyssey has taken place. While simultaneously questioning if such a return is even possible, Kundera tells the story of two Czechs who, after being exiled for 20 years, accidentally run into each other while flying back to their homeland in 1989, after the fall of Communism in Prague.
Irena, who left Prague with her now-deceased husband, is coming home only to encounter a transformed culture that is at once familiar and alien. Her idea of a glorious homecoming is shattered by the realization that the people she once knew are indifferent to the past 20 years she has spent living in Paris: her Odyssey ceases to exist after she has reached her Ithica. Josef, who returns to Prague to fulfill a promise made to his since-passed wife, experiences a similarly disheartening reunion. He no longer belongs to the country he once loved, and reentering it, he is treated even by his family like a man returning from the dead.
Their parallel stories are those of émigrés. Even after they are allowed to come back to their homeland, both realize the truth: they can never truly return. Long ago, Irena and Josef were involved in a brief but pivotal romance, and now, having met again in the Paris airport, the question of whether or not they will rekindle their romance, thus freeing themselves from the dismal trap of their past lives, hangs palpable in the air.
In addition to his typical poignant historical anecdotes and wisdom, Milan Kundera shapes a captivating and gut-wrenching narrative which strains between a tragedy and a half-hearted love story. His characters are shocking in their accuracy. The honest depictions of every person makes it such that no character is comfortably heroic. One can find reasons to adore and disgust anyone, as reality would have it if it were half as revealing.
At times seeming to converse lightly with the reader, the narrator often frames the novel as case study on the behavior and effects of memory: how it is altered by the passing of time, how it is irreparably lost and fragmented, how it determines our present lives as it is shared or not shared between two people.
Because it is a quick read, one might easily miss the deeper theories and insights into human nature that “Ignorance” has to offer. The extensive impact of mismatched memories is well-explored here.
Kundera deftly moves through the narratives of odyssey, historical fantasy, unrequited love and eroticism in a voice simultaneously wise and freshly curious.
