In this entertaining and always stimulating collection of seven essays, Kundera deftly sketches out his personal view of the history and value of the novel. Too often, he suggests, a novel is thought about only within the confines of the nation of its origin, when in fact the novel's development has always occurred across borders: Laurence Sterne learned from Rabelais, Henry Fielding from Cervantes, Joyce from Flaubert, García Márquez from Kafka. The real work of a novel is not bound up in the specifics of any one language: what makes a novel matter is its ability to reveal some previously unknown aspect of our existence. In The Curtain, Kundera skillfully describes how the best novels do just that.
- ISBN10 0571232817
- ISBN13 9780571232819
- Publish Date 15 March 2007 (first published 30 January 2007)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Faber & Faber
- Edition Main
- Format Paperback
- Pages 176
- Language English