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Title: Letters to a Young Novelist by Mario Vargas Llosa, Natasha Wimmer ISBN: 0-312-42172-9 Publisher: Picador USA Pub. Date: 01 June, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $11.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.5 (4 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: Entertaining but forgettable
Comment: These short essays examine various literary techniques in detail but are ultimately unhelpful in writing (or reading) fiction. While discussing narrative options available to the writer, we never are offered advice of why different techniques work or when they might work. Or even how different authors make them work (except for one or two examples in the final chapters). There is only the indefinable je ne sais quoi. The book is very well written, witty and it is interesting to see the list of the works Vargas Llosa admires but ultimately, sad to say, forgettable.
Rating: 5
Summary: Essential Companion
Comment: Reading Mario Vargas Llosa's works of literature is one of the best experiences a reader can have. In "Letters to a Young Novelist" Vargas Llosa shares the name of authors that have shaped his life as a writer, along with his personal insight on narrative techniques, and an unconditional love for the written word. Each chapter presents valuable information for anyone interested in the art of writing or for anyone who enjoys reading a well-written book.
Rating: 5
Summary: Concise, Real, and Enlightening
Comment: This book is written as a series of letters to an anonymous, aspiring novelist. Obviously it is fashioned after Rilke's "Letters to a Young Poet", and although somewhat cheeky, the style and tone of these pseudo-letters fit Mario Vargas Llosa's objectives in writing.
Unlike some of the mainstream writing tutorials that are around, this volume, although slight in page length, has genuine and truly original insights that will help your writing tremendously. For example, whereas most writing instructors teaach you to stick to one point-of-view, Vargas Llosa says one of the most unbending rules in fiction is that no novel sticks to one kind of point-of-view, that it subtly changes. There are equally startling and persuasive directives regarding spatial and temporal matters in fiction.
The book is fun to read as well; only a novelist of Vargas Llosa's caliber can dismiss many of the so-called 'classics' and not seem vindictive and/or crazy. To fully understand this book (although not totally necessary), a reader should have at least a passing knowledge of the writers and their works that Vargas Llosa invokes as examples. i.e. Proust, Flaubert, Robbes-Grillet, etc.
If you are an aspiring writer, chances are good that this wry book will be an indispensable guide. Highly recommended.
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Title: The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass ISBN: 067972575X Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 16 January, 1990 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert ISBN: 0553213415 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 01 June, 1982 List Price(USD): $5.95 |
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Title: Dubliners by James Joyce ISBN: 0486268705 Publisher: Dover Pubns Pub. Date: 01 May, 1991 List Price(USD): $2.00 |
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Title: King Lear by William Shakespeare ISBN: 0671722727 Publisher: Washington Square Press Pub. Date: 01 May, 1993 List Price(USD): $3.99 |
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Title: Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad ISBN: 0486264645 Publisher: Dover Pubns Pub. Date: 01 July, 1990 List Price(USD): $1.50 |
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