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    The Novelist's Lexicon: Writers on the Words That Define Their Work
    The Novelist's Lexicon: Writers on the Words That Define Their Work
    The Novelist's Lexicon: Writers on the Words That Define Their Work
    Ebook200 pages2 hours

    The Novelist's Lexicon: Writers on the Words That Define Their Work

    By Villa Gillet/ Le Monde

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    About this ebook

    At the renowned, international literary conference hosted by Villa Gillet and Le Monde, organizers asked more than seventy prominent authors to choose a word that opens a door to their work. Their musings, collected here for the first time, offer an extraordinary portrait of writing and reading from the novelist's perspective. Organized alphabetically by keyword, the anthology is filled with intriguing, amusing, and often surprising insight, essential to an intimate understanding of literature.

    Through these personal "passwords," authors articulate the function of language, character, plot, and structure. Throughout the process, they reveal their relationship to the elements of story. Jonathan Lethem discusses the necessity of "furniture" in the novel. A. S. Byatt describes the power of the narrative web. Colum McCann details the benefits of anonymity. Daniel Mendelsohn expounds on the unknowable, or what the author should or should not impart to the reader. Etgar Keret explains the importance of balagan, a Hebrew word meaning "total chaos," and Annie Proulx clarifies terroir, which embodies the complexities of time, place, geography, weather, and climate. Other participants include Rick Moody on adumbrated, Upamanyu Chatterjee on the bildungsroman, Enrique Vila-Matas on discipline, Adam Thirwell on hedonism, Nuruddin Farah on identities, Andre Brink on the heretic, and Péter Esterhazy on the power and potential of words, words, words.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherColumbia University Press
    Release dateJun 1, 2010
    ISBN9780231521697
    The Novelist's Lexicon: Writers on the Words That Define Their Work

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    • 3/5
      It took me forever to read this book, not because it was long, but because so many of the early entries are written in a manner that seems both vague and pompous. The idea of this book, asking writers to find the word that best defines or encapsulates their work was a neat idea, but, along with the tone and near-incomprehensible rambling of of the overly intellectual, many of the descriptions written by the authors seemed to have no connection with the word they chose. Maybe it's a translation problem or perhaps I'm just not in the same headspace. Thus, I meandered and did not read consistently while other books seized my attention. However, there were four entries that did catch my attention, both their clarity, description, and ability to capture how I also feel about writing: "Creature" by Alissa York, "Pathos" by Alberto Garlini, "The Unreal" by Arthur Japin, and "Zorby" by James Flint. Thus, I am glad to have read this book to gain those words...but I wouldn't read it more than once.

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    The Novelist's Lexicon - Villa Gillet/ Le Monde

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