The Daily Sabbatical

Inspired by a Times Online segment in which critics and authors list their most loathed books, I’ve decided to name my most loathed author. I hate Milan Kundera. I have an imaginary button that I press to make it such that certain people never existed. (This is better than the imaginary hammer, which just poofs the despised out of existence, because there are some people whose influence needs to be stricken from the record as well.) I use it rarely–although I have been punching like mad for the past eight years–but old MK gets an enthusiastic push of the button. Now granted, there are some pretty sexy scenes in the movie version of The Unbearable Lightness of Being that would have to go, but that’s a small price to pay. Kundera is unsufferable.
I know of no other person whose estimation of his own intelligence so far overshoots his actual capabilities. (And this is saying something, since bad philosophers–usually bearded ones–have this trait in spades.) Now I must admit, my evidence is somewhat scanty. I’ve only read two halves of his books–I threw both Immortality and The Joke across the room upon reaching their midpoints–and a handful of articles, but my aversion to suffering overrides my desire for a conclusive brief. I can deal with a bit of pretentiousness. Nabokov was pretentious. I can deal with a bit of smarminess–Richard Dawkins can be a tad smarmy. But combine these traits with intellectual sloppiness, a questionably IQ and a tribe of adoring fans and I’m moved to hatred. If you are in that tribe, I suggest you not mention it. I also suggest that you read more widely, for if you did you would surely agree that Kundera is a buffoon whose place as a leading member of the intelligentsia is as absurd as George W. Bush’s place as the leader of the world’s most powerful nation.