num_pages: 208
description: What happens within us when we read a novel? And how does a novel create its unique effects so distinct from those of a painting a film or a poem? In this inspired thoughtful deeply personal book Orhan Pamuk takes us into the worlds of the writer and the reader revealing their intimate connections. Pamuk draws on Friedrich Schillers famous distinction between naive poetswho write spontaneously serenely unselfconsciouslyand sentimental those who are reflective emotional questioning and alive to the artifice of the written word. Harking back to the beloved novels of his youth and ranging through the work of such writers as Tolstoy Dostoevsky Stendhal Flaubert Proust Mann and Naipaul he explores the oscillation between the naive and the reflective and the search for an equilibrium that lie at the center of the novelists craft. He ponders the novels visual and sensual powerits ability to conjure landscapes so vivid they can make the here-and-now fade away. In the course of this exploration he considers the elements of character plot time and setting that compose the sweet illusion of the fictional world. Anyone who has known the pleasure of becoming immersed in a novel will enjoy and learn from this perceptive book by one of the modern masters of the art.
language: English
title: The Naive and the Sentimental Novelist
publisher: Harvard University Press