Milan Kundera · The Curtain

Author: Milan Kundera (Czech Republic)
Translator: Dong Qiang
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-09-01
Features: A new masterpiece from literary giant Kundera after three years
The concluding volume of Kundera's trilogy of literary essays
A classic exposition of the theory of the novel
Kundera tears away the veil covering the world and literature, taking us to the lands of Rabelais, Flaubert, Stendhal, Cervantes, García Márquez, Fuentes, Robert Musil, and Homer.
The ongoing mission of salvation in The Art of the Novel and The Unbearable Lightness of Being reaches its peak in The Curtain.
The Curtain outlines Kundera's writing project: to write a theory of the novel, which is also a theory of life.
In The Curtain, Kundera, as a writer, buries his soul of a musician deep within his vast knowledge.
He strives to discover the mystery of "humanity" in the novel.
In Kundera's view, the novelist is not merely someone who pleases the reader but is more like a distant, affectionate father—not too serious, no longer taking "people's seriousness seriously"—who shares the secrets of life with the reader.
The Curtain was originally written in French. Upon its publication in France, all national newspapers and magazines, such as Le Monde, Libération, Le Figaro, L'Express, L'Obs, and L'Express magazine, published special reviews. It was also ranked as one of the ten most valuable books of the year by the highly authoritative literary magazine Books. This Chinese translation is by Dong Qiang, the designated translator of Kundera and also his only Chinese student, a professor of French at Peking University. It is a golden autumn gift for Chinese readers who have long awaited it.
As the concluding volume of Kundera's trilogy of literary essays, The Curtain continues the themes of The Unbearable Lightness of Being and The Art of the Novel, summarizing Kundera's reflections in the former two works while exploring the world of the novel, intertwined with history and real-life realities, with a freer pen.
The Cervantes-style Don Quixote wanders the world, tearing away the "curtain" woven by legends and pre-interpretations that hides the essence of reality.
Kundera synthesizes his personal experiences, mentioning his beloved novelists such as Cervantes, Rabelais, Sterne, Flaubert, Musil, Joyce, Kafka, etc., interspersing multiple texts like Education of the Heart, The Three Years, The Idiot, and When I Was Young, divided into seven parts—"The Consciousness of Continuity," "World Literature," "The Soul Entering Things," "What the Novelist Is," "Aesthetics and Existence," "The Torn Curtain," and "Novel, Memory, and Forgetting"—with numerous subheadings, analyzing concepts such as time, banality, comedy, and forgetting.
He declares, "Once applied to art, the concept of history has nothing to do with progress; it does not mean perfection, improvement, or enhancement; it is like a journey to explore unknown lands and mark them on a map," and "The novelist is not a servant of the historian," and "The novelist is not merely someone who thinks only of pleasing the reader," forcefully proving the necessity of introducing 'the non-poetic nature of life' into the novel.