September 8, 2007

Great readers

Here’s a piece I wrote concerning the best ambition of all. That of being a good reader.

Let the greats explain the novel to you

Apply the insights of Milan Kundera and Francine Prose to your reading and writing.

July 8, 2007

o’nibbles

Here’s a link to Philip Roth interviewing Milan Kundera, plus here’s a Kundera essay from 1985 in which amongst other things he takes issue with Dostoyevsky.

Kundera’s seven part essay The Curtain is like taking your brain on holiday. Plus in part seven he offers a certain balm to the old brain when he highlights the dubious ability of our memories to track details, as we plough through a novel.  You could imagine millions of brain cells burping in relief.

He has anecdotes about trying to comprehend the invasion of his country in 1968 by the Russians. Since I am bereft of such images, not arriving on the earth until 1971, I had to do with the difficulty of trying to order a hot chocolate or some kind of beverage in a bakery in Prague in the 1980’s and ending up with three of a completely different variety.