An invigorating novelistic essay, rich in literary wisdom, from the international superstar author of The Unbearable Lightness of Being.
''A masterpiece.'' Independent
''Nothing so much as a gauntlet, thrown down by Kundera for both novelists and their readers to pick up - if we dare. '' Observer
Stravinsky and Kafka meet with their friends Ansermet and Brod; Hemingway with his biographer; Janacek with his little nation; and Rabelais with his heirs. In Kundera''s unique essay written in the form of a novel, our greatest novelists become characters who repeatedly cross paths, shedding light on the great aesthetic questions of our time along the way. Through their wise encounters, we explore the moral trials of twentieth century culture; the boundaries between past and present; the twilight of individualism; and the betrayed testaments of European art. Characteristically rich in revelatory ideas about the time in which we live, eloquently exposing how we have become who we are, this is a landmark work from a legendary writer and critic.
Industry Reviews
Like a literary knight errant, Czech novelist Kundera (The Unbearable Lightness of Being, 1984; Immortality, 1991; etc.) rescues the novel, admired novelists, and composers from the distortions and betrayals of critics, translators, and friends while simultaneously offering provocative insights into the musical and literary arts. The essay, like the musical compositions Kundera discusses, is divided into complementary parts, in this case, nine. And within these divisions, writers and composers appear and reappear like characters in a novel who strut their stuff and endure the perfidy of friend and foe before taking their allotted place in Kundera's pantheon of seminal artists - a pantheon that, given Kundera's background, is Eurocentric, though Hemingway, Salman Rushdie, and Garcia Marquez are included. But the writers that primarily preoccupy him are Rabelais, who wrote one of the first novels because "he created a realm where moral judgment is suspended" and introduced what Octavio Paz called "the greatest invention of the modern spirit," humor; and Kafka, who, while showing "that it's possible to write another way . . . to both apprehend it [the real world] and at the same time engage in an enchanting game of fantasy," has been ill-served by translators and biographers. Kundera also vigorously defends Stravinsky, whose detractors accusr him of"poverty of heart" but didn't themselves "have heart enough to understand the wounded feelings that lay behind his vagabondage through the history of music"; and composer Leos Janacek, though disdained for his innovative "expressive clarity," is perhaps, Kundera contends, Czechoslovakia's greatest artist. A wide and engagingly erudite plea for keeping the faith and honoring the wishes of the illustrious dead, rather than insisting on our own self-serving agendas. Vintage Kundera. (Kirkus Reviews)
