BARTHES, KUNDERA AND GOMBROWICZ (Barthes, Kundera a Gombrowicz)

Barthes, Kundera and Gombrowicz share an aspiration towards demystification. Each of them applies it in a different way. Although we might expect Kundera and Gombrowicz to share the novel technique, instead there appears to be a strong affinity between Kundera and Barthes (in the hidden, ideological rhetorical gesture) against which Gombrowicz stands as their anti-thesis. Even though Barthes speaks in various places about the danger of the solidification of writing, it is possible to observe this solidification (through ideological fortification) both in him and in Kundera. Probably because their positions are not rigorously examined (they are reflexive, but not self-reflexive), since they apply the demystifying demand only to their rivals (bourgeois myths - i.e., the editor, lyricism, romantic cliches), but never to their own position, from which they execute their criticism. This is different in Gombrowicz, who not only refuses to ideologically fix the signs of literature, but his position is moreover self reflexive (it defies solidification). His straightforward, exaggerated literary gesture is therefore only seemingly disrespectful.