The Art of the Novel (Perennial Classics) [Paperback]

Milan Kundera (Author)

Book Description

Release date: April 1, 2003 | ISBN-10: 0060093749 | ISBN-13: 978-0060093747 | Edition: Reprint

Kundera brilliantly examines the work of such important and diverse figures as Rabelais, Cervantes, Sterne, Diderot, Flaubert, Tolstoy, and Musil. He is especially penetrating on Hermann Broch, and his exploration of the world of Kafka's novels vividly reveals the comic terror of Kafka's bureaucratized universe.

Kundera's discussion of his own work includes his views on the role of historical events in fiction, the meaning of action, and the creation of character in the post-psychological novel.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A novelist who writes eloquently about the wrenching dislocations of history, Kundera explains that his fictions use historical circumstances only to thrust his characters into a "revelatory existential situation." The Czech writer (The Joke, Laughable Loves) draws lessons from Cervantes, who saw the world as a welter of contradictory truths, and from Kafka, who recognized that pure irrationality held center stage. In essays and dialogues, he discusses novelists whose works are sorely neglected (Broch, Diderot) and more familiar writers like Tolstoy, Flaubert, Musil and Sterne. He presents a 62-word glossary of key words to aid readers of his own novels ("Betrayal . . . Breaking ranks and going off into the unknown"). His strikingly original reflections crystallize his conviction that the modern novelist's greatest asset is the wisdom of uncertainty.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

Kundera's first nonfiction book alternates between passionately intelligent reflections on some of the novelists most important to himCervantes, Broch, and Kafkaand on his own challenging and important work. Although the Czech author's own fiction better proves his argument that the novel is far from dead (where there is no censorship), this book is very useful for understanding his works as continuing a Central European and international tradition. He is so dedicated to his art form that he evaluates contemporary culture on the basis of how well it supports the modern novel. The reader is left with a renewed appreciation of the form. For all literature collections.Ethan Bumas, formerly with the New Sch. for Social Research, New York
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial Modern Classics; Reprint edition (April 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060093749
• ISBN-13: 978-0060093747
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.3 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #75,840 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Milan Kundera, born in Brno, Czechoslovakia, was a student when the Czech Communist regime was established in 1948, and later worked as a labourer, jazz musician and professor at the Institute for Advanced Cinematographic Studies in Prague. After the Russian invasion in August 1968, his books were proscribed. In 1975, he and his wife settled in France, and in 1981, he became a French citizen. He is the author of the novels The Joke, Life is Elsewhere, Farewell Waltz, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, and Immortality, and of the short-story collection Laughable Loves - all originally in Czech. His most recent novels, Slowness, Identity and Ignorance, as well as his non-fiction works The Art of the Novel and Testaments Betrayed, were originally written in French.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

38 of 39 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Much Needed Luminescence June 6, 2000

By oh_pete VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

"Outside the novel, we're in the realm of affirmation: everyone is sure of his statements: the politician, the philosopher, the concierge. Within the universe of the novel, however, no one affirms: it is the realm of play and of hypotheses. In the novel, then, reflection is essentially inquiring, hypothetical."

Thus Milan Kundera affirms the wonder and beauty of the novel and explains the difference between how philosophers think and how novelists think. Born of the Modern Era ushered in by seventeenth century rationalism, the novel contemplates and explores existence in the Modern Era. Like the Modern Era, the novel is distinguished by its ambiguity and complexity. For Kundera, the novel's core is an inquiry, not a moral position. It makes sense, therefore, that in a world where humans long for black/white, wrong/right distinction, that the "wisdom of uncertainty" which Kundera calls the wisdom of the novel, should be so hard to accept and understand.

This remarkable short book shares the seven part form of several of Kundera's novels: each can stand alone but all are connected by vital and pervading themes. The seven parts comprise two essays, a collection of notes, two dialogues, a dictionary of sixty-three words, and an acceptance speech for a literary prize--and not in the order just mentioned. This mosaic structure works well to underscore part of Kundera's point: there are many ways to approach an understanding of the novel. Is Don Quixote a critique or a celebration of idealism? Both cases have been made often, neither is right--the novel's spirit of complexity and continuity brooks no dogmatism. In fact, the novel has its own "radical autonomy" which Kundera uses to illuminate the works of Franz Kafka. It can say and show things humans cannot achieve in any other way.

If the novel that is art--the novel that truly says something new--is to survive, novelists would do well to think more like Milan Kundera. Readers of THE ART OF THE NOVEL, meanwhile, will gain a new appreciation for the genre as well as valuable insight into the thought process of one of the world's greatest living novelists.

29 of 29 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The unbearable being of a novel July 15, 2002

By R. Tiedemann

Format:Paperback

Milan Kundera is a Czechoslavakian writer who lives in France. He's written a number of novels, among the THE BOOK OF LAUGHTER AND FORGETTING and THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING. In this, his first nonfiction effort, Kundera relates the concept of the novel to his own work. The first two essays were inspired by an interview he gave to The Paris Review on his practical experiences with the art of the novel.

His focus goes beyond his own work, however. Kundera presents some rather intense and unusual analyses of his personal favorite writers: Cervantes, Rabelais, Sterne, Diderot, Flaubert, Tolstoy and Kafka, to name just a few.

This is a book for the scholarly reader; the reader who knows literature. It is one that illuminates all sorts of possibilities for writing the novel, for Kundera points out the the novel can express life in ways that can't be achieved by any other form.

He moves from the general to the specific -- from the form of the novel, to the way others have used it, to his own work. Particularly interesting is his dictionary of 63 key words which he says are essential to understanding his fiction. His observations about the state of contemporary Russian literature -- what is being published and why -- are fascinating. He also expresses his frustration, as an author, with translators of his works and how they handle language.

"The art of reading," wrote Andre Maurois, "is in great part that of acquiring a better understanding of life from one's encounter with a book." Readers will come away from this with a better understand of the novel as an expression of life as well as deeper insight into a number of classical works.

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Kundera's Art October 8, 2003

By Debbie Lee Wesselmann TOP 50 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

This relatively small book (165 pages) offers an engaging peek into the mind of a brilliant novelist and scholar. Consisting of interviews, speeches, and published work, Kundera expounds on his literary beliefs about what makes a great novel. My favorite sections are the interviews because of their immediacy and accessibility, although the author's most profound insights arise from his discussion of other authors: Kafka, Cervantes, Tolstoy, Flaubert, and others.

Writers, students of literature, and Kundera's faithful readers should find much to think about in these pages. This is not a light discourse on how to write a novel; Kundera takes his art seriously, in both deeply instinctive and scholarly ways. Those looking for a how-to book would be well-served to look elsewhere.