The Art of the Novel (Perennial Classics) Reprint Edition

by Milan Kundera (Author)

25 ratings

ISBN-13: 978-0060093747

ISBN-10: 0060093749

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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

About the Author

Milan Kundera is the author of the novels The Joke, Farewell Waltz, Life Is Elsewhere, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, and Immortality, and the short-story collection Laughable Loves—all originally written in Czech. His most recent novels Slowness, Identity, and Ignorance, as well as his nonfiction works The Art of the Novel, Testaments Betrayed, The Curtain, and Encounter, were originally written in French.

Series: Perennial Classics
Paperback: 176 pages
Publisher: Harper Perennial Modern Classics; Reprint edition (April 1, 2003)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0060093749
ISBN-13: 978-0060093747
Product Dimensions: 5.3 x 0.4 x 8 inches
Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Customer Reviews: 24 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #226,563 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #61 in Literary Theory
- #619 in Creative Writing & Composition
- #1286 in Fiction Writing Reference (Books)

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24 customer reviews

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Mike Chronley

Basically fan service, probably not the first work of Kundera to check out.

January 30, 2015

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

Kundera has this crazy breadth of interests and themes that span his works, as well as a love for historic details. Not being a scholar of European History I've always felt a little bit overwhelmed by some of his extended digressions on Goethe or the particulars of Central European cultural and political trends. Despite literally placing himself into some of the works it seems extremely hard to pin down "his" views via his Novels.

This one is exactly what I was looking for, a candid, open take on what he was hoping to accomplish with his body of work - from the particulars of his use of the number 7 to an explanation on reading 'The Book of Laughter and Forgetting' correctly. Would totally recommend for fans of Kundera, but if you're a spoilers person he goes over the plots of Immortality, TBLF, Unbearable Lightness of Being, and a few others in detail.

4 people found this helpful

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Luc REYNAERT

Knowledge is the novel's only morality

September 7, 2008

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

In these brilliant reflections Milan Kundera discusses fundamental characteristics of the novel, its history and its immorality.
The object of the novel is the enigma of the self (the subject) functioning in a world full of ambiguities, where all things human are relative.

History
Novelists, like Cervantes, examined the self through its actions, which (partly) revealed the nature of the self.
A new generation, like Flaubert, delved into the self's invisible interior life (dreams, the irrational) in order to reveal the self's secrets.
Joyce dissects painstakingly the present.
In fine, F. Kafka poses the ultimate question of what possibilities are left in a world where the external determinants become so overpowering that internal impulses no longer carry weight.

Radical autonomy
Kafka's novels are the masterful proofs of the radical autonomy of the novel. By creating an extreme and unrealized possibility of the human world, Kafka expressed things about our human condition which no social or political thought could ever tell.

Immorality
The novel is boundless freedom. It is not rational or based on verisimilitude.
Novelists should use this freedom to discover unrealized possibilities of the human world. A novelist who doesn't unveil a hitherto unknown segment of human existence is immoral.

These in depth meditations on one of the major components of human art are a must read for all lovers of world literature.

7 people found this helpful

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Charlene Smith

Inspired help for writers

April 17, 2017

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Excellent, which might be the expected word for a book by Milan Kundera. I am a writing teacher and always looking for fresh ways to discuss the art and craft of writing with students and this is a gem. I use excerpts in teaching, recommend the book to my students and find persistent inspiration in these pages.

2 people found this helpful

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Alexei V. Lopez Enriquez

A contemporary must!

April 16, 2015

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Perphaps one of the most interesting contemporary perspectives on the novel. Easy to read and ennjoyable. Milan Kundera proposes the novel as art. Full of insights for literature in general this little book is an excellent complement to Kundera's the curtain and Lukács' theory of the novel. Besides, it represents a key to the understanding of Kundera's own work.

2 people found this helpful

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Carolyn Weyand

Must read for writers.

October 25, 2018

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

This old classic is filled with insight about writing a novel.

One person found this helpful

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Kendall

A Lost View of the Novel

January 18, 2008

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

This is a good and insightful book. Because each chapter was written under different circumstances some may find it disjointed, but their is an underlying understanding of the novel that is coherent and profound. Kundera goes all the way back to Cervantes and show us how novelists have perceived and influenced the world down to our time. We pick up some central European novelists, like Hermann Bosch's trilogy, The Sleepwalkers, scandalously unknown in this country. Kundera shows us how novels occupy a role in culture were nothing else can go. A book well worth reading.

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Ralph J. Argen III

Great way to Understand the Novel

May 1, 2014

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Kundera, is clear and direct with his explanations of the Novel. It's not useful to explain his explanation. Your time is well spent on this short book experiencing Kundera's use of his own work and the work of others to reveal the power and importance of the Novel to the progressive growth of western civilization. Care is necessary with this claim. Novels contain personal actualization and social justice philosophy, and both fail in outside the Novel.

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ScienceGuy

I'm happy to recommend it (she's already made some $$ with ...

August 24, 2014

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

A gift for my daughter, an aspiring writer; I trust her judgment, if she asked for it, I'm happy to recommend it (she's already made some $$ with her writing, so that's perhaps a useful fact.

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The Art of the Novel (Perennial Classics) Reprint Edition