The Novel: A Survival Skill radically reevaluates traditional literary criticism offering an exciting account of what is really at stake in the business of writing and reading.

• Foreword


• 1: Four imagined meetings


• 2: Schismogenesis and Semantic Polarities


• 3: Joyce: a winner looking to lose


• 4: Good boy, bad boy


• 5: The reader's address


• 6: Terrifying Bliss


• 7: Worthy Writer, Worthy Readers


• Conclusion: We must defend ourselves

Born in Manchester in 1954, Tim Parks studied at Cambridge and Harvard before moving permanently to Italy in 1981. Author of three bestselling books on Italy, and fifteen novels, including the Booker short-listed Europa, and most recently Painting Death, he has translated works by Moravia, Calvino, Calasso, Machiavelli, and Leopardi. While running a post-graduate degree course in translation at IULM University, Milan, he writes regularly for the LRB and the NYRB. His non-fiction works include, Translating Style, A Literary Approach to Translation Problems, Medici Money, an account of the relation between banking, the Church and art in the 15th century, and four accounts of life in contemporary Italy, Italian Neighbours, An Italian Education, A Season with Verona and Italian Ways, on and off the rails from Milan to Palermo.