"I cannot use that microphone"

When I was in college, there was a sort of craze for the novels of Milan Kundera. I could never see the point of them myself - it is partly, I am sure, my natural contrarianism, but the philosophizing always seemed to me not distinctive enough to make up for the self-involved sensibility and the to-me-antipathetic argument about life and art: there is a sort of smug preciousness to Kundera's tone that rubs me the wrong way on a level more physiological than intellectual.

I am reminded of the mild antipathy those novels used to generate in me by this week's reading of Kundera's The Art of the Novel. It is a worthwhile book, but Kundera's authorial persona remains odious! Anyway, a few bits I especially liked:

Joyce set a microphone within Bloom's head. Thanks to the fantastic espionage of interior monologue, we have learned an enormous amount about what we are. But, myself, I cannot use that microphone.

And, preciously but pricelessly: "I once left a publisher for the sole reason that he tried to change my semicolons to periods." So dandyish, so self-absorbed: and yet I cannot help but sympathize...