In search of silence. Two voices on misophonia

Abstract

In the years 1933–1934, Jaromír John, a prose writer associated primarily with the ”Lidové noviny”, published the novel Výbušný zlotvor (o muži, kterého pronásledovala auta). Much later, in 2007, the work of one of the leading Czech postmodernists, Jaroslav Rudiš, Potichu, appeared on the book market. Both texts, regardless of the differences in the narrative conventions that build their fictional order, share the anti-civilization character of the diagnoses and the tendency to undermine the approval of the modernization discourse. In both novels, among the defined shortcomings of the modern world, pollution of the environment with noise comes to the fore. Their heroes suffer from the so-called misophonia, that means hypersensitivity to sounds. Behind the apparent obviousness of the maladic narrative a devastating diagnosis of the rudimentary shortcomings of modern life is hidden. It is not the first time in the world literature that descriptions of disease symptoms turn out to be an effective instrument for recognizing the negative aspects of a psychosocial situation and designing treatment methods capable of healing it.