The Art of the Novel: Milan Kundera's Essays on the Philosophy, Evolution, and Essence of Fiction (Perennial Classics)

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.HistoryNovelists, 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 autonomyKafka'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.ImmoralityThe 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.

Very inspirational. It is not a how to book, though I did gain insight into Kundera's writing process. It is a why book. Why right novels? Kundera's answers are worth reading and meditating over.

Kundera's insights are startling and revealing. It's not often we suddenly understand things that we did not even know were important with the force of a storm. A storm of brilliant insights.

Me agradó, contiene referencias de otros autores

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.

A highly interesting and introspective piece into the art of novel writing from one of Europe's finest contemporary authors, Mulan Kundera. His philosophical background is particularly impressive has he attempts to relate back the meaning of his work to existential and phenomenological origins in Husserl, Heidegger, and Nietzsche. I also particularly enjoyed Kundera's comparisons of literature to music in which he describes the forms of multiple Beethoven compositions as well as the basic structures of his own novels. This is an enormously stimulating read, though not necessarily helpful for the blossoming writer.

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.

I've read this book twice, but I admit I've not yet read any of Milan Kundera's other work. Maybe they're amazing. Maybe. But judging from this book--and from some of the other reviewers who have posted here--I'd guess they're about as unpretentious as a pale, young intellecutal discussing the merits of W.G. Sebald and Friedrich Nietsche at a Cambridge, Massachussetts tea shop.This book DEFINES pretentious. The author knows you're an uneducated fool, and he will prove it to you.That said, he's not an idiot, and a lot of his pompousness is justified. If you don't mind having a thousand things quoted at you that you've only read half of, or the author's overall snobby tone, then you really might find some good insights into a the structure of books and the weaving of stories....Or, you might find yourself scribbling death threats to the author in the margins. ...Yeah, that's a bad habit of mine.

This book is so full of priceless wisdom and practical advice on writing, that once you read it, you will start to feel a before and after (of having read the book) of yourself. Cannot recommend it enough.

Kundera's Jerusalem Lecture is a great testament to the power of literature.

In many authors hands this would have run to hundreds of pages. Kundera covers a vast terrain in one hundred and sixty pages by getting to the point and knowing which point to get to.

got as a present, they loved it.

It arrived on time and as described