The Naive and the Sentimental Novelist Audiobook By Orhan Pamuk, Nazim Dikbas cover art

The Naive and the Sentimental Novelist

Understanding What Happens When We Write and Read Novels

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The Naive and the Sentimental Novelist

By: Orhan Pamuk, Nazim Dikbas
Narrated by: John Lee
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About this listen

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 Schiller's famous distinction between "naive" poets-who write spontaneously, serenely, unselfconsciously-and "sentimental" poets: 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 novelist's craft. He ponders the novel's visual and sensual power-its 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.

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Critic reviews

"Fascinating.... Every novelist will want to read this, and will learn from a master." ( Daily Telegraph)
"A full-fledged theory of the novel.... His explorations of time and plot, words and objects, and the convolutions of the reader's mind as he seeks the center of the novel are incomparable." ( Huffington Post)
"Pamuk's nonfiction voice matches the narrating voices of his novels - grave, throughtful, wry." ( San Francisco Chronicle)

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