Commiserating with Devastated Things

This study will attempt to understand, through both a careful reading of Kundera’s oeuvre as well as a consideration of the Continental philosophical tradition, the place that Kundera calls “the universe of the novel.” I argue that Kundera transforms—not applies—philosophical reflection within the art form of the novel.

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Commiserating with Devastated Things seeks to understand the place Milan Kundera calls “the universe of the novel.” Working through Kundera’s oeuvre as well as the continental philosophical tradition, Wirth argues that Kundera transforms—not applies—philosophical reflection within literature.

Reading between Kundera’s work and his self-avowed tradition, from Kafka to Hermann Broch, Wirth asks what it might mean to insist that philosophy does not have a monopoly on wisdom, that the novel has its own modes of wisdom that challenge philosophy’s.