Novel art

Author: Kundera
Translator: Dong Qiang
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-08-13
Features: Undoubtedly, Milan Kundera is a great novelist. Starting with The Unbearable Lightness of Being, his fragmented narrative style like musical movements, the popular farcical mode, sharp observations and critiques of authoritarian societies (even including authoritarian families), and profound philosophical reflections leave readers astonished and captivated. What’s amazing is that in the arrangement of his novel chapters, two seemingly unrelated storylines later converge at a certain point in a strange yet perfect way, taking readers to a higher vantage point where they can glimpse the novelist’s perfect layout, like listening to a perfect symphony movement, leaving them in awe. This is one of the experiences of enjoying reading novels that I have engraved in my memory while reading his novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being. However, Kundera’s novels are not easy to read. Perhaps for most readers, we can only grasp a piece or a thread of the complete puzzle as a clue for reading. Now, a collection titled The Art of the Novel, where a novelist speaks of "the novel," has been published again. This is Kundera’s reflection on the "art of the novel" as a practitioner, and it is worth reading for those who love reading novels, even those who write novels. How does a novelist view novels? Especially a novelist like Milan Kundera? Kundera’s novels can draw clear architectural structural diagrams based on the number "seven," skillfully employing polyphonic structures and matching the pace of the internal music to write about love and sex, history and politics, existence and conflict with black humor.