“Washing the Dead is an illuminating and intricately layered novel about the complicated legacies that pass from mother to daughter, and about the ways that understanding our own history helps make us who we are. Michelle Brafman is an insightful writer who never falters or flinches in her quest to uncover the hearts of her characters.” WayHeartCharacterHelpingMotherUnderstandingNovelDaughterComplicatedLegacyWho We AreInsightfulQuestsWashingMother DaughterIlluminating Author:Carolyn Parkhurst
“Suspending moral judgment is not the immorality of the novel; it is its morality. The morality that stands against the ineradicable human habit of judging instantly, ceaselessly, and everyone; of judging before, and in the absence of, understanding. From the viewpoint of the novel's wisdom, that fervid readiness to judge is the most detestable stupidity, the most pernicious evil.” HumansEvilUnderstandingViewsMoralNovelJudgingHabitMoralityJudgmentStupidityAbsenceReadinessImmoralityPerniciousMoral Judgment Author:Milan Kundera
“Novels are political not because writers carry party cards -- some do, I do not -- but because good fiction is about identifying with and understanding people who are not necessarily like us. By nature all good novels are political because identifying with the other is political. At the heart of the 'art of the novel' lies the human capacity to see the world through others' eyes. Compassion is the greatest strength of the novelist.” PeopleWorldHumansHeartArtEyePoliticalLyingUnderstandingPartyFictionCompassionNovelCapacityCardsNovelistsIdentifyingHuman Capacity Author:Orhan Pamuk
“The idea that a student can write a sonnet or a novel without having a sound understanding about its history, and where it fits into literature as a whole, seems to me to be manifestly daft.” WritingIdeasWholeSeemsPoetryLiteratureUnderstandingSoundNovelStudentsFitSonnetDaft Author:Nicholas Royle
“A novel which survives, which withstands and outlives time, does do something more than merely survive. It does not stand still. It accumulates round itself the understanding of all these persons who bring to it something of their own. It acquires associations, it becomes a form of experience in itself, so that two people who meet can often make friends, find an approach to each other, because of this one great common experience they have had.” PeoplePersonsDoeStillsTwoFormReadingUnderstandingCommunityCommonNovelApproachRoundsAcquireAssociationLife TimeCommon Experience Author:Elizabeth Bowen
“One way of understanding a graphic novel is that it's an ambitious comic and one way or another my comics have had ambitions. I have no problem with escapism. When I get my depressions all I want to do is escape reality.” WayWantProblemRealityUnderstandingNovelAmbitionOne WayComicAmbitiousNo ProblemGraphicEscapismGraphic NovelsEscape Reality Author:Art Spiegelman
“For me, with any character, there are different ways that you approach understanding him, and in this film in particular, because I had the novel to refer to. It's always really helpful to have all of that information and all of those hundreds more words which give you an idea into the background and your character and all.” WayGivingIdeasDifferentCharacterFilmUnderstandingNovelInformationParticularApproachBackgroundsDifferent WaysHelpfulUnderstanding Him Author:Asa Butterfield
“With a historical novel you know that liberties are being taken. Since Walter Scott, we know that poetic license, dramatic license, that events been conflated and that liberties have been taken, characters ditto, dates rearranged. But people don't seem to understand that movies are fictions, they are dramatizations, at least historical movies, and we should accord the moviemakers some of the same understanding and latitude. When you go to a movie you know it's a dramatization and not history.” PeopleKnowsShouldHas BeensCharacterSeemsUnderstandingFictionLibertyNovelTakenEventsHistoricalDramaticPoeticLicenseAccordLatitudeHistorical NovelsPoetic License Author:Nicholas Meyer
“I sometimes feel that my goal as a novelist would be to write a novel in which the language was so transparent that the reader would forget that language was the medium of understanding. Of course that's not possible, but it's some sort of idealized goal.” FeelsWritingSometimesWould BeCoursesLanguageUnderstandingGoalForgetNovelReaderMediumsNovelistsTransparent Author:Paul Auster
“As far as benefits to reading historical novels, there are several! For one thing, you learn about life in another era. Secondly, these novels help us to develop a deeper understanding of the legacy of women who came before us and the strides made by our ancestors.” MadeHelpingReadingUnderstandingNovelOne ThingBenefitsHistoricalDeeperErasLegacyAncestorStrideDeeper UnderstandingHistorical Novels Author:Mary Pope Osborne
“If you connect emotionally with the plight of those characters, ou feel what they feel and you walk away with a sense of understanding and empathy, and hopefully, something has been illuminated for you. And I tink that's what happendd for a lot of readers with my novels.” IfsFeelsHas BeensCharacterUnderstandingWalksNovelReaderEmpathyHopefullyPlight Author:Khaled Hosseini