Information Of Flap:
Testaments Betrayed is a book rich in ideas about the time in which we live and how we have become who we are, about Western culture in general. It is also a personal essay in which Kundera attacks the shifting moral judgements and persecutions of art and artists.
‘This collection of essays, like its predecessor The Art of the Novel, is a joy to read, and in its wealth of ideas puts many a more sober academic treatise to shame.’ Literary Review.
‘His masterful, musical evocation of the interior history of the novel form … In a way, this book is nothing so much as a gauntlet, thrown down by Kundera for both novelists and their readers to pick up – if we dare. And it is also a kind of aerobics class, in which all of us can attempt to work off our flabby hypocrisy, and try to assume some lean integrity … Kundera’s own canon may not exactly match our own, but that is one of the things that makes this book so stimulating … We can only admire Kundera’s breadth of vision and devotion to his art.’ Will Self, Observer Content: PART ONE The Day Panurge No Longer Makes People Laugh 1 PART TWO The Castrating Shadow of Saint Garta 33 PART THREE Improvisation in Homage to Stravinsky 53 PART FOUR A Sentence 97 PART FIVE À la Recherche du Présent Perdu 119 PART SIX Works and Spiders 145 PART SEVEN The Unloved Child of the Family 177 PART EIGHT Paths in the Fog 197
