Milan Kundera Quote
The episode of Banaka pointing to his chest and crying out of existential anguish reminds me of a line from Goethe’s West-East Divan: Is one man alive when others are alive? Deep within Goethe’s query lies the secret of the writer’s creed. By writing books, the individual becomes a universe (we speak of the universe of Balzac, the universe of Chekhov, the universe of Kafka, do we not?). And since the principal quality of a universe is its uniqueness, the existence of another universe constitutes a threat to its very essence.
Milan Kundera
The episode of Banaka pointing to his chest and crying out of existential anguish reminds me of a line from Goethe’s West-East Divan: Is one man alive when others are alive? Deep within Goethe’s query lies the secret of the writer’s creed. By writing books, the individual becomes a universe (we speak of the universe of Balzac, the universe of Chekhov, the universe of Kafka, do we not?). And since the principal quality of a universe is its uniqueness, the existence of another universe constitutes a threat to its very essence.
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