Milan Kundera · The Art of the Novel

Author: Milan Kundera
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-08-01
Features: Undoubtedly, Milan Kundera is a great novelist. Starting with The Unbearable Lightness of Being, his fragmentary style like musical movements, the popular farcical mode, sharp observations and critiques of totalitarian societies (even including totalitarian families), and profound philosophical reflections leave readers astonished and captivated. What is remarkable 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, as if listening to a perfect symphony, leaving them in awe. This is one of the experiences of enjoying novel reading that I have engraved in my memory while reading his novel Immortality. However, Kundera's novels are not easy to read. Perhaps for most readers, we can only grasp a piece or a thread from 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 them. How does a novelist view novels? Especially one like Milan Kundera? Kundera's novels can draw clear architectural structural diagrams based on the number "seven," skillfully employing polyphonic structures, matching the pace of an internal melody, to write about love and sex, history and politics, existence and conflict with black humor.