“Everything will be forgotten and nothing will be repaired.”
The Joke (1975), Milan Kundera
Through this reflection, Milan Kundera sheds light on his disillusioned view of both individual and collective history, where justice, whether in the form of vengeance or forgiveness, gives way to the erosion of memory.
Nothing will be able to close the wounds of the past; oblivion, like a historical and existential inevitability, will be the only form of possible repair.
Only time will act as an anesthetic; the wounds and resentments will fade only when we have forgotten them, and through an inescapable mechanism over which we have no control, life will eventually render any attempt at repair obsolete.
After this demystification of the permanence of memory and the possibility of a salvatory repair, we are left with the task of accepting our tragic fate and perhaps sublimating it through derision…
Or, perhaps, should we interpret it another way? Could this pessimistic conclusion also be a call to persevere without despair or resignation, and, indeed, to imagine a better future despite everything? A way to shake minds awake to the urgency of transcending ourselves, without which we cannot bear the tragedies of the present, and which may, perhaps, bring about some form of repair?
–Edwige Benamou
