Sir, – In your report (”Milan Kundera, author of The Unbearable Lightness of Being, dies aged 94″, World News, July 13th), the Czech-born novelist speaking in 1980 stated “it seems to me all over the world people nowadays prefer to judge rather than to understand, to answer rather than to ask, so that the voice of the novel can hardly be heard over the noisy foolishness of human certainties”.
How little has changed in over 40 years. – Yours, etc,
MIKE MORAN,
Clontarf,
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Dublin 3.
Sir, – Ryan Tubridy’s use of language during the committee hearings – “equivocation”, “fog of confusion”, “unambiguously” – exemplifies the weight of meaning the great Milan Kundera, who has died aged 94, attached to the term “public”: “…the moment someone keeps an eye on what we do, we involuntarily make allowances for that eye, and nothing we do is truthful. Having a public, keeping a public in mind, means living in lies”. – Yours, etc,
ADRIAN GOODWIN,
Clarke’s Bridge,
Cork.