The Curtain

  • Author: Milan Kundera
  • Narrator: Graeme Malcolm
  • Publisher: HarperCollins USA
  • Duration: 4:40:32
preview

Synopsis

“A magic curtain, woven of legends, hung before the world. Cervantes sent Don Quixote journeying and tore through the curtain. The world opened before the knight-errant in all the comical nakedness of its prose.”

In this thought-provoking, endlessly enlightening, and entertaining essay on the art of the novel, renowned author Milan Kundera suggests that “the curtain” represents a ready-made perception of the world that each of us has—a pre-interpreted world. The job of the novelist, he argues, is to rip through the curtain and reveal what it hides. Here an incomparable literary artist cleverly sketches out his personal view of the history and value of the novel in Western civilization. In doing so, he 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.

Chapters

  • 001_The Curtain

    Duration: 02min
  • 002_History and Value

    Duration: 04min
  • 003_Theory of Novel

    Duration: 03min
  • 004_Poor Alonzo Quijada

    Duration: 03min
  • 005_Despotism of Story

    Duration: 04min
  • 006_In Search Present Time

    Duration: 05min
  • 007_Multiple Meaning of Word History

    Duration: 03min
  • 008_Beauty of Sudden Density..

    Duration: 04min
  • 009_Power of Pointless

    Duration: 02min
  • 010_Beauty of a Death

    Duration: 09min
  • 011_Shame of Repeating Oneself

    Duration: 03min
  • 012_Part Two_Die Weltliteratur

    Duration: 02min
  • 013_Irreparable Inequality

    Duration: 04min
  • 014_Die Weltliteratur

    Duration: 04min
  • 015_Provincialism Small Nations

    Duration: 05min
  • 016_Provincialism Large Nations

    Duration: 05min
  • 017_Man from East

    Duration: 03min
  • 018_Central Europe

    Duration: 05min
  • 019_Contrasting Paths of Modernist Revolt

    Duration: 03min
  • 020_My Great Pleiades

    Duration: 03min
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