Whenever I pack for a move and have to decide what to keep and what to discard (especially books) I always think of Kunderas Immortality which features two sisters, defined by their disagreement of whether or not their father was right to tear up pictures of their mother when she died. One sister, Laura, is bitterly offended by the destruction of the photos. Kundera describes her as defining herself through the method of addition, i.e. I am nice, sociable, good at tennis, I like cats, Virginia Woolf, etc. The personal risk of this method is that the self becomes buried by the attributes. Agnes, on the other hand, defends her father and defines herself through the method of subtraction, jettisoning everything exterior and borrowed..with the risk that zero lurks at the bottom of the subtraction. I am loathe to throw much out, which not only means I take up too much closet and shelf space, but Im also clearly a Laura, which Kundera clearly finds less cool and even potentially dangerous. Sorry Milan, its not by choice.
Posted on: Thu, 08 May 2014 01:25:41 +0000
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