testaments betrayed an essay in nine parts

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Testaments betrayed : an essay in nine parts

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Testaments Betrayed: An Essay in Nine Parts Kindle Edition

"A defense of fiction and a lesson in the art of reading." — New York Times Book Review

" Testaments Betrayed  is to be savored paragraph by paragraph. . . . It must be purchased, read, pondered, and argued within the margins. And frequently reread." —  Washington Post

A brilliant and thought-provoking essay from one of the twentieth century’s masters of fiction, Testaments Betrayed is written like a novel: the same characters appear and reappear throughout the nine parts of the book, as do the principal themes that preoccupy the author. Kundera is a passionate defender of the moral rights of the artist and the respect due a work of art and its creator’s wishes. The betrayal of both—often by their most passionate proponents—is one of the key ideas that informs this strikingly original and elegant book.

• Print length 286 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Harper Perennial
• Publication date 27 June 2023
• File size 6070 KB
• Page Flip Enabled
• Word Wise Enabled
• Enhanced typesetting Enabled
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About the author.

Milan Kundera is the author of the novels The Joke, Farewell Waltz, Life Is Elsewhere, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, The Unbearable Lightness of Being , and Immortality , and the short-story collection Laughable Loves —all originally written in Czech. His most recent novels Slowness, Identity, and Ignorance , as well as his nonfiction works The Art of the Novel, Testaments Betrayed, The Curtain, and Encounter , were originally written in French.

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• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0B6YN71T1
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Harper Perennial (27 June 2023)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• File size ‏ : ‎ 6070 KB
• Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
• Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
• Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 286 pages
• Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 0060171456
• #3,434 in Essays (Kindle Store)
• #8,353 in Literary Criticism eBooks
• #10,934 in Essays (Books)

About the authors

Milan kundera.

Milan Kundera, born in Brno, Czechoslovakia, was a student when the Czech Communist regime was established in 1948, and later worked as a labourer, jazz musician and professor at the Institute for Advanced Cinematographic Studies in Prague. After the Russian invasion in August 1968, his books were proscribed. In 1975, he and his wife settled in France, and in 1981, he became a French citizen. He is the author of the novels The Joke, Life is Elsewhere, Farewell Waltz, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, and Immortality, and of the short-story collection Laughable Loves - all originally in Czech. His most recent novels, Slowness, Identity and Ignorance, as well as his non-fiction works The Art of the Novel and Testaments Betrayed, were originally written in French.

Photo by Elisa Cabot (Flickr) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

Linda Asher

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Testaments Betrayed: An Essay in Nine Parts Hardcover – 1 Sept. 1995

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• Language English
• Publisher HarperCollins
• Publication date 1 Sept. 1995
• Dimensions 15.24 x 3.18 x 24.13 cm
• ISBN-10 0060171456
• ISBN-13 978-0060171452
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Product details

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ HarperCollins; First Edition (1 Sept. 1995)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0060171456
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0060171452
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 15.24 x 3.18 x 24.13 cm
• 46,435 in Poetry & Drama Criticism
• 126,126 in Contemporary Fiction (Books)

About the authors

Milan kundera.

Milan Kundera, born in Brno, Czechoslovakia, was a student when the Czech Communist regime was established in 1948, and later worked as a labourer, jazz musician and professor at the Institute for Advanced Cinematographic Studies in Prague. After the Russian invasion in August 1968, his books were proscribed. In 1975, he and his wife settled in France, and in 1981, he became a French citizen. He is the author of the novels The Joke, Life is Elsewhere, Farewell Waltz, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, and Immortality, and of the short-story collection Laughable Loves - all originally in Czech. His most recent novels, Slowness, Identity and Ignorance, as well as his non-fiction works The Art of the Novel and Testaments Betrayed, were originally written in French.

Photo by Elisa Cabot (Flickr) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

Linda Asher

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more

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Testaments Betrayed: An Essay in Nine Parts

Milan kundera. harpercollins publishers, $24 (280pp) isbn 978-0-06-017145-2.

Reviewed on: 09/04/1995

Downloadable Audio - 978-0-06-221564-2

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Hardcover - 978-0-571-17988-6

Open Ebook - 288 pages - 978-0-06-329094-5

Paperback - 288 pages - 978-0-06-092751-6

Paperback - 278 pages - 978-0-571-17337-2

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9780060927516

Milan Kundera

HarperCollins

27 June 2023

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"A defense of fiction and a lesson in the art of reading." — New York Times Book Review

"Testaments Betrayed is to be savored paragraph by paragraph. . . . It must be purchased, read, pondered, and argued within the margins. And frequently reread." — Washington Post

A brilliant and thought-provoking essay from one of the twentieth century's masters of fiction, Testaments Betrayed is written like a novel: the same characters appear and reappear throughout the nine parts of the book, as do the principal themes that preoccupy the author. Kundera is a passionate defender of the moral rights of the artist and the respect due a work of art and its creator's wishes. The betrayal of both—often by their most passionate proponents—is one of the key ideas that informs this strikingly original and elegant book.

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TESTAMENTS BETRAYED

An essay in nine parts.

by Milan Kundera ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 27, 1995

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 artistsa pantheon that, given Kundera's background, is Eurocentric, though Hemingway, Salman Rushdie, and Garc°a M†rquez 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 Jan†cek, 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. (First serial to New York Review of Books; $35,000 ad/promo)

Pub Date: Sept. 27, 1995

ISBN: 0-06-017145-6

Page Count: 288

Publisher: HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1995

GENERAL NONFICTION

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More by Milan Kundera

BOOK REVIEW

by Milan Kundera ; translated by Linda Asher

by Milan Kundera & translated by Linda Asher

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996

ISBN: 0-15-100227-4

Page Count: 136

Publisher: Harcourt

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996

More by E.T.A. Hoffmann

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

Episodes from the life of lady mendl (elsie de wolfe).

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.

Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955

ISBN: 0670717797

Page Count: -

Publisher: Viking

Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955

More by Ludwig Bemelmans

developed by Ludwig Bemelmans ; illustrated by Steven Salerno

by Ludwig Bemelmans ; illustrated by Steven Salerno

by Ludwig Bemelmans

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