“ The agelastes [Rabelais’s word for those who do not laugh], the non-thought of received ideas, and kitsch are one and the same, the three-headed enemy of the art born as the echo of God’s laughter, the art that created the fascinating imaginative realm where no one owns the truth and everyone has the right to be understood. That imaginative realm of tolerance was born with modern Europe, a dream many times betrayed but nonetheless strong enough to unite us all in the fraternity that stretches far beyond the little European continent. But we know that the world where the individual is respected (the imaginative world of the novel, and the real one of Europe) is fragile and perishable… if European culture seems under threat today, if the threat from within and without hangs over what is most precious about it - its respect for the individual, for his original thought, and for his right to an inviolable private life - then, I believe, that precious essence of the European spirit is being held safe as in a treasure chest inside the history of the novel, the wisdom of the novel.
— Milan Kundera, The Art of the Novel
