Read the master

Author: Ma Yuan
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2001-11-01
Features: The Reading Masters is the complete set of lecture notes by Ma Yuan when he delivered literary lectures at Tongji University in Shanghai. It is also Ma Yuan's first new work after years of silence. In these lecture notes, Ma Yuan does not, like many other writers—such as the world-renowned authors W. Somerset Maugham, Vladimir Nabokov, and Italo Calvino—deliberately emphasize the speaker's identity as a novelist expert. Here, Ma Yuan presents himself as an ordinary reader, engaging in a lively discussion with his audience and readers about the art of novel writing and the intrinsic mysteries of the great masters' works. The Reading Masters is the complete set of lecture notes by Ma Yuan when he delivered literary lectures at Tongji University in Shanghai, and it is also Ma Yuan's first new work after years of silence. In these lecture notes, Ma Yuan does not, like many other writers—such as W. Somerset Maugham, Vladimir Nabokov, and Italo Calvino—deliberately emphasize the speaker's identity as a novelist expert. Here, Ma Yuan presents himself as an ordinary reader, engaging in a lively discussion with his audience and readers about the art of novel writing and the intrinsic mysteries of the great masters' works. The lecture notes are divided into two parts. The first part is Ma Yuan's insightful and accessible interpretation of the works of world-renowned writers such as Hemingway, Hawthorne, Camus, Hasek, Kundera, Ryunosuke Akutagawa, Flannery O'Connor, and O. Henry, as well as their major works. These writers have either influenced Ma Yuan's own novel writing or are highly admired by him as an ordinary reader. The second part presents Ma Yuan's unique insights and understanding of various internal aspects of novel writing, such as material, time, language, dialogue, and endings. It is a "comprehensive view of the art of novel writing" that the author offers to lovers of literature and those who appreciate it, designed to be engaging and easy to understand.