“Love Is a Losing Game”: Textual Games in Milan Kundera's “The Hitchhiking Game”

Summary

A couple who indulge in a tongue-in-cheek game of pretence soon discover that role-play can, in fact, reveal more about themselves – their real selves – and their partner, than it conceals. What begins on a whim as an indulgent and innocent bit of sport soon spirals out of control to threaten the dynamics of the couple's relationship, increasingly hampering their ability to distinguish between fact and fantasy. The authors of this article contend that Milan Kundera's “The Hitchhiking Game”, one of seven short stories in the anthology Laughable Loves (1974), benefits from being read in terms of Roger Caillois's (1967) taxonomy of games and play, which differentiates between competition, chance, mimicry and vertigo in respect of players’ attitudes towards play. This theory is expanded by Wolfgang Iser (1993), who relates these four categories to the analysis of texts, introducing the concept of textual games. Employing the mimicry—chance binary seems particularly apt for this story as it highlights the unlimited potential for sustained illusion, as opposed to the limitations imposed by the finite nature of the text and the characters’ eventual disillusionment. In this tale of erotic love, the laughter hinted at in the title of the anthology is revealed to be rather wry, personal identity is shown to be ambiguous, and love often appears to be tainted by uncertainty.

Opsomming

'n Paartjie wat in ligte luim uiting gee aan hul verbeelding besef maar al te gou dat rolspel baie meer verklap aangaande hul ware persoonlikhede as wat dit verdoesel. Hul speletjie begin op die ingewing van die oomblik as oënskynlik skadelose pret, maar dinge raak vinnig buite beheer wanneer dit al hoe moeliker word om te onderskei tussen feit en fiksie, en hul verhoudingsdinamiek boonop bedreig word. Die outeurs van hierdie artikel is van mening dat Milan Kundera se “The Hitchhiking Game” [Die ryloopspeletjie – EC], een van sewe kortverhale in die bundel Laughable Loves (Lagwekkende liefdes – EC) sal baat vind indien dit gelees word aan die hand van Roger Caillois (1967) se taksonomie van spel: hy onderskei tussen kompetisie, noodlot/kans, verbeelding/nabootsing en vervoering as dryfvere vir menslike spel. Wolfgang Iser (1993) bou hierdie teorie uit deur te verduidelik hoe die vier kategoriseë verband hou met teks-analise en met teks-georiënteerde spel. In hierdie kortverhaal is die nabootsing/noodlotparing besonder gepas: dit maak voorsiening vir die ontelbare permutasies wat volgehoue illusie inhou, maar ook vir die beperkende aard van die teks en die karakters se uiteindelike ontnugtering. In hierdie verhaal van erotiese liefde blyk die gelag waarna die titel van die bundel verwys wrang te wees, karakters se identiteit is onstellend plooibaar, en liefde word meedoënloos gefolter deur onsekerheid.