The Curtain: An Essay in Seven Parts

From Strand Bookstore

In his book-length essay, writer Milan Kundera suggests that the "curtain" represents a ready-made perception of the world that each of us has - a pre-interpreted world. The task of the novelist is to rip through the curtain and reveal what it hides. In sketching out his personal view of the history and value of the novel in Western civilization, Kundera celebrates a prose form that possesses the unique ability to transcend national and language boundaries in order to reveal some previously unknown aspect of human existence. "Brilliant, vehement, learned." 168p.

From the Publisher

Traces the author's personal view of the history and significance of the novel in western civilization, arguing that a novel's development crosses international and language boundaries while serving to reveal previously unknown aspects of a reader's existence. By the author of The Art of the Novel. Reprint.

Review

Economist
"This short book of seven linked essays is a swiftly told, beautifully crafted, pleasurable, pan-European scrutiny of the novel from Francois Rabelais in the 16th century onward--an act of literary criticism by one of today's great practicing novelists."

Review

Publishers Weekly
"It's not often that a work comes along that so perfectly distills an approach to art that it realigns the way an art form is understood. Susan Sontag's revolutionary work ON PHOTOGRAPHY was one such piece. Kundera's new book-length essay should be another." (starred review)

More about the book

Milan Kundera, in his famously light and revelatory prose, recounts the history of the novel, beginning with Cervantes' Don Quixote and moving through the innovations and epiphanies of Rabelais, Flaubert, Kafka, Joyce, and Garcia Marquez. He traces the ways authors influence each other, their art crossing borders and cultures, their words pulling away the curtain that limits our understanding of the world. Though many of the ideas here are similar to ones from Kundera's earlier work, THE ART OF THE NOVEL, his lapidary insight and still-youthful (at 78) passion are infectious to all lovers of literature.